Day 5 - Girraween National Park

We left the tent set up at Bald Rock and drove up to Girraween National Park to climb the Pyramid. Ryan has been here lots of times, but he did tell me that the first time he visited with his family (aged around 10) he was too scared to climb and instead waited at the bottom with his grandmother (awwwwwww...).

 

We tailed a group of school kids most of the way, and when we reached the rock itself, we found them climbing directly up the steep face (in groups of three, holding hands). We elected to take the marked trail around to the left. This still involved creeping across the exposed rockface with any slip promising a long slide over the edge (not helped by the still-present slippery morning dew in the shadows).

The views from the top were spectacular (as expected).

 

We looped back through Tenterfield, then decided to take a look at Basket Swamp National Park. Ryan remembered visiting here as a kid and finding a waterfall hidden along a 4WD track (which also happened to be overrun with naked hippies at the time). He was sure that we would never be able to find it, and I think he was a little disappointed to find "Basket Swamp Falls" clearly marked on the signpost at the entry to the park.

It was possible to drive to the top of the falls via 12km of pretty rough dirt, but the road to the bottom was barred with a locked gate. Fortunately it wasn't a huge distance, so we simply jumped the gate and walked down. I was glad to find that we had the place to ourselves (not a hippie in sight).

 

We also stopped in at Boonoo Boonoo Falls on our way back to Bald Rock. There was a series of cascades over a long expanse of broken rock, then a massive fall into the valley - unfortunately the views were quite limited, so that we could only glimpse parts of the water through the trees. The lookout down into the valley was quite spectacular though.

 

With dusk approaching, we made our way back to our tent at Bald Rock and braced ourselves for another evening of terror at the hands (paws) of the evil quoll. Our friend never showed, but this time we had half-a-dozen possums for company. We've never experienced so much wildlife at a single campsite.