Paten Track Side Creek, again

Same walk as yesterday, but followed the creek a bit further. Probably only went about 50m further than yesterday as the foliage closed in a lot and I wasn't feeling like a real scramble.

Paten Track Side Creek

Boxing Day! Laziness, recovery, and leftovers. And a walk as it turned out. Since I haven't done any walking in about 5 months, and recent heavy rain made me curious about the state of the creeks around The Gap, I took a short walk in the Mt Coot-tha Reserve area accessible from the end of Paten Rd - one on my most frequent stomping grounds.

There are a couple of water-courses which I spotted during previous walks in this area (eg 1 Jan 2008) and which I have wanted to explore but have always found weed choked. One is the side creek feeding from the south (at grid 961627 on the Brisbane Forest Park map) into the creek which runs along the Paten Rd track. While walking along the Paten Rd track I noticed that the recent heavy rains have sent so much water through the water-courses that most of the weeds have been cleared out. From the track I could see the clean, bare rocks which form the bed of the creeks. So taking the opporunity to explore the cleared-out creeks I left Paten track at the grid mentioned above, and marked by the forked tree in the LH photo below, and headed along the creek-bed of a small feeder creek.



This is a lovely little creek which I'd love to explore further as I only went along it about 150-200m at most. I crossed this creek on my 1 Jan 08 walk and took a photo of a pipe it flowed through and which looked to be constructed of 44 gallon drums. Today I saw that the pipe was all but destroyed by the recent flows and much of the surrounding soil and rock has been washed away (see LH photo below).



A bit further up the creek I came across what looked like the ruin of a creek-side shelter. While it's now just a pile of buckled corrugated iron, the pleasant location right beside the creek makes me think it must have been a terrific little spot in the past. I can imagine either many adventures had by a group of kids or many hours of treasured seclusion enjoyed by some lucky adult.



All in all a lovely way to spend an hour and a half on Boxing Day.

Mt Barney - Peasants Ridge

Finally I've walked up Mt Barney. Over the last few years I've noticed that in the eyes of bushwalkers who live in SE Qld, if you haven't been up Mt Barney, you're not really a bushwalker - no matter where else you've walked. "Winter crossing of The Overland Trail, oh that's nice, The Larapinta Trail, sounds lovely, Mt Baw Baw under heavy snow, aha, the Annapurna trek without porters, yes, yes, but have you been up Barney?"

So I organised a walk up Peasants Ridge with a group of 12 composed of friends from work and friends from The Gap. It started with a conversation between Andrew Ross and I a couple of months ago, and grew into a plan for a great weekend away. So between Andrew, Baz and I, we organised to rendezvous at Yellow Pinch carpark early Saturday morning, do the walk through the day, have a steak dinner at the Rathdowney pub in the evening, stay the night at Mt Barney Lodge, and have a big cooked breaky Sunday morning.

The party was myself, Baz & Sandy Andersen, Alan & Karen Simpson, Amanda Belton and her boyfriend Drew, Craig Johnston, Daryn Grantham, Andrew & Brendan Ross, and Michael (Brendan's mate). Baz organised the cabin (lovely - sleeps 7, and has a fireplace) and breaky, Brendan Ross agreed to lead the walk, and I did general pre-walk coordination.

Amanda, Alan, and I were all wearing new boots and using this walk to break them in. I ended up changing into shoes after about 8km as hot spots started developing, however Alan wore his for the whole walk - obviously tougher than me.

We started out from Yellow Pinch at 0652 in cool air under a clear sky. The great weather continued all day and was a perfect balance of cool air, gentle breezes, clear sky, and warming sunshine. After about 5km Amanda and Drew turned back as Drew had experienced some sciatica the previous night. This gave them a nice 10km day walk and opportunity to have a nice day together and lunch at the pub. The only real challenging sections of the route were a rock slab in which it was necessary to follow a diagonal crease, and a steep chimney. These were mental obstacles to a few members of the group, but all passed these tests with flying colours.



By 1040 we had reached Rum Jungle and had a short break before starting the climb of the East Peak. The ascent of the peak was my favourite part of the walk and took just over an hour. We had a lovely relaxed lunch on the summit for about 45 minutes. Andrew spent most of the lunch break snoozing in the sun, and his comfortable, reclined, pose really captured the perfect mood created by the fantastic weather.





The views from east peak were absolutely staggering. We could see for many kilometres in every direction and there were interesting peaks and ranges all around us.



The descent back to Yellow Pinch took until 1730 and was punishing on the aging joints many of us have. By the time we reached the carpark it was late dusk and a few of us looked like walking wounded. However there was a strong shared feeling of achievement and a nice easy raport amoungst all members of the group. Brendan did a masterful job of leading a large group, many of whom he'd never met before. He used a gentle, persuasive approach to keep us to a steady, sustainable pace with regular short breaks. We completed a 23km day walk (according to Alan's Garmin GPS wristwatch) with a 1120m ascent/descent (according to Sunmap 1:25,000 Mt Lindesay) in 10.5hrs.



Our meal at the Rathdowney was a simple, honest, and very generous country steak dinner. That satisfying meal was followed by a well earned sleep in the comfortable hut at Mt Barney Lodge. Tracey Larkin (co-owner of the lodge with her husband Innes) cooked our huge breakfast on the back porch with help from her well-mannered daughter. We were treated to thick bacon, home-layed eggs, fresh sliced fruit, cereal & yoghurt, toast, and fresh brewed coffee.

Around Ubud, Bali

Mikarla and I took a trip to Ubud in central Bali for a week. It was the first holiday we had taken together, just the two of us, since we got married 14 years ago. It was a wonderful getaway to a beautiful location, and allowed us to reconnect and get back in sync. Ubud is in central Bali, surrounded by rainforest, rivers, rice paddies, and small villages. Each of the surrounding villages specialises in a specific craft, including, painting, sculpting, stone carving, wood carving, silverwork, etc.

On Monday June 29 MIkarla and I went for a walk through the countryside surrounding Ubud. We walked along a ridge between the two rivers which meet in Ubub, through rice paddies, through a couple of small villages, and along a busy gallery-lined road back into Ubud.

Kulgan Circuit, again

Yesterday I noted lots of mushrooms had popped up along the Kulgan Circuit, so today I returned with the camera to take some photos. Spence came along to keep me company and have a look at the shrooms himself.

Kulgan Circuit

A quick whiz around the Kulgan Circuit starting at the end of Paten Rd, The Gap. We had a few days of steady rain so I thought I'd check if any mushrooms had popped up. However, it was still raining so I didn't take the camera. There were all sorts of shrooms all over the place, even popping up in the middle of the walking track and the fire trail (gravel road).

Mt Mitchell

I love this walk. This is the first time I've done it with company. Today Amanda Belton and Alan & Karen Simpson came along. We made pretty good time despite the upper trail being overgrown with nettles. A few minutes were lost when we encountered a large python sleeping on the trail and none of us was willing to sneak past it. We threw small sticks near it until it woke up and moved off into the bush.

We had lunch at the lookout at the top which was lovely, especially Amanda's baking and Alan's awesome sandwiches, but the sun was very warm. After finishing lunch we checked out the barely noticeable track to the heavily treed summit which is just slightly higher than the lookout. I have never bothered to go to the summit having assumed it had nothing to offer having no views. Boy was I wrong - it's an absolutely gorgeous spot to have lunch sitting on boulders surrounded by moss covered trees.

There was a huge variety of fungi growing in the forest and I took a stack of photos of them. I was also fortunate to catch a clear shot of a lovely butterfly. Amanda told me what sort it was but I have forgotten.