Some friends had recently done a trip out to the Great Dividing Range to an unusual rock formation called 'The Steamers' which involved some four wheel driving and a decent hike, the perfect mix.
Naz and I set off early on Saturday morning, driving south-west out of Brisbane, through the Cunningham Gap, until we hit the country town of Warwick.
From there we cut back east via Emu Dale towards the western ridge of the Great Dividing Range which would take us close to the Steamers rock formation. We soon hit dirt, and when faced with a fork in the road we decided to take the supposedly rougher track that would take us north on the ridge.
Due to the dry weather very few of the creeks were running, and the driving was easy. We followed the road until it turned into a grassy field (with cows, horses and donkeys looking on), parked at the barb wire fence and started our hike.
I had print out of some topographic maps of the area and a few waypoint set in my GPS, so we headed through the light scrub to the nearest marker. We had only gone a few hundred metres before I brushed past a thicket of stinging nettles, my bare legs and forearms (of course I hike in shorts and a t-shirt) coping the worst of it. The pain and itchiness would subside in 30 minutes, the welt taking a bit longer to go away, but we eventually found a defined track and followed it along the ridge.
It was a perfect day for hiking, and the path slowly gained altitude as we following at along a cliff line, with spectacular view to north to Moogerah and Boonah.
It was relatively cool under the shade of the trees and as we had a lot of ground to cover and weren't sure of the exact route we kept up a decent pace. Other animals were taking things a bit easier. I came close to stepping on a large coiled up carpet python, but it didn't stir and we kept on walking.
We made it to the top of Mt Steamer in the early afternoon, after stopping briefly we decided not to continue along the ridge to the lookout over the Steamers, but to descend on a different route to ensure we didn't get benighted. We followed a light track down from the summit, which soon turned into a dry creek bed. Realizing it wasn't a track at all, we checked the topo map and decided to keep following the gully down, thinking it would eventually return us to the road we took earlier in the day.
It was slow going as the creek would often level out and retain pools of water, and detouring around the wet areas would see us wading through rotting tree trunks and ferns, lantana and the occasional stinging nettle. We continued further down, and at last the creek bed widened and flattened out.
We were relieved, as by this point the sun was getting low in the sky, my skins had been torn up by lantana, and the after effects of the stinging nettles only made things worse. No sooner had we quickened our pace we were stopped by the existing of a 15m sheer drop straight ahead and sharp, steep gullies on either side!
There was a great looking cave at the bottom of the cliff, after some discussion we decided to head off along the only way out (that wasn't retracing our steps) and try not to gain any more height. I still had some rough GPS co-ordinates that we could head towards, and after an hour or two of bush-bashing we found some rough cattle tracks, and followed these back down the mountain. We came out onto the dirt road with five minutes of daylight to spare, and after an easy three kilometer walk we were back at our cars. It had taken us the better part of seven hours to hike 12.5 km route below.
It was pitch black as we drove back along the dirt roads, through the dry rocky creek beds and back to the black top. After a detour to Warwick for a pub dinner and a quick beer, Naz and I went our separate ways, another off-track adventure done. It was a great hike (the start at least) through a beautiful part of the world, and we will return in the future to actually see the Steamers!
I continued on to my parents place, arriving late at night, and after a quick shower I fell into bed, my shins tingling from the abuse the suffered during the day. I was asleep soon after.
The next morning I awoke with two clear goals. Clean the mud off my car and to raid my parent's mulberry tree. Wandering down to their orchid I was shocked at what I saw. A monster of a tree, branches sprawling on the grass, with plump, dark purple mulberries in excess!
For the next hour I filled every plastic container I could find, only stopping when I ran out of places to store the fruit. I could have stayed for hours, I barely made a dent!
All in all a pretty enjoyable weekend, we are definitely motivated to get back down there and hike some more.
More photos here
