This is the second part of our trip to Cania Gorge in the July 2018 school holidays, continued from part 1…
Kroombit Tops 4WD Trails
The following day had less walking involved, opting to use the Jeep for most of the effort. Leaving camp we headed north on the back roads towards Kroombit Tops, following the brown signs leading the way. The roads were mainly through cattle country and varied from wide graded gravel roads to tracks where the grass was growing in the wheel tracks too.
There were plenty of gates that needed opening and closing, and Jack learnt many different methods used to close gates. He asked why Daniel didn’t have to open and close gates too, and I told him it is one of the prices you have to pay to be the passenger in the front seat.
Eventually, the gates stopped and we entered Kroombit Tops National Park and began the climb to the “top”. We arrived at the first walk of the day, a short 300m walk through a dense rainforest, then half an hour later the next walk to Kroombit Tops Lookout, an even shorter 100m walk.
We admired the views before heading back to the Jeep and decided to have lunch early, as we didn’t expect to be at the next stop for a while and there were no facilities there. At least we had picnic tables, a toilet, and good views while we waited for our sausages to cook. Portable stoves are not very useful for a quick lunch, and what was to be an early lunch became a late lunch.
After lunch, we set off on the 20km 4wd only track towards the WWII bomber crash site. The road was good most of the way and passable by most 2wd vehicles up until the last couple of kilometres, even then it is only one steep section which has wood boards across the track.
The return track passed The Wall campgrounds is a different story, with a steep descent with whoa boys. It isn’t difficult, but not ideal for low clearance vehicles, and low range helps for the descent.
The bomber crash site is the remains of Beautiful Betsy, a B-24D Liberator bomber that went missing in 1945 returning to Brisbane from Darwin on a “fat-cat” run, delivering supplies such as fresh fruit, alcohol, and ice-cream to military personnel. It wasn’t discovered until 1994, a mystery for nearly 50 years.
Most of the plane broke into scattered pieces with a few large items such as the engines, landing gear, and communications equipment staying somewhat intact. A large part of the tail section is the only part of the fuselage that remained intact, and the wings sitting either side of it. Information boards around the scattered wreckage provide the story of Beautiful Betsy, the personnel on board, and how it is suspected it crashed.
With our “long lunch” setting us behind schedule, we set off to head back out from the crash site, and on toward Razorback Ridge. Razorback Ridge is a 4wd dry weather only track, that runs along the ridges of the mountain hills of Kroombit Tops, and comes out at the western end towards Biloela. At one point we were looking at views left and right of the Jeep at the same time, with the ground running steeply away from the track on both sides.
Razorback Ridge takes a while to get through, and there are some spots you will want to stop for some photos or enjoy the views on the way. It took about 2 hours to get to the edge of the national park, and another 1/2 hour through private property, some along riverbed stones, to get to a public road. We stopped at a high point on sunset for some photos, which left the last hour in the dark before getting out to Burnett Hwy.
The track is not difficult, but it is quite steep in places requiring low range at times to maintain better control of speed. I haven’t been offroad too much the last couple of years, so I enjoyed the drive quite a lot, and the views are rewarding. Jack had a few more gates to open and close on the way out, confidently recognising the methods used, “I got this, I’ve done one of these before!”.
We had planned to go to Mt Scoria near Thangool if we had time, but it was well and truly dark once we got there. We aired up the tyres, and dropped into a servo in Thangool to clear out the last of their pies for dinner, and headed back to camp at Cania Gorge.
Bunyip Hole Rest Day
The next day was a “rest day”. On the first day, we spotted a couple of bunyip brown signs at Mulgildie and a sign north of Monto for Hurdle Gully Lookout. We slept in a little later and had a cooked breakfast (SPAM and eggs).
In Mulgildie, we stopped at the Bunyip Statue. Jack said he was very disappointed because it looked nothing like what he thought a bunyip should look like. I asked what should a bunyip look like and he said he didn’t know but not like that.
The brown sign for Bunyip Hole was on the corner where the Bunyip Statue was, so we started to follow the signs. 10km on we crossed over Bunyip Bridge and saw what I thought would be Bunyip Hole, but there were no signs. We continued on for a little before returning and noticing a signpost with no sign. Seems to be a problem with some signs when there is no souvenir shop.
