Trees, ferns and mud

Walked a forest trail today through old gold mining country. Goodness knows how they found the gold in the first place - it was like a jungle!
It was a walk of much greenery, and no views. The fern trees were stunning and the trees dropped with mosses, vines and lichens. The path started nice and easy but as we went on it got trickier and trickier. Lots of tree roots, and big patches of mud - deep mud. But we soldiered on thinking we might get a view at the top of the hill, but no luck. So about turn and back down through the mud, and then it rained.
Despite this - we enjoyed the walk, and the occasion visit by a little fan tail bird who hopped around us.
We were very muddy though.