Rock Magazine

Graham Reeks explores his own backyard – the Sunshine Coast’s enchanting Hinterland – one of Queensland’s ten new Great Walks

Laden with packs, climbing the steep steps beside Kondalilla Falls, a woman of advanced years with a smile the breadth of the Blackall Range waved her single trekking pole to us as she headed in the other direction.
‘It’s a good way to get about isn’t it?’ she said as she passed.

It is said that with age comes wisdom. I used to think this simply means we attribute great profundity to simple comments made by old people. But it’s no surprise that as I age, the idea that experience breeds greater insight, appeals to me more.

Ten years ago, when I did my first long walk, I may have interpreted the woman’s gesture as a simple pleasantry, a shared appreciation of the outdoor lifestyle, the flick of her stick equivalent to a tip of a hat.
Now I recognise a deeper meaning to the wise woman’s words – she wasn’t referring merely to walking as a good method of transport. She saw our weighty packs and understood. She meant: overnight walking is a transformative process of exploration, discovery and adventure. Didn’t she?

I couldn’t agree more. Ella (my wife), and I were on the first day of the Sunshine Coast Hinterland Great Walk. In the last year we had walked the Jatbula Trail in the Northern Territory, the Cape to Cape and a week-long section of the Bibbulmun Track in Western Australia.

All were exciting forays to new landscapes with unfamiliar conditions, but it was time to try something a little different. In these days of boundary-pushing adventures and gung-ho expeditions to kayak across deserts and cycle across the seas, we just wanted to find out if it is still possible to explore our own backyard.

Having recently moved to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, at least we had a beautiful backyard to explore.

In the footsteps of warriors

The Queensland Government has spent $16.5 million over the past ten years developing the Great Walks of Queensland, and there are now ten walks to choose from. The Sunshine Coast Hinterland Great Walk weaves across the Blackall Range (an hour’s drive north of Brisbane) and is close and accessible enough for us to complete as a series of day walks. But, as dedicated overnight walkers, we knew there is no better way to really familiarise yourself with a place than by walking through it, eating and sleeping in it…and not really washing in it.

The walk starts at Lake Baroon, which legend says was the site of an Indigenous fighting ground. Today it is a peaceful 400-hectare pocket dam surrounded by thick green forest and fed by Obi Obi Creek, named after Ubie Ubie (an Indigenous warrior).

Treading in the footsteps of warriors along a walkers’ width track we were immediately under the canopy and heading into Kondalilla National Park, climbing gently out of the cool humid rainforest and up to a drier ridge of open eucalypt forest. From here an elevated lookout provided views back through the gorge cut by the Obi Obi Creek to the dam, and because we were at the easternmost limit of the native bunya pine it allowed us to play spot the bunya as we looked down on the canopy.

The walk is characterised by zigzag tracks weaving in and out of gullies, and the first switchback descent was soon reached, where we were beckoned down to the creek by the promising sound of running water and magical birdsong.

In the language of the traditional owners, Kondalilla means running or rushing water. How nice to be in the subtropics where creeks like these never stop flowing. We admired the timeless beauty of mutated buttresses, sinister strangler figs and thick, tangled creepers, and made promises to return to enticing swimming holes in the summer.

With a tinge of sadness, we progressed through occasional clearings draped in suffocating lantana. And yes, the slippery hoof marks and a fresh looking ‘offering’ confirmed we still weren’t far from dairy country on the Blackall Range.

All too soon we were ascending steps alongside Kondalilla Falls to the popular picnic site, easily reached by road and full of kids on school holidays who thought chasing brush turkeys was a hoot.

The morning gave us a taster of places to return, while the afternoon was short and less sweet as we traipsed three and a half kilometres along roads, and then back into the bush in a northern section of Kondalilla National Park, along a wide level track to Flaxton Walkers’ Camp.