While at the Bunyip Hole, a council truck pulled up to fill up with water. The driver said an Aboriginal mate of his will not go in the water or fish there, afraid of being taken by the bunyip. He offered him a couple of grand to swim in the water and was told no way, you would never come back.
We then headed to Hurdle Gully Lookout and had lunch looking out at the views, before heading back to BIG4 so the boys could go to the water park. It was cold and didn’t make sense to go in the pool but with some persistence, they got used to the water and had fun with a few other brave children.
Dam Mine Smelter Bat Tunnel
We woke to a very chilly -1 degrees, with an icy frosting on the bonnet and windscreen of the Jeep. I knew it was cold because our fan heater was struggling to keep the camper warm during the early hours. After a hot coffee, an iced coffee by the time I got to the bottom of the mug, I woke the boys and had another coffee. Who’s idea was it to have cereal with icy cold milk for breakfast on the last day?
After packing up, and the boys had a last jump on the jumping pillow, we headed off to Cania Dam a short drive from the caravan park. We didn’t stay long, just a quick stop to check it out for the brown signs, including an extra unexpected sign for a scenic lookout over the dam.
We then stopped at the Shamrock Mine walk, our last walk at Cania Gorge we skipped two days earlier. The walk is up a vehicle sized track most of the way, then narrows to a goat track size looking at the mine and crusher.
The mine has a large mesh grate over it so you can look down into the mine and not fall in. I tried to get a photo with the lens close to the grate so the grate isn’t in the photo and unknowing to me the lens cap slipped through the grate. When I pulled the camera up the lens cap didn’t come up with it, falling into the dark depths of the mine. If that isn’t annoying enough, the photo didn’t even turn out that good. I decided to take one more to get a better photo, I didn’t notice what appeared in the photo until after we arrived home.
We took a different route home than when we came to Cania Gorge to see if we could find more brown signs. Our next stop was Mount Perry. We didn’t notice any signs until we got to Mount Perry itself for an old copper smelter site.
There isn’t much left of the smelter site, most of it salvaged when it was decommissioned. The ground, however, is covered in rough slabs of tile-like copper slag. They look purposefully shaped and laid, and the cross-section shows the layers.
Continuing on towards Gin Gin, I was looking out for another brown sign destination that I was sure I had become aware of previously. Sometimes I find out about a place of interest and expect there should be a brown sign for it but find there is none. I was hoping this was not one of those times.
We came to the road I suspected was the other end of the road we wanted, Tunnel Rd. The white sign saying Gin Gin via Tunnel wasn’t promising, but I hoped there would be a better sign on the other side. We were definitely come in from the other end, with lots of gates needing the navigator to open and close for us to get through. Luckily the navigator had plenty of practice the day before.
Finally, we reached Boolboonda Tunnel, a railway line tunnel cut for the line from Bundaberg to Mount Perry for the copper industry. We parked and equipped ourselves with headlamp torches and walked through the tunnel on foot.
The 102-metre tunnel gets dark quickly and silent if it were not for the echoing sounds from our footsteps. Along the way, we starting hearing squeaky chirps every now and then. Tiny Bent-wing bats use the tunnel, some clung to the wall by themselves, others huddled in a large group for warmth.
On the other side, we found a sign which was painted brown – not a proper roadway brown sign. I sort of figured it is near enough, it was bigger than most brown signs anyway. We walked back through then drove through the tunnel to continue on to Gin Gin. Back on the main road, we found a proper roadway brown sign too. All is good again!
In Gin Gin we found another brown sign for Gin Gin’s historical village. Already late afternoon, we had a quick wander around before heading on towards home. We were wondering if we may be home for dinner, but at this stage didn’t seem likely.
Jack and Daniel were not too fussed on getting home late but saw an opportunity with our late timetable. This put us in Gympie around dinner time. I suggested stopping for some stale meat pies from a servo but all you can eat Pizza Hut in Gympie was put forward as another option.
We were late home but had Sunday morning to sleep in a little and chill for a day before school on Monday. We had big days on our venture but we had lots of fun and discovered a lot of places to enjoy our Australian backyard. We’re already looking forward to the next one, wherever the brown signs lead us.
