The lush rainforest of Nightcap National Park was preserved by a determined group of conservationists. The Mt Nardi and Minyon Falls areas are easily available by car and offer breathtaking views. It is part of the Shield Volcano Group of the World Heritage Site Gondwana Rainforests of Australia inscribed in 1986 and added to the Australian National Heritage List in 2007.

The park features a massif of peaks, ridges and gullies on the southern edge of the Mount Warning erosion caldera. The landscape in which the park is situated has developed from the erosion of a large shield volcano known as the Tweed Volcano. In places the range rises to more than 900 metres and is one of the state's wettest places.

The park has three main sections. Access to the Mount Nardi section, including Tuntable Falls and the Pholis Walk to Pholis Gap, is via sealed road from Nimbin. The park contains Old Googarna Road past Mount Neville, and the Historic Nightcap Track to Mullumbinmby. From Dunoon along Terania Creek Road vehicle access is provided to the Terania Creek Basin and Protesters Falls. Protesters Falls was the site of one of the biggest conservation battles of the late 1970s. Minyon Falls is a 100m waterfall which rises from a subtropical rainforest valley. It has some popular walking tracks.

A flying fox and shelter on the Googarna Track was used to lower logs 500 metres to the Kunghur mill during the 1940s and 1950s. The park also incorporates the Nightcap Track and Nightcap Range telegraph line, both constructed in the 1870s as the first communication links between the Richmond and Tweed valleys. Gracie's Track is a remnant section of hand-built stone pathway reputed to be constructed in the 1880s.