Great mates; great weather & great Girraween

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Great mates; great weather & great Girraween

Postby shardie » Sat 07 Jul, 2012 2:51 pm

It needed to be an early start on the 23rd of June if we wanted to be on the trails of Girraween before 7am. So we were on the road by 3am. It felt like it was a cool morning in Brisbane when we left, but felt like a cold morning when we were at Stanthorpe’s Maccas at ~5:30am.
We met up with a new walking buddy near the trial head to Castle Rock after 6am. Mark & I had pretty much mapped a circuit of ~30km to take in many of the special spots Girraween had to offer. The circuit was a mix of hiking trails, 4WD tracks and off track bushwhacking.
The first leg took us on a well-trodden path past Castle Rock to the Spinx and onto Turtle Rock. We then made our own path to Mt Norman. The bush is pretty open and it was relatively easy going.
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After the taking the photo opportunities atop Mt Norman, we head south (on a path) to the Mt Norman picnic area. We then followed a 4WD track towards Twin Peaks (another great photo opportunity) and a nice unnamed plateau (just south of Billy Goat Hill) which has views of Bald Rock.
A number of 4WD tracks eventually took us the ‘Underground Creek’ which was where we called it a day. That night it got down to -4 degrees and the small pools around the creek were frozen solid.
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After a leisurely breakfast, we set off ~8am on trails & roadways towards Slip Rock. In retrospect we’d have got off the road early than we did & aim to go up the Southern slab of Slip Rock via the eastern side (of the slab). As it was, we ended up pushing through some heavy scrub and found we couldn’t easily/safely assail the western side of the slab. Mark drop back down under the slab & easily walked up the eastern side whereas Emil & I scampered across slightly slippery lichen covered slab to get to the eastern side. It would have been a 90m slide down the 60 degree slope of granite if we’d lost our footing….so, next time we’ll aim to ascend via the eastern side :-S
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Slip Rock has great southern views
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and a very interesting landscape on its northern side.
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It’s on the northern side where Kitchen Cave is found.
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After exploring Slip Rock, we dropped off the northern side to a creek that led us past the two Pyramids and eventually hooked us back onto a trail. A quick look at the Granite Arch, and then back to the carpark to rest some well used feet.
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Re: Great mates; great weather & great Girraween

Postby ofuros » Sun 08 Jul, 2012 7:26 am

Great adventure shardie....by the look of your pics, you had some good walking weather too, cool & clear.
Lucky devil. :wink:
Great park for a wander.
A similar circuit is on my forever growing To-Do list. :mrgreen:
Mountain views are good for my soul...& getting to them is good for my waistline !
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Re: Great mates; great weather & great Girraween

Postby phan_TOM » Sat 14 Jul, 2012 2:26 pm

Nice one shardie, one of my favourite places.

Nice and cool out there at this time of year and great walking while the suns shining - It's amazing how slippery the granite gets when its wet, the stuff is as grippy as sandpaper when its dry. I wussed out near the top of Mt Norman when I was last there as it was still damp and I just couldn't get my boots to grip on the rock, it was tantalisingly close but just a tad too far to fall if it went wrong. In hindsight I should have taken my boots off and suffered cold toes for a bit, it was only about 0 or 1 degrees...

I did a lazy 36k's over 3 days back in May with a similar itinerary, some on the graded tracks, some off track and a bit of a bash on the last day along 4WD trails. I was suprised at how quiet it was in regard to flora and fauna as my last trip was in spring and it was really going off, lots of things flowering and there was birds and animals everywhere. Was there much of that while you were there?

I haven't been to Slip Rock before but its on the list for next time, is Kitchen Cave easy to find?
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Re: Great mates; great weather & great Girraween

Postby shardie » Sat 14 Jul, 2012 5:18 pm

The back of Slip Rock (Nth side) has a section of huge boulders piled up against each other. The boulders creates many 'caves' It does take a bit of exploring and descending to a lower level than the rest of the boulders. You know you've found it when the cave has a flat floor of fine granite sand.
I do have a grid reference if you are a GPS-hiker.
Slip Rock is a great example of a 'slippery rock' with its damp lichen...so tread with care.
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Re: Great mates; great weather & great Girraween

Postby bumblefoot » Thu 13 Sep, 2012 1:40 pm

So much for the forum rules about not identifying the location of sensitive places. :-(
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Re: Great mates; great weather & great Girraween

Postby shardie » Thu 13 Sep, 2012 8:34 pm

To my defense....Girraween is a pretty open & well walked location. My totally off-track trips don't get a mention here.
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Re: Great mates; great weather & great Girraween

Postby phan_TOM » Fri 14 Sep, 2012 2:17 pm

I wouldn't really call it a sensitive place, its close enough (within a km) to a busy formed track and it's location is also described in a fairly well known bushwalking publication http://www.takeawalk.com.au/Girraween.htm plus numerous mentions in our favourite search engine :)
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Re: Great mates; great weather & great Girraween

Postby PeterJ » Sun 16 Sep, 2012 4:29 pm

phan_TOM wrote:I wouldn't really call it a sensitive place....... :)


I agree, it did not seem particularly sensitive at all.
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Re: Great mates; great weather & great Girraween

Postby tomh » Sun 16 Sep, 2012 5:28 pm

The rules say Avoid posting detailed information on accessing sensitive areas without recognised tracks. There is no recognised track to Slip Rock and the closeness of other tracks or descriptions in books etc does not change that. Whether Slip Rock itself is a 'sensitive area' or not I don't know and wouldn't be qualified to say - without more information the term can be subjective.

What the QPWS Girraween Management Plan 2010 says however is (Page 4 Para 4.2) Girraween National Park, together with Bald Rock and Boonoo Boonoo national parks in New South Wales, conserves a significant section of the northern New England Tableland Biogeographic Region. Girraween’s massive granite outcrops, precariously balanced boulders, clear streams and tumbling cascades dissect 11 800 ha of eucalypt forest, sedgelands and heathlands. These communities support a significant number of near threatened, vulnerable and endangered flora and fauna.

Page 10 Para 4.5.1 could also be relevant: The sandy, friable soils of the national park are easily damaged when walking tracks are short-cut or when off-track bushwalking becomes concentrated in popularly visited areas. Off-track bushwalking and bush camping (away from the road and track network) are allowed, subject to guidelines designed to ensure that the activity is both sustainable and appropriate for the environmental setting. There is currently a low level of off-track bushwalking in Girraween National Park.
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