Arriving at the campsite we could see where a fair amount of the government’s budget was spent. The camp areas we used on each of the three nights were all well established, with a wide choice of sites, plenty of platform tables, a good supply of tank water and a toilet. But still we camped alone…until night fell.

The RUNS

As we sipped hot tea from our trusty plastic mugs after an early dinner, we heard a rustling noise. At campsites like these it’s not unusual to hear a little after-dark disturbance in the undergrowth, but this wasn’t the normal gentle rustling. It was unusually loud. And once noticed the sound seemed amplified.
Soon our headtorches were called into action as we tried to locate what could be making such a noise. We agreed it would have to be sizeable to produce such a racket, yet we couldn’t seem to find anything.
I feared we had landed in the fire swamp from the 1980s film The Princess Bride and we were about to be attacked by ROUSes – Rodents Of Unusual Size…

On eventually finding the culprits I was a little embarrassed. Disappointingly small native mice were bashing around in the bushes, completely unbothered by our lights, or indeed anything to do with us. They certainly weren’t Rodents Of Unusual Size – more like Rodents of Unusual Noisiness.

Perhaps I’d grown unaccustomed to sleeping in a tent because my first night was an endless quest for comfort. It was made worse when I was woken by the sound of a violent tussle, more crashing around in the bush and the excruciating blood-curdling shrieks of an animal in peril. There was no way it was mice this time.

The noise died away, but several times started again, each time sounding slightly further away. I hoped the misery would end for the creature in pain, and as it continued I lay in the comfort of my sleeping bag imagining what dark scene was unfolding.

We had seen enough hair-filled scats on the track during the day to know there was some kind of bone-crunching carnivore at large and by the time silence was permanently restored I had made up my mind: either it was a fox attempting to swallow some kind of bird of prey, or a bird of prey attempting to carry off a fox.

To add to the night’s excitement I woke at one point to feel something wet and slimy on the floor of the tent resting by my arm. My torch revealed an engorged leech that had filled itself on my blood and then laid down next to me to rest.

Slow Walking

The second day started with a twisting downhill, signalling a welcome return to narrow tracks and the awe-inspiring rainforest. Soon we reached the bottom of a steep-sided valley furnished with moss-cloaked boulders jutting up out of Baxter Creek. After a brief detour to see the gently tumbling falls, we crossed the creek, leaving Kondalilla National Park behind and launched ourselves back up the other side of the valley.

At the top of the ridge a brief spell of road-walking brought us to another little gem. Mapleton Falls is certainly one of the smallest national parks around – a tiny rectangle about 750 metres by 500 metres teetering on the edge of the plateau – and it harbours great views of dairy country and thickly forested hills.

Our progress was unhurried rather than slow, although the walk is well suited to what Hugh de Kretser called ‘Slow Walking’ in the Autumn 2009 issue of Wild. The 58-kilometre trek requires no more than four to six hours walking per day for four days, even when you’re dawdling like we were.

We passed through a small section of rainforest in the national park and then entered into a swampy regrowth forest abundant with palms, and with duckboards to keep us out of the wet. In amongst the spindly young trees and draping fronds we saw the remains of mighty old trees, looming out of the woods like bushrangers, hand-felled by a previous generation. The timber cutters’ steps in the old stumps had the curious effect of making them look like overgrown, wooden Ned Kelly masks.

As with the first day’s end, the final part of the afternoon’s walk was relatively lacklustre. A flat stroll through Mapleton Forest Reserve on a straight shared-use track (although we were the only ones using it) brought us to Ubajee Walkers Camp.

The set-up was more or less the same as the first night, but this camp had the feeling of being further into the bush – which it was. Though what made this spot a real delight was the nearby viewpoint, giving us a sneak preview of the next day’s trek through the verdant Gheerulla Valley.

Gheerulla Circuit

After a night mercifully free of eagles, foxes and Rodents of Unusual Noisiness we descended 250 metres into the valley, exchanging the lofty view from the plateau for the delight of another narrow zigzag track and, as we came closer to Gheerulla Creek, a return to the rainforest.

