Well this is the big one, a day we have both felt apprehensive about given it is a long time since we have hike more than 20 km in a day and we had no real idea what to expect.
This is the first stage of a multi day hike from O’Reilly’s to Springbrook Settlement Camping area. We completed the full hike except for a section from Binna Burra to Numinbah. Glad not to have done that section as half of it appears to be alongside a road and there isn’t anywhere to stay at Numinbah.
Anyway back to today, our trail is called the Border trail because it crosses the border between Queensland and NSW several times. I even wondered at one point where we had lost so much time – it was because my watch switched time zones, confusing or what. NSW adopts daylight saving time and Queensland doesn’t. The trail itself traverses some of the highest remaining basalt lava flows from the Tweed Volcano. With increasing elevation, it passes from warm and cool subtropical rainforests into warm and cool temperate rainforests.
Lookouts along the Border Track are on the rim of the Tweed Valley erosion caldera. Shame that we had a lot of cloud cover so didn’t have great views. Although a lot of the volcanic debris from the eruptions of this massive volcano have been eroded the central magna plug (mount Warning) remains as do a system of ring dykes (part of which we hiked along during this trip) which are protected by by a cap of very hard basaltic rock, forming a virtual semi circle of vertical cliffs. To give an impression of the size of this caldera, it’s circumference is about 250km and about 80km across.
We started off in misty rain, glad I had my poncho (first outing) as it kept my pack dry, protected me from leaches dropping from the branches (believable or what?), gave us something to sit on and was not too hot to wear. The trail up was in excellent condition. Probably because a fair number of people use it to hike up to the stands of Antarctic Beech trees – in my mind living fossils of a bygone time.
Very different conditions to our hike yesterday when the sun was out, glad we had the opportunity to see the forest in different conditions. It was very atmospheric walking through the misty rainforest experiencing it with water dropping off branches and the climbing ferns and moss saturated by rain.
The highlight today was definitely the Beeches. The presence of these trees is significant because they are a remnant of a time when Australia and Antarctica were connected, and they provide a glimpse into the ancient forests that once covered the continent. This is the most northerly location in Australia where these trees are found helped by the cool temperate high altitude environment.
Some of the trees were huge, multi stemmed, covered with moss and small plants clinging to their chunky-flaky bark. They were truly stunning and we were both very happy to be on our own up here. I just hope this part of the forest continues to thrive and regenerate in spite of our warming climate. There was one fun specimen that we could wind out way through. Apparently there is a natural form of coppicing as a ring of new trunks grow from one root system and surround the decaying central trunk. This results in hollows giving a very gnarled effect. The photo below shows this very clearly
As we came off the first high point Mike went to one of the outlooks and saw a red bellied black snake, one of the most venomous in the Park, basking in a small patch of sunshine. I missed it as I was having a call of nature and when it became aware of Mike it quickly slithered away.
We had lunch sitting on some large felled tree trunks. I laid my poncho out to sit on, hopeful that we would avoid getting leaches on us. It succeeded but did get a few on the poncho which I had to pick off. We decided not to sit down on future breaks which definitely made it harder going as we didn’t really have any more breaks. Later on I did freak out a bit when I had a group of very persistent large leaches climbing up my hiking poles. Fortunately none got to me!
Shortly after our lunch break we came to an our half way sign post marking on one side 7 BB and the other 7OR. We initially puzzled as to what it meant as we are so used to thinking in km rather than miles! It was good to see our halfway marker. However the next 7 miles felt much further than the first even thought they were largely downhill.
The other highlight of today’s hike was seeing a blue crayfish in a small rocky corner just past a creek crossing. He was ferocious, snapping his claws and hissing in annoyance at us as we passed. Beautiful and so glad we saw him.
We enjoyed the hike but found it hard going. We had hoped for the skies to clear in the afternoon but although the rain held off it was still very overcast. Very glad to get to Binna Burra and our sky lodge. Wonderful bath to relax tired muscles and appreciative of our complimentary bottle of wine. Our apartment had huge open picture windows, including the bathroom so we could sit in the bath and look at the view. It was warm enough to sit out on our balcony as darkness fell tucking in to our cheese platter followed by a tasty lamb stew.
See below for a video of our photos and experiences on our hike as well as a map which you can click on to learn more and get the GPX track. Note to see the full controls on the video click on the < control on the progress bar. This will allow you to watch the video full screen.
