The plan had been to visit Lamington National Park, in the south east corner of Queensland. Firstly because it is a fantastic spot and secondly because my dad has never been to Queensland. Unfortunately bad weather was forecast to hit the coast and instead we decided to take our party inland to good old Capertee Valley that once again delivered an excellent combo of camping and nature galore - so apart from missing his Queensland tick, dad was not cheated in any way.
We had left Sydney Friday afternoon, which made it possible to reach the campground in Glen Davis before sunset, indeed we were able to pitch both tents and cook a bit of gnocchi goodness before it got dark. After a big sleep and a solid serve of Gemma's signature breakfast dish we were ready for a big Saturday in the shoes.
We had opted for a walk deep into the valley, trying to push as far in as we could possibly do in a single day allowing time to get back out again. It proved to be an excellent idea! :-)
We managed to spend 8 hours walking that Saturday - 5 hours in and 3 hours getting back out of the valley again. The path is excellent - some would even argue that it is boringly good, guess it doubles as a maintenance track for the national park rangers supposedly being able to take a (good!) 4 wheel drive through. Nevertheless after a few hours of walking you feel the valley starting to narrow in on you and you get that fantastic feeling of being properly "into the wild" :-)
The secret to a good bit of bushwalking is to be well prepared! Always bring enough water and the usual survival gear. Knowing the mob I was traveling with this particular Saturday I also knew that as long as weather was good and there was plenty of food spirits would be high - As is quite evident from the picture above, both criteria were met! :-D
Great day in the shoes and as you can imagine there was heaps more to see than just the landscape stuff I have attached to this post, will put together a wildlife post shortly.
