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Published: June 27th 2022
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Girraween National Park Our original plan to go cage diving with Great White Sharks in South Australia was swiftly pulled out from under us due to the pandemic (again). So with time off we packed up the car with all the camping gear and first stop on the map was Girraween National Park. Girraween National Park is an area of the Granite Belt in the Darling Downs region of Queensland, Australia reserved as a national park. Girraween is known for its spectacular flowers, dramatic landscapes and unique wildlife. Last time we were in the area quite a few years ago we were unable to trek out this way as we had pooch with us and National Parks of course don't allow dogs in the area. It was so fun to be on a road trip again and of course not wasting our holiday, it took almost five hours to get there with a few stops on the way and the weather wasn't great, a bit rainy when we arrived but we found a nice shady tree to set up camp and straight away were greeted by some of the local wallabies and kangaroos - I love being amongst nature!
The
first night brought quite a lot of rain but it didn't dampen our spirits to get out and start exploring straight away the following day. The rock formations take centre stage at Girraween. the Granite Arch is a natural stone archway created by massive balancing boulders and is on the way to the most well known feature which is 'Balancing Rock' which is on the Pyramid track and is a ten tonne, seven and a half metre high, six metre wide boulder and sits precariously on a base of just one metre. A bit of a trek to get to it and quite steep on either side of it but definitely worth the effort. The views of the valley and surrounding granite is just amazing, there are 17kms worth of walking trails in the park to explore and we got pretty much around to most of them. We didn't manage to get up to the highest peak (Mount Norman) but hit up the surrounding walks to see formations such as The Sphinx and Turtle Rock (which we couldn't really make out as a turtle!).
Day two we set out for The Creek Trail and Dr Roberts Waterhole which was
named after a Stanthorpe medical practitioner whose tireless effort to protect the vulnerable wildlife of Girraween resulted in the establishment of the national park. It was really pretty here and we lucked out and had the place to ourselves for a short time - had a quick swim to cool off and ate some lunch. We then set off to Underground Creek which is covered by a very impressive wave rock formation and again got pretty lucky and had the place to ourselves for a short time. That afternoon was spent hiking the 7.4km return trip to the Sphinx & Turtle Rock Track, we opted to not add on the Castle Rock track which does have an impressive view from the top but we were just so buggered already from all the trekking we packed in to two days already and were quite content with the images captured and hiking tracks conquered!
Lamington National Park After a camp brekky we packed up camp and headed off for our next site - Lamington National Park. Lamington National Park was definitely on the top of my list of parks to visit, and especially now with a decent camera! This time of
year as well the park is full of pretty shrooms to photograph so I just couldn't wait to get there. Unfortunately the weather wasn't on our side and the rainforest was oh so rainy! We decided to stay at O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat on an unpowered site as the accommodation here was next level expensive for what you get. Setting up in the rain wasn't too much fun but we managed to get everything set up in record time and settled in for dinner and a few drinks.
The next morning we realised we hadn't put the tent up one hundred percent correctly and some water had made its way onto the floor near our bed argh!! It also just didn't stop raining here at all overnight, so after a good brekky and fixing up the fly on out tent which we thought was the initial issue of letting all the water in, we set off to explore this beautiful National Park. We stopped in at the information office and they advised the creek crossings may be a little high due to all the recent constant rainfall but the crossings were not closed at all so we should be able
to make it through the circuit we chose for the day. All up for the day we crossed the very aggressive creek crossings eight times, zig zagging back and fourth through the circuit hoping each one completed was the last! We ran into fellow hikers and helped each other across - in the end, taking our shoes off and trekking over the crossings in socks only which helped with gripping the slippery rocks. It was a nightmare. I was so worried about dropping my camera into the water or being washed away, there is no way these crossings should have been open to the public.
In all we hiked about 15km, but it was really slow going due to the muddy leech ridden tracks and the effort it took to get over each damn crossing. I would have enjoyed it more had the conditions been a lot more favourable but it was still a memorable adventure. We got back to our camp tired and covered in lovely little blood suckers only to find the whole inside of the tent soaked through including all of our bedding it was a nightmare and the rain just didn't stop. Not able to
stay in the condition everything was in we packed everything up, covered in mud and all and hit the road and drove all the way home, we had paid for three nights but only stayed for the one due to the tent letting us down. All of this aside though, the park is absolutely beautiful and I do hope to get back to it again one day and hike some other areas!
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