Our trip leader Cos could have not chosen a better spot to start the weekend as the Saturday markets provided an interesting diversion as we gathered. We soon headed north from Kilcoy to the start of Sunday Creek Road through the Conondale National Park.
The morning was clear and sunny, however storms the night before had obviously been considerably more violent than what we experienced back at home. There was a considerable amount of green leaf litter on Sunday Creek Road. In a previous trip we visited a washed out bridge that joined Sunday /creek Road to the track to Booloumba Falls. The bridge has since been repaired and provided a shortcut to the Falls - however there were a few minor obstacles to overcome on the way. For the first time in many trips I didn't bother to take my trusty little chainsaw - fortunately Cos had his trusty carpenters hand saw.
The walk down to the falls gave us a chance to stretch our legs. The water was noticeably muddier than previous visits - probably due to the storms.
We travelled on down past the Booloumba campgrounds to Charlie Morelands and set up camp.
Later in the day we set off back along Sunday Creek Road and explored a few tracks that ran off towards forestry areas.
The night was pretty cold but we were well set up - Tim even brought along his own street light for us to sit under.
On Sunday morning we got an early start and tried a few tracks around Charlie Morelands but the lack of sun through the trees kept the ground wet and muddy and very slippery. We decided that we'd pack up camp even though the tents were still wet as they were likely to remain that way through a good portion of the day and head off to explore down towards Bellthorpe.
We thought we had found a nice little shortcut via Grigor Road through the southern part of the Conondale National Park. It was definitely a very scenic and interesting road and the Friday night storm had obviously been even more severe down in this area.
At one stage we had stopped 4 times within 200 meters to remove fallen trees. And they just kept getting bigger..... and all we had was a handsaw and winches.
By this stage a yellow FJ Cruiser had caught up with us - having had a much clearer path following us. However the final couple of kilometers will have to await another trip. The final barrier was one that we didn't even try to remove - and no way around, over or under. We turned around and made our way back the way we came to the bitumen.
A terrific trip - thanks to Cos for leading it.
