The park is small, but it punches far above its size. It belongs to the Scenic Rim Important Bird Area, recognised by BirdLife International for the threatened bird species that shelter here, and its dense forest hides an unlikely cast of residents - carpet pythons coiled in the canopy, the glossy black land mullet (one of Australia's largest skinks), the secretive lace monitor, and the long-nosed potoroo snuffling through the undergrowth. This abundance is a direct inheritance from the volcano. The rich basalt soils and the sheltered, humid folds of the old eruption created a sanctuary where Gondwana-era rainforest could persist, long after such forests vanished across most of the drying continent.

Protection came in stages. The area was first set aside for public recreation in 1928, then formally dedicated as a national park in 1966 - originally under the name Mount Warning National Park. In 1986 it was inscribed as part of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Site, joining a network of reserves that together preserve the most extensive subtropical rainforest on Earth and an unbroken record of ecological history stretching back tens of millions of years. The Australian National Heritage List added the area in 2007. Each layer of protection recognised something different: first the scenery, then the science, and finally - in the renaming to Wollumbin - the culture that had defined the mountain all along.

In March 2020, the summit track closed. What began as a pandemic-era safety measure became something larger as the National Parks and Wildlife Service opened consultation with Aboriginal custodians about the mountain's future. For the Bundjalung, the summit is sacred ground, traditionally restricted under Lore to certain initiated people - and the prospect of returning the peak to that care reshaped the conversation. The closure has been extended while those discussions continue, with decisions about the summit's future to rest with the Aboriginal custodians and the parks service. The choice has not been universally welcomed; some in the local community and tourism industry have pushed to reopen the track. But at its heart, the closure asks a simple question - whether a place held sacred for thousands of years should be governed by the wishes of the people who hold it so.

Even with the summit set aside, the park remains a place to encounter the wider landscape with respect. Lower forest tracks and lookouts open onto the great green bowl of the Tweed Valley, where the eroded ranges of the caldera rim curve away toward Queensland. Mist drifts through ancient trees; birdsong threads the canopy; the sacred peak rises at the centre of it all, cloud gathering at its crown. The park asks something unusual of its visitors - not to conquer the mountain, but to understand it. To stand in the forest the volcano made, beneath a summit that was never meant for everyone, and to recognise that some places are most powerful when they are simply left to be.