(Main Range National Park)
Follow the Qld/NSW rabbit fence to one of the only peaks straddling the border
Distance:
12km
Duration:
6 hours
Difficulty:
Medium-Hard
Getting there
From the Boonah-Rathdowney road, turn onto Carney's Creek Road. Follow it all the way to the rabbit fence. Where the road meets the rabbit fence there is a little area to the right where you can park your car (near a no-through road sign). If you hit the Boonah Border gate and cross into NSW, go back into Qld by about 1 km)
Maps
There is no real need for a map, just follow the rabbit fence to just short of the summit.
Route/Trail notes
The navigation of the route is quite easy. Start walking with the rabbit fence on your left. The first few kilometres go undulate, sometimes rather steeply, along a 4wd track. You eventually start getting views of Wilson's Peak before the track leads into thicker rainforest.
DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS WHEN THE TRACK IS WET! We did, going against the warnings from my guide book, and it was a horribly hard walk. Once the rainforest has been entered the track becomes extremely steep and slippery with only unreliable loose rocks and roots to grab onto, or the barbed wire rabbit fence. We spent most of the time falling or controlled sliding.
Once you've entered the rainforest, keep following the rabbit fence up and up. Eventually the fence gets mossier and loses the barbed wire, and crows nests start growing along the trees and rocks.
Eventually, after quite a long scramble over mud, moss and rocks, you'll get to where the fence is anchored into the cliff face itself. Any rabbit that has gotten to this point deserves to get across the fence (in my opinion).
To the right of the cliff face, there is a very small path that should be easy to follow. If not, just start walking with the cliff face constantly on your left. After approximately 10-15 minutes (it took us a while because of the rain and wind) you will get to a point where the track appears to head downhill again. If you look up at your left, you will see a cleft in the rocks. Follow this up, over the well worn tracks through the tea trees to the peak. The peak is amongst the trees, but there is a survey marker and a cairn at the point. From the cairn, walk along a track 15 metres towards the queensland side, where you can sit and enjoy the view before heading back down the steep and slippery descent.
Permits/Costs
None
Other References
We grabbed this one from "Take a Walk in South East Queensland" pg 280
Comments
27 Jul, 2010
Umm should have listened to the guide book, was wet and this was a hard walk, lots of slipping and scrambling up a very steep, muddy path with not much to hold on to. A few vert steep, dodgy bits. Got to the top and there were good views, the way down was actuallly alot easier using a combination of sliding and bum toboganing. Recommended if you want a challenge
25 Jul, 2009
A good hard walk that was a bit of a leg burner. View was good and went to the verandha or balcony.
20 Jun, 2009
It was wet. Very hard to finish, but we managed it. Too cloudy when we got to the peak.
Sometime...
We chose the wrong "border" fence to begin with which made the walk a bit toughter. The return walk showed us where the correct one was.
View was good, but only a limited angle.