|
Date: April 2006
Location: Queensland Australia
Despite badly made tea and an un-useable gas stove, Shaun O'Dowd revels in a camping expedition to a remote Queensland national park.
My companion leaned over the open fire and neatly lifted off the just-boiled billy with a carefully chosen stick. Grabbing the handle with a cloth, he swung the billy round and round in admirable swaggie style.
Then, announcing the billy's contents ready and fit for drinking, he carefully poured the tea into our mugs. Unfortunately, it came out in a great, brown, gluggy mass. He'd put too many tea leaves into the billy.
As we sipped tea strong enough to kill an elephant, I wondered how three novices such as us had come to be camping in this remote place - the Expedition National Park in Queensland's northwestern Darling Downs.
Fortunately, the ever-resourceful national parks' ranger had escorted us into the park and was there to keep an eye on us. She had already brought the firewood, efficiently chopped it up and lit a cheerful fire.
Had she not been there, I think we would have been shivering around a cigarette lighter all night.
I, in the meantime, was proud of the resource I'd brought to the expedition - a shiny new gas stove. It would be a pleasant evening's cooking. Well, it would have been had I remembered to fill the gas bottle.
It was here my other companion suddenly proved his resourcefulness. Within minutes he had a fire lit underneath the campground's fireplace and was busy cooking juicy steaks on the grill. The fact the grill openings were a little too widely spaced apart caused only minor inconvenience as the steaks attempted to commit culinary suicide into the coals.
But we feasted well under tall gums and a starry sky.
Expedition National Park is one of those remote places accessible by unsealed roads. Not dissimilar to the nearby Carnarvon Gorge, this is a place of tall, sandstone gorges, interspersed by streams and pockets of palms.
Our campsite at Starkvale Creek was a delight, being situated next to a deep-water rock pool overlooked by a small sandstone bank. There were pit toilets, a water tank and fireplaces.
Earlier, the four of us had gone on a couple of expeditions to look into Robinson's Gorge. Unlike Carnarvon, where you are mostly at the bottom looking up, at Expedition you are on top of the cliffs looking down. And you can walk down, if you so desire.
First stop was the cattle dip, which was a pool of water at the bottom of the gorge that looked like, well, a cattle dip. It was brightly blue as it reflected the sky, turning white as a cloud drifted by.
Meanwhile, my companion and the ranger were engaged in a deep and meaningful conversation about the birds they were hearing, identifying at least half a dozen calls. I identified a crow.
But I am reliably informed the park is inhabited by friarbirds, honeyeaters, rainbow lorikeets, king parrots and something exotic-sounding called the grey-shrike thrush.
Back at camp and despite our inexperience, a tent was expertly erected and I elected to sleep under the stars in a borrowed swag - snug as a bug.
Expedition National Park is beautiful, relatively unknown, and away from the teeming masses. It's worth a visit for any skilled camper.
The park is about a six-or-so hour drive northwest of Brisbane, so we made a day of it on the way, driving along some byways on the Darling Downs near Dalby and coming across the delightfully named town of Kaimkillenbun, apparently an Aboriginal word for 'word of mouth'.
At the Bun Hotel, we met the publican who told us the quaint old Bun was the setting
for a 1983 Nicole Kidman movie, Chase through the Night, in which she,
as a fledgling teenager, was kidnapped.
Onwards we roamed and came across Jimbour House. This majestic 1870s manor house sits imposingly on a slight hill and is testimony to the wealth of the squattocracy.
The house is closed to the public but you can wander the lovely grounds and it has an excellent caf and cellar door.
We sipped a tasty Jimbour Merlot with the Saverbraten, a German marinated pot roast made with Jimbour beef and decided, with our outdoor seats overlooking the yellow plains, that this was exactly how you should spend a leisurely lunch in the great outdoors.
Regretfully, we continued and turned right onto the Leichhardt Highway just past Miles (after visiting its great community and historical centre - Dogwood Crossing At Miles) and were in Taroom at dusk.
Here we pulled up stumps at the Leichhardt Hotel, which has comfortable motel rooms, a public bar where all the locals gather and some decent nosh. Waking refreshed before we headed into the park, we decided that this was the best way to explore this part of Queensland.
For more information:
Toowoomba and Golden West Regional Tourist Association
Tel +61 7 4632 1988
- By Shaun O'Dowd
|
|