At the base of the steep hill we arrived at Walkers Junction – a place to make a decision. The remainder of the walk was a loop called the Gheerulla Circuit on the western edge of Mapleton Forest Reserve, which ran next to the creek along the valley floor before climbing and returning along the ridge.

Because the final night’s campsite was towards the northern end of the ridge, we planned to take the longest side of the loop, starting low and walking 6.5 kilometres northwest along the valley floor, before climbing 400 metres to reach Gheerulla Bluff and then turning southeast along the ridge.

We began on a wide track, elevated above the creek and surrounded by towering trees covered in gargantuan clusters of epiphytes. Soon the track dwindled to a narrow path and the steep creek bank lowered until we were walking alongside the water on the pebbly ground of temporary riverbed, crossing and recrossing the calm waters of the creek as the day progressed. Towards the northern end of the flat valley floor, the vegetation became drier and we admired beautiful caramel-coloured scribbly gums.

On any given day of walking, we have a custom of choosing a lunch spot at the base of the day’s steepest incline. It’s a frustrating habit as a full belly makes the climb seem so much harder. So, breaking with tradition in a quest for an easier uphill, we had a small snack and held out until we were halfway up the zigzag track to Gheerulla Bluff.

Near the track we found the grizzly remains of what was identified by its tag as a Bundaberg racing pigeon. It had probably been intercepted by a peregrine falcon.

Climbing the ridge we noted another change in the forest, which became dominated by woolly-barked eucalypts and impressive grass trees. We ate, enjoying the views towards Kenilworth, before reaching the bluff and continuing along the ridge to Thilba Thalba viewpoint. From here, peering back down to the valley floor we’d walked along that morning it truly felt like we were miles from anywhere.

Another one and a half kilometres and our day’s ascent was rewarded with the walk’s final and best campsite. Situated on the ridge, and kitted out with platforms and a toilet like the others, there was a viewing area immediately next to the campsite providing an excellent dinnertime view of Gheerulla Valley. It was another spot to which we vowed to return.

All that remained on the last day was to complete the loop back to Walkers Junction, and then find our way to our pick-up point back near Mapleton, returning along some of the track we’d walked two days before.

The remaining 7.5 kilometres of the ridge included a brief stop off at Gheerulla Valley viewpoint to see the valley again from a different angle, and then a gradual descent to the wet sclerophyll forest alongside the creek again.

Here we took a brief detour to see the base of a trickling Gheerulla Falls, just shy of the junction.

Wiser for the walk

From Walkers Junction we traced our route back up the hill, past Ubajee Walkers Camp and then took a spur out to a road to be picked up.

Climbing into the car for the short trip home I recognised the familiar overheating feeling, my cheeks flushing red, as I returning to an artificial environment. I looked forward to eating a good range of fresh vegetables that evening and wrinkled my nose, not at the musty odour of unwashed bodies, but at the synthetic smells of non-walkers’ cosmetics.

As we sped away from the rainforest and the waterfalls, the grass trees and dirt tracks, I thought again about the wise woman we’d seen on our first day and her comment that overnight walking was ‘a good way to get about’.

It really is that simple. The walk we had just completed may not have been tough, but it was right in our backyard, and there really is no better way of getting to know your backyard than by exploring it on foot.

It’s a decade since I first tried overnight walking, and I probably enjoy it now more than ever. It has taken me places both distant and close to home, and given me the chance to interact with environments – to be part of them rather than just an observer.

The Sunshine Coast Hinterland Great Walk serves as an excellent introduction to overnight walking. It’s not too long, not too hard, offers good camping and superb weather. The signage throughout the walk is excellent – so much so that the route-marked topo map we bought from the Department of Environment and Resource Management was almost superfluous. For us, it was a superb introduction to Queensland’s Great Walks.

Now we just have to decide which of the other nine Great Walks we should try next.