Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Girraween National Park

Bold Rock Creek Camping Area
We took a long weekend off to go to the Girraween National Park. Girraween is part of a huge area called the Granite Belt with a spectacular landscape and massive granite boulders everywhere around. The National Park is about 250km south of Brisbane at the border to New South Wales.

You can easily get access via the New England Highway between north of Tenterfield and south of Stanthorpe. We camped at the Bald Rock Creek camp site the first camping area on the left hand side when you come into the park. We did not need to worry to find a nice camp spot. At this time of the year it was not busy at all so there was plenty of space and just a bunch of people.

The camping area has got facilities, hot showers, tables and fire places, but be prepared and bring your own fire wood. There is also water available but you need to boil it before you can drink it.

Fringe Myrtle
The Girraween National Park offers a couple of good walking tracks and we did two of them. The first walk to the Junction where Ramsay Creek joins Bald Rock Creek was a walk along the creek side. Big rocks and boulders are dominating the landscape. Due to the spring season everything was blossoming. Along the walking tracks where lovely native bush flowers. It was kind of an ocean of yellow, white and red flowers.

The Arch
The second walk we did lead us to the First Pyramid and the Arch. The Arch is a natural rock formation which looks like some giant put them together like a card house forming a natural arch. The walking track to the First Pyramid is quite challenging because its steepness. Unfortunately we did not get to the top of the Pyramid because it was just to steep and we did not feel confident to climb to the top. Besides I am affraid of heights and that did not help either. At least we both passed the chicken rock and we definitely going to attempt that one again next time.