Mount Superbus

Main Range National Park

It may not provide any views from the summit, but at 1,375m above sea level Mount Superbus is the highest mountain in southern Queensland. By virtue of that fact, it's a must for any local peakbaggers.

Navigation Required

Getting there

Park on the northern side of Spring Creek Road/Head Road at an obvious clearing 100m west of the Teviot Falls lookout. Make sure you don't block vehicle access to the gate just beyond, which provides access to private property via Brett Road.

Maps

http://qtopo.dnrm.qld.gov.au

Route/Trail notes

Walk from Spring Creek Road/Head Road along Brett Road (appears to be private, with a gate located approximately 30m from Spring Creek Road). Cross the gate and walk along the gravel road until a path bears right approximately 20m before a 2nd gate into private property. Cross a timber bridge over Teviot Brook and then fight your way through a short section of scunge. Shortly after bear left through the forest up a ridge that leads to a fork on the ridge ENE of the summit. The track is unmarked but generally followed easily. It steepens on approach to the ridge, but hands generally aren't required. At the fork on the saddle turn left and travel westwards approximately 500m to the summit, which is marked with a small cairn and a tin box stamped with Ipswich Catholic Bushwalking Club. 

There are two remote campsites on Mt Superbus (north and south)which require a permit and a fee, these are avaliable through the Queensland parks and wildlife website for a small fee

 

 

GPS Tracks

  • No GPS available for this walk yet.

Comments

Head Rd is closed. They say it's closed because of the road damage. I dropped my car next to the grid with the road block and walked around 3kms uphill. there is a construction fence installed on the road crossing the creek. the road going thru the creek doesn't have any significant damage, so to be honest no idea why they closed the road. I walked further up another 2km, didnt see any other construction works.

ovel on 11 Jun, 2023

Not too steep (less than steep section of Mount Maroon) hike in the forest. Trail hard to follow in some sections, so need gps with trail marked to find or hold the track. Slippery sections, so mind the roots and rocks. No view from the top, but nice climb from 800m to the summit at 1375m. Took 5 hours to do a round trip, with about 1 hour of rests and looking around. Kind of hard to find the summit, it's pretty flat and wooded on the top.

Monte Hague on 11 Jul, 2021

Track in reasonably good condition (April 2021). The pink marker waypoints have recently been updated making navigation towards the summit and even onto lizard point a lot easier. Track is tough and straight up, but rewarding. No views at the summit.

Riley Maltman on 2 Apr, 2021

This is straight up, and quite the workout with a full pack. We were continuing onto Lizard Point. No views, but another tick!

JFoss on 17 Oct, 2020

Great hike, straight up the mountain- no switchbacks here. Despite not being maintained, the track is really quite easy to follow.

Mon86 on 26 Sep, 2020

Beautiful walk through the rainforest and the summit was great despite lack of view. DON'T MISS THE ROCK ARROW - it's sooner than you think! Somehow I did and ended up lost at the end of the logging road, but managed to find the proper trail after turning around.

Matthew on 4 Sep, 2020

Much better walk than expected. Despite the lack of views and some fire damage near the start, the forest is beautiful. Lots of bird life although mostly heard not seen! The path up is steep but reasonable well defined and easy to follow. We continued to Lizard Point which is definitely reccomended - fantastic views. It took us about 1 1/2 hours one way to the Superbus summit and another 2 hours on to Lizard Point. Slightly quicker on the way back down.

Heather T on 1 Aug, 2020

DId this one as part of a 2 day hike to the plane, lizard point, steamers, mt roberts.

Andrew Specht on 18 Jul, 2020

Navigation is a must
If it's raining, forget about it
Almost no view. If you're going for the view, you will be disappointed.

Nok on 2 Jul, 2020

An enormous adventure! I came from the Emu Creek Road side, and the path was well-trodden with plentiful pink ribbons on trees to navigate until you hit the base of a watercourse which is when the 1km + vertical mudslide climb begins! Its a struggle but entirely adventurous.

You will more than likely get stung by Gympie Gympie plants. Don't wash it off with water, the fibres will spread across your skin and it will make the pain worse.

There is no view from atop South East Queensland's highest summit so that's a letdown but the exchange is the Lincoln Wreckage which is an upsetting scene of human disaster given the history. The engine fell to the bottom of the watercourse which is really unbelievable.

basalamant on Jul, 2020

The track is generally well marked with new pink ribbons and/or foot traffic making navigation easy, with the exception of a short section about half way up the ridgeline.

Foot traffic seems to stop at the rock cairn with the tin box Ipswich Catholic Bushwalking Club that also marks the Nth Peak Bush Camp, but both Garmin base map and QTopo seem to place the true submit about 600 m SW. There is a taller rock cairn here that is nestled in a small patch of tree ferns (S28° 13.30' E152° 27.37'). Likely easiest approached from the Lincoln Bomber track before cutting across.

If you intend to go past the first cairn, make sure you take a compass or GPS unit as the top is fairly featureless, track to the wreckage is poorly marked and on cloudy days it would be very hard to get a bearing.

Alan on 4 Jun, 2020

Comment below describes the walk well.

DO NOT miss the rock arrow on the ground to the left of the path. The path veers to the left up onto the ridge from here. It is possible to get through if you lose the trail, just remember the ridge is to the left. A GPS is advisable, because it is very very easy to lose the trail on the way up.

