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Date: April 2006
Location: Gold Coast, Queensland Australia
I love an invigorating bushwalk, but this was ridiculous. Shivering and snarling in the unseasonable cold, we crammed the lunch and the cameras into our packs, stared up through wind-lashed trees at the black scudding clouds and trudged off into the dark muddy forest, thinking wistfully of the bright log fire burning fiercely in the fireplace back at cosy Binna Burra Lodge.
Photographer Jim, who hails from the Uncomfortable Walking Capital of the World - Scotland, was plowing through the slippery black ooze of the track and muttering something about how he'd rather be shooting Formula One racing in blazing sun and a cloud of exhaust fumes. But sinewy British tourists in shorts and singlets were striding past us and a gaggle of small children were already underfoot in the rainforest, listening to their teachers telling them about the murderous proclivities of the strangler fig, so we had to make an attempt.
Binna Burra Mountain Lodge is in Lamington National Park which is in startling southeast Queensland, where the sundrenched beaches and wide cattle country give way to a cluster of steep mountains covered with ancient forests and dotted with tiny farms and villages. They're the sort of places where you're more likely to find a pottery than a pub and birdwatchers are thick on the ground. It's gorgeous country and deserved a closer look, weather or no weather.
Once we'd slithered through the first kilometre, and became better at not tripping over tree roots, we found the rainforest was living up to those rapturous descriptions you see in the brochures. The sun began to pierce the gloom of almost 70% canopy cover, hitting glowing patches of green moss and illuminating rich honey brown chunks of fallen trees, inexorably turning from forest into forest floor and nurturing tiny new trees, apparently undaunted by the giants around them. You'd need half a dozen people holding hands to successfully hug some of the very big trees, but we saw almost no one on the tracks, despite the Lodge being full of hikers. This, presumably, was because there are 166km of tracks to choose from, including rugged all-day challenges and short strolls for those who have breakfasted too well.
We gaped in awe at immense birds nest ferns high up on the tree trunks and tried to make friends with the large ugly scrub turkeys that strutted lugubriously down the track ahead of us. Whipbirds slashed the air with their startling cries as we splashed across a tiny trickling creek and found a perfect crystal waterfall beside which to collapse and devour our trail mix.
This was the beginning of Dave's Creek Circuit, allegedly a nice easy walk for the bushwalker who wasn't up to a full day trek, and offering a great diversity of vegetation types. We were pleased with the easy grades, the soft forest floor, and the handy self-guiding brochure which made it easier for me to lecture knowledgably on things like buttress roots, lianas and how the forest was changing from Complex Notophyll to Simple Notophyll.
But for the most part we wandered, enchanted by the way everything seemed to grow together, around and over everything else, in a wonderful tangle of moist greenery competing for space and light.
Suddenly, the canopy opened and we were in a patch of tall, open forest, appropriately called "Tall Open Forest" in the brochure, where the soil was different, the trees changed and dozens of vibrant green prickly tree ferns on long black trunks filtered the sunlight that flooded the clearing. It was good to be warm again.
But very soon we were back in the dark troll forest again and everything was larger than life and a little bit spooky with massive ferns, vast fallen trees with hollow trunks that could accomodate an entire fairy ring, huge gnarled roots reaching out to encompass a large moss covered boulder and a tree or two in a composition that a landscape artist could only dream about.
Just as it seemed that an enchanted princess would probably appear and grant us three wishes, the forest lightened, opened up and the whole scene changed to a fantastic heath land of short stumpy bottle brushes, ti-trees, banksias and hakea, all tangled in billows of wildflowers. Not even the glorious breeze could blow away the scent of all those flowers blooming at once, purply-pink hakea, fluffy white may bush and little yellow sprigs of something we couldn't guess at. Along the path were dozens of perfect mauve pattersonia lilies but we were torn between these little treasures and the stunning views which opened up as the forest shrank to shoulder level and we could see all the way to New South Wales in one direction, the Gold Coast, like some shining sci-fi city in the other direction.
We were up on an escarpment and could look down into the Woggunba Valley, the Numinbah Valley, and far to the southeast, the Tweed Shield Volcano which was active 23 million years ago and instrumental in forming this unusual landscape. The track follows the escarpment right around a headland, so the views go on and on until you reach Numinbah Lookout, a perfect spot for lunch, as long as you aren't subject to vertigo.
Or you can hang on till Surprise Rock, a rhyolite plug that juts up above the track and affords fabulous views, especially for anyone daring enough to climb up to the top and then have to have help getting down again for fear of dropping his camera.
We took a disgraceful six hours to do this three-hour walk. My beautiful brown Rossi boots are now black with mud, and my limbs ached and twinged for days, but my face is still glowing from the sun and the wind and I'll never forget the burgeoning wildflowers, sweeping vistas or the dripping rainforest. Or, I must confess, the steaming mug of tea, the big plate of homemade biscuits and the deep, comfy chairs back at Binna Burra Lodge, where the fire was still burning brightly.
For more information:
Binna Burra Mountain Lodge
Tel +61 7 5533 3622
Lamington National Park
- By Suzy Young
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