D'Aguilar National Park

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We set off from Brisbane at 5:30pm on Friday evening, which was the first mistake. It seems every man and his dog was trying to get out as well. Eventually we got to Woodford only to realise we really didn’t know how to get to our campground and it was starting to get dark. We found the road we were looking for but found that there is a serious lack of signage in the area and the road we were looking for wouldn’t come up on the TomTom or Google Maps. Needless to say we drove up and down a number of roads, did not find our destination and got quite frustrated, it’s all an adventure. We stopped into another campground called Neurum Creek Bush Retreat to ask for directions, we called the after hours number and a lady answered and advised that we had to keep going further down the road. We took off only to find the road flooded; there was no way we were crossing that in the dark in our first 4WD trip. We then made the decision to camp at Neurum Creek Bush Retreat.

In the morning we started early and headed into D'Aguilar National Park. We found the Archer Campground and set up camp. We spent the day sitting around doing nothing. This is the first campsite we've had where we had a campfire. The area was beautiful and green with silvery white Gumtrees and lots of greenery. Considering that the family camping next to us had 7 small, very loud children, it was a relaxing day spend sitting in the chair reading, trying to scare away a very friendly lizard and attempting to cook with no table. We had a very early night!

We awoke to the sound of the creek bubbling and the birds singing. As we went to bed early we were up very early. I cooked the best breakfast we have had yet then we packed the car and took off. We were about 15km into the drive down to Dayboro when we came across an accident. A lady was coming down a slope in her small car; she hit the side and smashed the front of her car. She was badly shaken and bleeding so we sat with her until the police and ambo's came. It was a bit of an eye opener of how quickly things can go bad.

We continued driving around and through North D'Aguilar. We stopped and looked at Bulls falls and walked the Mill Rainforest Circuit. Through the national park to Dayboro we came across Ocean View Winery. Of course we stopped, sampled and I bought a lovely rose. We stopped in Dayboro and had lunch at the local bakery and continued the long windy road to Mount Glorious and then through to Mount Nebo and home by 2pm, very tired.

It was a lovely weekend away, very relaxing. We learnt that there are still quite a few items we need to purchase to make camping a bit easier; we especially need to buy a good first aid kit. That trying to find a campsite in a national forest with a shitty map in the dark is a bad idea. Also a tip from the copper who attended the crash that it’s important to have a good GPS and Sat phone if we are going out to remote areas to 4WD. I can’t wait to get away again!

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Photos

The Cool Camo Tent
Archer Campground