Track for first overnighter........

[weeds]

Fingers crossed we will have all the gear we need for an overnight hike.......next weekend

Happy to drive up to three hours from northside of Brisbane.

Happy to walk for a couple of hours in the afternoon 5-10k's and than back again the next morning.

Suggestions......while I hunt for my newly purchased copy of Take a Walk

[Gadgetgeek]

Either end of the Conondale great walk would be worth looking at. Plenty of vertical to do if you do from Booloomba to Wongai, but if you have a 4x4 you can get closer and do a much shorter walk. from Booloomba you can go backwards and go to summer falls, same idea. But there are enough trails and day walk sort of things to do if you want to do a fitness and gear shakedown. Both would be a right on the upper end of the range you are looking at. I would suggest going for the day walks, try to live out of your pack, but use the overnight drive up sites, so you have the comfort of the backup.

[weeds]

Thanks GG, I have just been reminded our walk needs to be South west of Brisbane.

Yeah might look drive up sites and do a couple of walks.......maybe lammington??

[Gadgetgeek]

can't help in that direction unfortunately. I'm supposed to be headed to Mt Barney in a few weeks, but we will be doing some off-track walking, and I'm not sure what the rest of it looks like. worth looking into dayhikes around there as well though.

[cams]

Do you want it to be on-track?

Some good options for starting out at Lamington include:
- Albert River Circuit camping at Echo Point
- Toolona Creek Circuit (or any other variation of tracks around there) camping at Bithongabel
- Illinbah Circuit (Binna Burra)

A good off-track starter is to do the Albert River Circuit but head out to Rat-a-tat hut from Echo Point and camp there. You'll want to be confident with navigation though.

[weeds]

Thanks guys....I might stay on track this time.

The popular track campsites were booked out from memory

Haven't had to navigate for 20 years but I assume I would pick it back up.......just brought a compass and have an old etrex H GPS will need to track down some maps.

[weeds]

OK, how does Green Mountain to Rat-a-Tat Hut sound........??

I found the missing in action Take a Walk book, it says 11.5km, medium, 5hrs each way.

[weeds]

Umm maybe just to echo point......

[weeds]

Er change that....echo point is fully booked.

Is rat a tat doable with basic nab skills, a map and first time humping the pack.

Was hoping to avoid camping at Green Mountain.

[Champion_Munch]

Hi weeds,

My first (and still so far only) overnight walk in SEQ was O'Reilly's to rat-a-tat hut campsite - I chose this based on the info in the Take a Walk book. Instructions were useful but we still managed to get lost a couple of times - if you are thinking of doing the walk, you can read our trip report here: http://sirkingchampionmunch.blogspot.co ... day-1.html. It's a beautiful place to camp and I highly recommend the walk, but how much you enjoy it will probably depend on your fitness (it's more than 'a couple of hours' of walking, if you are not used to longer trips) and your navigational skills.

Would suggest you take a good topographic map and get an early start - just in case.

General thoughts for camping at lamington, if you have not been there before...
- Wet weather (and the millions of accompanying leeches) are less common at this time of year than in summer/early Autumn, but if the forecast was for poor weather I would (personally) reconsider doing an overnight walk. On the other hand, day walks are a great alternative in wet weather - the rainforest really only comes alive when there's mist and cloud about, and you don't have to set up camp in the mud at the end of the day
- Winter nights are cold, much colder than Brisbane/the coast. Bring warm gear!
- The graded tracks (particularly the border track) are generally pretty easy going, well-signed and wide/obvious. This can be a bit deceptive as the rainforest is actually very dense, so as soon as you go 'off-track' it's surprisingly easy to lose sight of the path. Between Echo Point and rat-a-tat hut campsite there are no obvious landmarks, aside from the summits (where you will have very limited views). The later in the year you go, the clearer the track should be - the area is closed in December/January so tree falls and regrowth can obscure the track early in the year, before many groups have walked it

Whatever you decide to do, I hope you have a great walk!

Cheers,
Munch

[weeds]

Thanks Munch.....I have been reading your blog.

Will more than likely base ourselves at green mountain and take it easy. We haven't done a walk with our packs loaded yet.

[metastable]

As cams said, I would do Toolona creek camping at Bithongabel. Toolona creek has a lot of waterfalls, but isn't too much up and down, I did it with my 7yr old as an overnighter and he was fine with it. It's all on track so no navigation issues and Bithongabel is a beautiful place to camp amongst the Antarctic beeches. The other advantage is that the first day is something like 13km, doing it clockwise, but the second day back to Green mountains is only about 5-6km or so. That way if the first day and sleep really knocked you around, after your first overnighter in years, then you can be back to the car in under 2hrs the second day.

A word of advice, there is no water at the campsite, so keep good track of where you are on the map and fill up your waterbottles/water container for camp at the last creek crossing. It's only about 30 min or so from the campsite, so you're not carrying the extra weight for very long.

[cams]

The one downside is the leeches seem to be particularly brutal at Bithongabel though. Maybe because it is almost constantly damp and in cloud. Try and pick a dry weekend.

[weeds]

Done and dusted.....did Rat a Tat........should I do a report??

[Champion_Munch]

Great! Hope you had a good trip... report would be nice