Hiking - 2020 06 - Ballow Creek Junction (Mt Barney NP)

Thought it was time for another over night hike as it had been a few months. Managed to convince a few others to go with me too which is nice. Had perfect weather; crisp clear Brisbane winter day. Blue skies abound. 

I had thought Barney Creek Junction would have been nice. A good 8km, Lower portals along the way. Goat track all the way to camp. Sadly when I went to book camps it was already half full. Scratching for other ideas I found Ballow Creek. Sparse information but some old notes said established rainforest camp so sounded good.  

Only a short 6km to the camp so we decided to have a later start. Leaving from the Gold Coast through Canungra, took a bit longer than expected but we reached the bottom of Waterfall Creek camp 20 past 12 and headed up to Cleared Ridge. Camp sites were fairly full, I guess lots of people getting out post covid, and there were a few walkers on the 4wd track to the top. The condition of the track has deteriorated a lot since I was last up here. Just over a year ago.  

Eventually we get going and knock over the 4km to Yamahra Creek pretty easy before we turn off for the 'short' 2k to camp. We started with a fairly well defined goat track but it disappeared after 200 or so meters. From there it was following the creek as best you could. Swapping sides, hopping up the centre, finding the path of least resistance. There were lots and lots of fallen trees making it very difficult to push through. Vines slippery rocks and a few hesitations on crossings made for tough, slow, going. The last 2 km took us almost 2.5 hours.  

We got to the Junction, with only my pair of shoes still dry, but didn't spy the 'established' sites. We found a few semi-suitable and they definitely had been slept at before but they were over grown and fairly tight amongst the other trees. In the valley is was starting to get dark before we finished setting up and just as we were done it was head torch time. Cut it a little close, but we made it.  Temp dropped a bit, however it was actually warmer than I expected. Sun was gone for a good 1.5 hours before I reached for my puffy.  

The 4 of us sat about for dinner, various easy to eat meals like Mac n Cheese, pasta, CousCous and 2min noodles. We stayed up chatting for a little bit before retiring to our tents. Temperature didn't drop too low over night. Min/Max Thermometer read 5°C as the coldest (outside the tent) but I felt pretty warm inside. It was only in the wee hours of the morning, just after sunrise, where I felt the chill of the cold morning.  

We had a very easy morning, lying in bed until past 8am, unheard of at camping usually! With breakfast out of the way the sky decided it was time for these smelly hikers to have a shower. I'll have to have a word with the folks over at BOM as it was meant to be a clear sunny weekend!  

With a fresh coating of rain, on top of the morning dew, the rocks were even more slippery than yesterday! It was really slow going for a while and we decided that maybe we could cut across a small ridge to avoid one of the worst bends of the river. It looked goood for about 5 min but then we hit vines... and prickles. Lots of prickles. They weren't new ones to me but I can't remember seeing them often. They had really small, splinter sized burs on a larger head. As soon as they got you the little spurs broke off and dug into your clothes and started to scratch away at your skin.   

After being covered in them, thinking that was bad, we reached some rainforest vine, wait-a-while and even, just for good measure I guess, some thickets of Lantana! It made getting back to the river quite a bit more difficult. Eventually down the other side of the ridge though and once again into the creek. It was my turn to take a misstep and feel just how cold the water was... not too bad. From then on it made things easier for me, they couldn't get more wet. The creek was still hard work though, rocks still slippery and many many fallen trees.

It was odd, there were some parts (seemingly random) along the creek where trees had been cut by chainsaws. No obvious trail near them and we couldn't work out why some were cut and others (that looked to be the same vintage) were left untouched. It wasn't just one or two close to the nearest Vehicle access (Yamahra Creek for Rangers) but some much further up, while closer ones went wanting. 

We actually made better time heading down stream, getting back to the main Upper Portals Track just on the 2hr mark. We stopped for a bite for lunch, some camped in the nearby campsite were still in the process of packing up. Others had obviously left just before... and left a smouldering fire. I had a bit of extra water so doused what I could before we set off back up to Cleared Ridge. 

The hill is just about how I remember it. Long and steep. We took our time going up (though Callan and Thomas seemed to power on!) and eventually made it back to the cars. After this trip, the fact that they were already well loved, and the numerous (like thousands) of little spur prickles I decided to retire my hiking shorts. Even after a shower I can still feel the spurs in the back of my leg. Hopefully just phantom pain though... or they might be with me a while.  

Certainly a more difficult off trail hike and probably should of picked a slightly easier one to ease a few people into it. Despite the prickles and soggy shoes I'm keen to head back and see if I could make it to the next camp (a further 2km up the creek) to a place called T Junction. Would definitely need an early start for it though! Maybe even night hike into Yahamra, then had a full day to get up the creek. Some other time though!

Hiking – 2015 12 19 – Mt Barney

After doing a day trip to the East Peak many many years ago an overnight hike up Mt Barney, hitting both East and West and camping in the Rum Jungle, has been on my todo list for a long time. The weekend of the 19th, with the company of my brother, I was finally able to tick it off.

Quick Stats;
Full Album - Imgur
(Base) Pack Weight - 6.5kg
Distance - 16.3km
Elevation Gain - 1,319m
Total Moving time - 13hrs
Ticks - 1
Leeches - 2 (only 1 latched on)

Day 1
Despite wanting to start during the cool of the morning I slept in and in the end we only left home at about 7:15. By 9:20 we had our shoes and packs on and were just about to head off. Before we had a chance to lock the car there was a hiker just finishing up her own overnight hike. Chatted a bit about conditions and she let us know that the creek near Rum Jungle was flowing pretty well. This was good news as it allowed me to ditch a little water, as I could filter more at the top.

