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Published: April 2nd 2009
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On Saturday we left Bellbird and continued west on Gwydir Hwy, stopping at Raspberry Lookout and Boundary Creek Falls along the way and still located in Gibraltar National Park. We took the short cut to the New England Hwy and travelled north to Tenterfield. We had lunch here and then continued on to Wallangarra and the NSW-Qld border.
We decided to stay in Girraween National Park in Queensland because it was significantly cheaper than Bald Rock and Boonoo Boonoo National Parks in NSW. Girraween was $19.40 per night for a family (2 adults and 2 or more children) whereas these two NSW parks (and many others) cost $10 per adult and $5 per child. Queensland parks also don't charge daily use fees while NSW parks charge $7 (or sometimes $11) per day, although we were exempt from these daily use charges as we had purchased a Multi-Parks pass when we first entered NSW. Anyway, we camped at Castle Rock camp ground in Girraween, which had luxurious hot showers. The camp grounds in Bald Rock and Boonoo Boonoo only had pit toilets but were more expensive - weird or is it just that everything is more expensive in NSW? One plus
for Bald Rock and Boonoo Boonoo is that, like Washpool and Gibraltar Ranges, firewood was supplied.
After setting up camp amid a large number of Eastern Grey Kangaroos and Red Necked Wallabies, we walked to The Pyramid, a huge granite dome. The ascent up the rock face was quite steep but rewarded us with magnificent views of Balancing Rock, the very bare Second Pyramid and Girraween NP in general. On the way down we branched off to complete the short loop to Granite Arch, a natural stone archway.
On Sunday we drove back into NSW to visit Bald Rock and Boonoo Boonoo. It was raining lightly when we arrived at Bald Rock but we set off on the hike nonetheless. Mark and Thomas took the short but very steep summit track straight up the rock face while Alex and Annelies took the longer but gentler track. The rain was making the rock quite slippery, so only Mark and Thomas walked to the summit and unfortunately the cloud and mist at the top prevented good views. It was too dangerous to venture down the steep rock face descent, so we all took the gentle track down.
Bald Rock
(1277m) is a massive granite dome 750m long and 500m wide and is the largest exposed granite rock in the Southern Hemisphere. According to a sign on the walk, it is also the largest 'inselberg' in the Southern Hemisphere, although it's all a bit confusing because Uluru, which is roughly 3000m in diameter, is also an inselberg and I would have thought much bigger. Uluru is made of sandstone but still an inselberg, so I'm not sure what is going on there!
From Bald Rock we drove to Boonoo Boonoo NP and walked to Boonoo Boonoo Falls lookout where 'Banjo Patterson' courted his wife to be, Alice Walker. We then went to the swimming holes at the top of the falls (210m high), but it was definitely not swimming weather. Afterwards we cooked up 'bacon butties' on the BBQs at the falls picnic area.
On the drive back to the camp ground in Girraween, we stopped at Thunderbolt Hideout. According to Wikipedia, “Frederick Wordsworth Ward (aka Captain Thunderbolt, 15 May 1833 - 25 May 1870) was an Australian bushranger renowned for escaping from Cockatoo Island with the help of his wife Mary Ann Bugg, and for committing over
200 crimes over six and a half years across northern New South Wales”.
Back at the camp site, Mark and Thomas decided to take the 5km hike up to Castle Rock. Fortunately the bad weather had mostly cleared up by now, so the summit gave panoramic views of the Pyramids, The Sphinx, Turtle Rock and Mt Norman (1267m).
On Monday, we headed into Brisbane.
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