That's sad - night forests can be lovely. But if it doesn't feel good, probably unwise to go there.
Here in SA it's about 4 in the afternoon and I have just come back from our local forest (Mount Crawford). I've been teaching what will likely be our last Fungus Foraging class for the winter - the season is nearly over here, though still going down south in the Kuitpo Forest. We had a great class - very interested people, respectful of the forest, and careful to leave alone things they were told not to touch. One of the don't-touch things we found was a patch of Ghost Fungus, the one that glows in the dark. Beautiful but quite poisonous (all the luminous fungi in Australia are poisonous). But we also came away with a good feed of Saffron Milk Caps and Boletes, European species that are symbionts of the pines, plus a few Oyster Mushrooms. Found some non-fungus useful things too, native mints, Hypericum, some edible tubers of native cranesbills, and a weedy African orchid, Disa (Monadenia) bracteata, which people are encouraged to dig up as a weed, but the tubers of which make very nice salep. Altogether a fun and profitable day, even if cold, bleak and drizzling.