Thomas had recently bought a new pack (Osprey Exos) so we were only about 1km into the trek before we started making a few micro-adjustments to straps to make it sit better. Getting a pack fitted in a store is great, but until you have hiked a bit in it with a full load, you'll likely never get it quite right. Not too far after, we passed the National Park sign with a good view of the East peak behind it.

Not too long after the sign we passed Cronan creek camping spots, pulling into #10 to make some final adjustments to Thomas' pack. It's a really nice spot here, close easy walk from the car park. Would make a really good 'introduction to Hiking' spot I think if anyone is keen to give it a go, but not ready to take on a big challenge. Another few hundred meters and we reached the turn for the South 'Pheasants' Ridge and begun our ascent.

By 11:30 I was more than ready to stop for lunch. We found a nice little shady spot at around the 690m elevation mark. Muesli bars and Beef Jerky for me. Easy, tasty, quick, light. Before too long we re-commenced our climb, only ~430m up to go! As we were nearing the saddle we passed a group of 4 heading down. They had come up the South-East ridge this morning, over East peak and were happy to be making their decent.

Some bits on the trek up were steeper than others. A few sections required what I would call almost climbing, but most was a scramble at best.

We arrived to an empty Rum Jungle just before 2pm (4.5 hours from the carpark), dropped our packs and explored the area a little. Relatively clean site, considering. Some rubbish around, which was disappointing, but not much. We headed down to the creek (~200m north of Rum Jungle) then followed it upstream for a little while to get some good water to filter. I use a Platypus Gravity filter, which filled our containers pretty quickly. A few people suggest drinking from clear flowing creeks near the tops of mountains is safe... but for the minimal effort it takes to filter (especially as people would 'tend to nature' at the peak) this hiker suggest you always filter. Even if it looks good.




After a quick afternoon snack we were about to set off to the West peak. Thomas noticed a leech had attached but it dropped off fairly easy. Heat (Lighter/Match) or salt works really well if they're being stubborn. The track to the peak was a little hard to follow at times, finding an odd piece of flagging tape occasionally suggesting a route. Without packs we were travelling a little bit quicker! From the rum Jungle we had made it to the highest point on Mt Barney (1359m) in under 50min. Mostly covered in shrubs obstructing the view south, but North and West had a pretty good view, including parts of Maroon Dam.






Just under 35min to make it back down to camp. After setting up our tents and getting settled in the wind started to pick up a little and brought with it a nice cool breeze. I took the easy route for dinner this weekend and had a freeze dried meal, Spaghetti Bog. Thomas opted for noodles. We were cooking as the light was starting to fade. From our vantage point in the rainforest section it was starting to get pretty dark, but looking up at the peaks it was still bright. Amazing how much light the different vegetation blocks out.

After dinner I ran my hand down my shin to feel an all too familiar pain (though I wish I didn't know it quite so well...) A Tick had latched on, just above my sock line. Quick tug with the tweezers (hint: Grab as close to your skin as possible and pull straight out) removed the little bugger, head and all. Directly after it was squished into a rock until it split into two. I hate ticks, but you have to expect them from time to time. There has been heaps of lizards darting off logs/rocks as we get close. Plenty of spider webs to push through and all the other usual animals. About 20m away from camp Thomas found a carpet python slithering through the undergrowth. It wasn't a real big one, just over a meter probably. Was happy to have a few pics taken before it moved on.




With the fading light and a pretty full day it wasn't long before we retired to our tents. Thomas dozed off soon after his head hit the pillow, I could tell by the fact that his snoring was adding to the ambiance of the other sounds of nature.....

Day2;
Sun was up by about 5:20 but I rolled over trying to sneak in a little bit of snooze time. I slept pretty well last night, was maybe a little hot in the bag... but too cold out of it. Waking a few times but falling asleep again fairly quickly. We took our time once again in the morning (I need a good 4-5 nights of camping before I become a morning person) but eventually walked out of camp just after 8am. First destination; East Peak.

With packs a lot lighter (2/3rds of the food eaten!) it only took about 1hr 15min to get to the summit of the East Peak. West peak, a few meters higher and after a full day of hiking was 25min faster to get up... Packs make quite the difference, even without food weight. It's not just the weight, but it's easier to maneuver, push through scrub, climb and hop across rocks etc etc.

Survey Marker East Peak

View (West to North) from East Peak

After a 30min break up the top we began our descent on the SE-Ridge. At one point we followed a 'kinda looks like the trail' path which had been worn, obviously worn by a few other people heading the wrong way... Where most other people would say we got lost,  I prefer to say that we were taking the scenic tour of Mt Barney that would be rarely seen by your average punter... After reconnecting with the trail I quickly remembered from my last time why the SE-Ridge is called Medium-Hard. A few places we had to take off our packs and pass them down as climbing down those sections was totally impractical otherwise.

After taking another short 'alternate route' about mid way down we arrived at the base trail by 1:45. From there it was just a short (~3k) walk back to the car. We considered also hitting Yellow Pinch... but decided to save something for next time...

All in all another great weekend hiking!

Lesson/Improvements for next time;
Find a better Bladder for my Dirty Water filter bag. - I've never really been happy with it (except the cost) as it was just an old bladder with a broken lid I retrofitted. The line-out points up, so the hose kinks a little restricting flow. Ok when full of water but could be improved.
Cord for Camera Pouch - To help keep water out if/when I'm caught in the rain.
Midnight snack - Suggestions? (I think dried fruit would be good)
Pillow Pouch - (Ask mum to) sew a pillow pouch into the sleeping bag hood. I usually just sit it in the hood but it's always been a little fiddly and my new pillow is a bit slippery compared to the old. Yes, Yes, I don't like sleeping on my spare clothes crammed into a stuff sack. Thanks for the suggestion (for the thousandth time.)