Another set of school holidays come to a close, and as usual, the kids are enthusiastic to return to school, receive homework, and return to normal home chores routines.
Sorry, for a moment I thought I was writing a fiction piece. The boys are not so enthusiastic for the holidays to end, and we’ve had a fairly full holiday period.
We started the holidays with a Parkrun, something we have all made good progress with. Jack, in particular, has improved his times and has been wanting to improve his times further. He bumped into friends from school and they noticed how much more stamina he has.
Jack had missed getting his school photo taken earlier in the year, so we went to the photography studio to get his photo taken. The first weekday in the holidays and he had to dress in school uniform, not the way he wanted to start the holidays.
Since the studio was on the south side of Brisbane we visited a couple of brown sign destinations over that way, starting at Norfolk Point at Manly. There was plenty of fisherman along the point, we only caught a few photos then acquired some fish the more reliable method, along with chips, calamari and a seafood stick.
We then headed towards Fort Lytton, but as often happens we went passed another brown sign before we got there, to Wynnum Mangrove Boardwalk. The boardwalk through the mangroves took about 30mins, and we were treated with a high tide with water reaching right through the walk.
At the end of the boardwalk, it led us to another section with a bird hide. We didn’t see too many birds but were treated with a hawk of some sort.
Fort Lytton National Park was really interesting, but our timing wasn’t ideal. On Sundays, they have a dramatic play with actors in colonial dress, and a museum and kiosk are open. For the school holidays they had a program for kids 3 days during the week, but not the day we were there.
You can wander around any weekday and have a look around, but the museum and kiosk are not open. You can still see quite a lot around the grounds, and information boards help provide some of the histories of Fort Lytton.
Brown Signs Road Trip
During the second week, we took a trip to Cania Gorge, hunting for more brown signs further out from home. On the way, we stopped at Gayndah for lunch at the Big Orange and dropped into the museum in Gayndah. We also went to McConnell Lookout with views over the Burnett River.
Already off schedule to be able to set up camp before sunset, we spotted another sign in Eidsvold for Kirar Weir. We lost the destination, not noticing a turn because the sign had been removed. Asking some campers at a free camp we were able to backtrack and find the weir.
We eventually arrived at the BIG4 caravan park in Cania Gorge, 15mins after the office closed. Our site information was pinned to the board and set up easy enough. The open-air movie under the stars had already started but the boys weren’t interested in the movie they had on, so we settled in inside the camper and watched a movie there.
Walking Trails at Cania Gorge
The plan for our first day at Cania Gorge was to do as many of the walks as possible, excluding the largest walk of 22km return. The first was a short 1km return walk to Big Foot, a colourisation of a rock face that looks like a big footprint.
The boys were adamant that bigfoot is real and we have to be careful. They insisted that if we see Bigfoot I am not allowed to take a photo, or if I do it has to be blurry. Apparently, no one has taken a clear photo of Bigfoot and only people who take blurry photos survive.
The next walk from the next location was the Fern Tree Pool circuit, with the Giant’s Chair Lookout on the way. Going clockwise we started with a steep climb up to the lookout first, most of the trail in the form of steps. When there were no steps it sloped upwards. All of us were relieved to find a picnic table near the lookout where we could have a break while admiring the views.
Daniel was not impressed the trail continued to go higher after the lookout, but the gentle slope was only for a while before we started to go down again. We reached the Fern Tree Pool and took another break to take in the scene. Jack brought our attention to a bird in a tree and said we needed to take a photo. Daniel agreed.
The next set of walks were from another starting point, a picnic area less than 1km from where we were. There is a walking trail to it, but there are toilets at the picnic area and is where we would be having lunch so we drove to be based there. By this stage, we had already walked about 7km.
From the picnic area, we crossed the road for the Two Storey Cave walk. Again we found ourselves walking steeply up the side of the mountain. This time it didn’t go as high, instead, the main part of the walk is along the base of the exposed cliffs. At one section part of the cliff has broken off and instead of crumbling down the hill it stopped with the higher part leaning back to the cliff wall to form a ceiling, and the lower part sitting perpendicular to the cliff wall that you walk behind.
Just passed this around the corner, a few steps go along the side of a block of rock. Turn the next corner and you look up a long crevice behind the cliff, called King Orchid Crevice. From the crevice, you can look outwards through two more crevices in the rock with beautiful colours exposed from the rocks.
Of the Two Storey Cave itself, we couldn’t see why it was named but was interesting. There is an Aboriginal art handprint in the cave, but the only mention of Aboriginal art in Cania Gorge describes them as weathered, faded, and fragile, so this may not be genuine.
After some sandwiches for lunch, we started on the next couple of walks. The first 1/2 kilometre was the same for both, and as I started to head to Dripping Rock and The Overhang, Jack and Daniel insisted we should be heading the other way towards Dragon Cave and Bloodwood Cave first. The names held intrigue and promise of something special.
After more than 8km of walking already done before lunch, the steps were taller, the slopes were steeper, and the walks were that much longer. It was one kilometre to Dragon Cave but it felt like two. When we got there Jack didn’t want to go into the cave, unimpressed the name was misleading. Daniel couldn’t get in there fast enough and kept asking Jack to join him – “you have to see it from here Jack”. We figured the black coloured shapes on the back wall of the cave can be interpreted as a dragon.
The next kilometre to Bloodwood Cave felt like another two. Reaching Bloodwood Cave we saw a shallow 3-4 foot high cave. After all the walking we had already done for the day I wasn’t interested in crouching in a low ceiling cave. Danny popped in and then stood up with his top disappearing. After the initial mouth of the cave, it opened up with a 10-12 foot ceiling. I couched down and hopped in with him, Jack looked after the backpack.
After Bloodwood Cave we headed to Gorge Lookout, which detours from the trail between Dragon Cave and Bloodwood Cave. It is the start of the 22km walk, but only 1/2 kilometre return to the Gorge Lookout. There are a lot of steps at first, then is mostly uphill slope the rest of the way. Jack found a seat 50m from the lookout and stayed there. On seeing the views at the lookout, Daniel declared “well this is disappointing” with much of the views obscured by trees, and told Jack he hasn’t missed anything.
We headed back and started our walk towards Dripping Rock and The Overhang. Dripping Rock is a rock with water dripping off of it. It didn’t impress any of us, but as we got closer to The Overhang we were treated with displays of colour exposed in the cliff rocks.
The final descent is down rock steps along a high wall of rock down to a creek. Turn around the corner at the bottom and the overhanging cliff with the creek running underneath it is revealed. The rock shows a display of yellows and oranges, and you can walk 100m or so upstream.
Heading back to the picnic area, we debated the two remaining walks on our list to do. We walked the short 300m circuit walk along the creek at the picnic area, deciding to leave the Shamrock Mine walk near Cania Dam for another day.
After 15-16km of walking, much of it having steep climbs and steps, we were ready for heading back to camp for some rest before the next day’s adventure. I was ready to sit back and relax for a while. I thought the boys were too but they headed straight for the jumping pillow and bounced around for nearly an hour. We all slept well that night.
Keep an eye out for part 2, when we went four wheel driving at Kroombit Tops and chased a bunyip to its hole.
