17th November 2010
Before I continue with the blog about Sprinbrook National Park, I thought I would share with you some names I gave to our fellow campers at the site: The Sticky Beaks Camping Elitists, The European Backpackers, Jucy Lesbians (Yup us) and The Three Bears Camping Spot Thieves - more did arrive later, however we didn't get a chance to get to know them. as we didn't see them in person.
We woke up to birdsong, which is a pleasant way to wake up in a National Park and this morning we had decided to go and do the Twin Falls circuit a 4km walk. We drove to Canyon lookout, one of the areas you can start this trek through the sub tropical rainforest and prepared ourselves for the walk.
Now this track is meant to be for people with a reasonable amount of fitness and wearing ankle supporting footwear. We would say we're not the fittest walkers in the camp but our joy of walking, the chance to take some amazing photographic pictures and to walk behind waterfalls would keep us walking and if the 4km trek took us longer or double the maximum walking time stated then would be happy that we had exercised and seen some amazing sites. Its estimated to take 1.5 - 2 hours to do the trek, we would be taking photographs and stopping to enjoy the views, so we estimated it would take us between 3 - 3 1/2 hours to complete.
Prior to starting out we had made sure we had plenty of sunscreen, drinking water, some food, and wet weather/warm clothes, it's advisable to do this in case of changes in conditions or emergencies. this is a link to the walking tracks at Springbrook National Park http://www.derm.qld.gov.au/parks/springbrook/pdf/springbrook-inset-maps.pdf you will need adobe PDF reader to see this click here if you don't have Adobe PDF reader http://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/ .
We spotted this family of skinks on the edge of the rocks at Canyon Lookout, this was our first close encounter with the wildlife in Springbrook National Park. We then took the steps to the right of the lookout following the track in an anti-clockwise position, as advised on the walking track guide. The walking track is made up of natural path and some steps with occasional gravel areas or natural stone paths. You will go down quite a way in the sub-tropical rainforest on this circuit, so if you have unsure footing then do not attempt this walk. Also the path can get quite slippery in parts as well as muddy.
On our trek down towards the part where the Tallanbana picnic area track joins the Twin Fall circuit path we spied another skink, this time on its own and much bigger than the previous family of skinks. We crossed some brooks and continued on our journey downhill to the top of the Twin Falls.
From the top of the Twin falls you then follow the path down into the valley of the sub-tropical rainforest, down through some natural caves towards the bottom of the twins.
We went through the back of the Falls cascading down into the valley, past more babbling brooks, past the Rainbow Falls, into more caves, past more babbling brooks until we reached the bottom of the Twin Falls and rested for a while allowing the water to bless our faces with is cooling fizz.
Once refreshed by the Twin Falls cooling waters, we carried on through more caves on the cliff edge, past Tarzan Vines, following the local Ancestors walk, down and up past trees that had fallen towards Blackfellow Falls.
Blackfella falls is very slippery at the bottom and we did have a little wobble on the rocks, thankfully we were okay, we were on our way back up towards the Canyon Lookout where we started.
On the way to the top of Blackfellow Falls we saw some Yabbies in the creek and all along the walk the deafening sounds of 100's of 1000's of cicadas shrilling at the top of their voice. We first spotted cicada wings, then cicada's flying and eventually a cicada at another lookout.
The above is a small video clip I made with the audio clip I had and some of my photographs of the cicada sound to give you an idea of the noise, best heard with headphones on.
The above video shows a leaf we saw swirling in the brook
After a 3 hour walk we made it back up to the top, we just sat and enjoyed the view for a while and as it was still quite early we decided to also go and see the "best of all Lookout" this lookout was in Queensland yet just across from the lookout was Northern NSW and Mount Warning plus some Antarctic Beech Trees that were over 1500 years old!
Well after all that trekking we headed back to camp for a hearty lunch Sausage, onion, mushroom and bread lunch - only issue with exercise it makes you extremely hungry. We rested and re-cooperated for tea we had sandwhich, then we watched a movie with some popcorn. Before going to bed we decided to go for a night walk stretch and then slept.
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