At the top, the Superbus summit is not far from the junction of the paths. You will head up a steeper section, and immediately at the top there is a clearing on the right (west) side of the path. The metal tin marks the spot. The path then continues onto the bomber (seems to be about 45 mins of walking additional each way).

ct__ on 31 May, 2020

On weekends there will be cars parked at Teviot Lookout and Brett Rd entrance, a hundred yards away. Enter thru the steel gate, head up the road 100 metres, and then turn right just before the second gate. From here head thru a space in the lantana, cross the bridge, go around a fallen tree, then, 75 metres past the bridge, turn left. You'll see an arrow made of rocks on the ground. Follow this track up the ridge. As there has been a fire here recently, there are hardly any pink ribbons so you have to follow very faint trails for a while. A bit tricky in this area, Then it heads steeply uphill and the track becomes clearer and stays that way to the top. Near the top, you can turn right to Mt Roberts and LIzard Point. Fantastic views I am told. Mt Superbus is the left trail, about 10 mins away. There is a bit of a view on the way to the summit but not much. At the summit, there is a small cairn and a tin box with notebooks and pens.

Jeff on 18 May, 2020

Went to do this yesterday from Teviot Gap but there is a sign saying the track is closed due to bushfire concerns. Of not, there was a firw going up the hill to to Teviot Gap, but looked like a controlled burn. Does anyone know anything more about this?

Shane on 16 Apr, 2020

Easy to follow the wrong path without instructions or GPS map, though well signed with many ribbons to the summit.

JayWalker on 6 Oct, 2019

My motivation for doing this walk was mainly because it is the highest peak in SEQ but found it to be much more than that. The directions given are pretty good and although the track was not always clear, I found no real difficulty in navigation. When the track didn't seem clear, stopping and looking around soon made it fairly obvious. After a short break we headed back to the junction then continued on to Mt Roberts and for me this was the best part of the hike with plenty of interesting terrain. Even though there was only one spot where there was any views, I really enjoyed the day. Total altitude gain for the day was over 1500m including a side track, even though the start is about 800metres above sea level, making it quite a bit more than Barney, I thought it quite a bit easier. Unfortunately one of the young guys had to work in the afternoon so we couldn't make it to Lizard Point for the views so will need to do this again.

jgmansell on 22 Jun, 2019

Fantastic walk, we started at Head Road, and after getting to Mt Superbus we then headed to to Mt Roberts and stayed at Lizard South Remote Camp

EchidnaScout on 2 Jun, 2019

Decided to approach it another way so went via the Emu Creek track. I know sometimes you see written on this site 4wd only but it's really not too bad...well this was not one of those times, that road pushed my pool little Forester to the limit. The walk started off quite nicely with a decent track but it doesn't take long for the track to become fairly intermittent and you spend a lot of time reintercepting it. If you intend on going there and just winging it following the coloured tape, pack a tent, you'll be there for a while.

So pretty soon you get to the steep part and it's not too bad, special thanks to whoever put all the rope up, would have been a lot trickier without it. After about 90 minutes (since the carpark) you get to the wreckage of the Lincoln Bomber which is actually pretty impressive considering it's been there for so long. A lot better preserved than the Piper Commanche up Mt Glorious.

So from here I decided to duck up to the peak of Superbus, easier said than done though. The walk from the plane wreck to the summit was like an hour! And you spend alot of it getting misplaced (easier on the way back, the coloured tape seems to favour people coming from Superbus to the crash). It made me appreciate the dodgy track at the bottom of the mountain a lot more cause the one up the top is way worse. There were a few viewing points along the way, certainly not going to win first prize in a National Geographic competition with any photo you take up there though. I found the little box at the summit that had a couple of notebooks, a pair of glasses and an ants nest in it.

So the way back down was interesting, don't consider myself a supernatural sort of guy but did hear footsteps a lot and kept seeing shadows which put me a bit of edge. I picked up my pace but kept getting caught on lantana (insert expletive!!) then had a brown snake slither out of the lantana over my foot (insert louder expletive!!!!). Wasn't the last snake I saw either, next one was a massive red belly black snake. So I guess you could saw that significantly slowed my pace but then as the sun began to set and the light began to dim I heard wild dogs howling from not far up the track where I had just come from. So my pace picked up again until I got to the car. Glad I did it, won't be back!

Vonsnrub on 5 Mar, 2019

Great comments from previous hiker. The hardest thing was to find the entrance from the logger road. We marked the trail entrance with a rock arrow. Extremely muddy today after a storm. Skid city

HellsBells on 18 Nov, 2018

("Hellsbells" is talking about "MDWL" 's comments) This was the second time I have walked this trek, first time was a one day trek but this one was an overnighter with a full heavy pack....not for the faint hearted! Made it to the northern campsite (just!) in the afternoon and decided to camp there overnight. Next morning we left our packs and trekked to the summit (small silver box) and then on to the Lincoln wreck. Had a good look over the wreck site and trekked back to our packs and back down the mountain back to our vehicle. Enjoyed the trek but I was tired and sore afterwards...will do it again coming up the other side

Andrew.P on 24 Aug, 2018

Where

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