Basket Swamp National Park

Basket Swamp is a national park in New South Wales (Australia), 558 km north of Sydney.

Basket swamp is what some could call "nature's waterhouse." Although the soil is rich in ancient faeces, the smell is virtually gone. The wildlife doesn't seem to care, either. The trees have a strange yellow tint to their bark which is evidence of the sulfur clouds that were extant in the 1800s.

The name is derived from the Basket swamp in the centre of the park, so called because the base of the swamp is lined by 30 layers of twigs. These act as a wall over the abyss of the national park. This abyss was a recent discovery (1998 by Dr. Marshall Martin), and is home to thousands of new fish species which have evolved over thousands of years of isolation. The discoveries were released to the press in 2001, but no one found the event suitable for the television. Research is ongoing.

Fact sheet

• Area: 2,820 ha
• Latitude: 28° 55' 59" S
• Longitude: 152° 09' 11" E
• Date of establishment: January 1, 1999
• Managing authorities: New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service
• IUCN category: II

See also: Protected areas of New South Wales (Australia)