PARK INFORMATION
NPRSR 13 7468
SIZE
4250 ha
VISITOR INFORMATION
Rockhampton (07) 4922 5339 or (07) 4936 8680 | www.capricornholidays.com.au
LOCATION AND ACCESS
9 km north-east of Rockhampton via Dean St, Frenchville Rd and Pilbeam Dr
CAMPING
No camping
Charles and William Archer were the first European explorers to the Rockhampton area. Although of Scottish descent, the Archer brothers moved to Norway in 1825, and it was in honour of their adopted country that in 1853 they named the mountain range just north of Rockhampton after a Norse hero, Berserker. The highest peak in the Berserker Range is the 604-metre Mount Archer.
Only gazetted as a national park in 1994, Mount Archer protects open eucalypt forest and a remnant of dry rainforest in the Moores Creek valley. It is home to the unadorned rock-wallaby, northern brown bandicoot, the small grassland melomys, and reptiles such as skinks, common bluetongue lizards and yellow-faced whip snakes. The park's nocturnal residents include brushtail possums and flying-foxes. Birdlife is abundant: glossy black-cockatoos, whiteheaded sittellas, lorikeets, honeyeaters and powerful owls are found in the eucalypt forest, while the little shrike-thrush, white-browed scrubwren, brown cuckoo-dove, wompoo fruit-dove, topknot pigeon and Australian brush-turkey favour the rainforest vegetation.
Fraser Park is a day-use area at the summit of Mount Archer, and there are superb views from here, particularly at sunset. There are a number of bushwalks, many leading to lookouts; Fraser Park has a 500-metre wheelchair-accessible track to two lookouts. Zamia Walk (14 km one way, 4–5 hours, difficult) leads from the summit of Mount Archer to the park's lower entrance, passing through many different types of vegetation. It is a good idea to arrange a pick-up at the lower exit at German Street, as retracing your steps involves a strenuous climb.