We met up with a new walking buddy near the trial head to Castle Rock after 6am. Mark & I had pretty much mapped a circuit of ~30km to take in many of the special spots Girraween had to offer. The circuit was a mix of hiking trails, 4WD tracks and off track bushwhacking.
The first leg took us on a well-trodden path past Castle Rock to the Spinx and onto Turtle Rock. We then made our own path to Mt Norman. The bush is pretty open and it was relatively easy going.
After the taking the photo opportunities atop Mt Norman, we head south (on a path) to the Mt Norman picnic area. We then followed a 4WD track towards Twin Peaks (another great photo opportunity) and a nice unnamed plateau (just south of Billy Goat Hill) which has views of Bald Rock.
A number of 4WD tracks eventually took us the ‘Underground Creek’ which was where we called it a day. That night it got down to -4 degrees and the small pools around the creek were frozen solid.
After a leisurely breakfast, we set off ~8am on trails & roadways towards Slip Rock. In retrospect we’d have got off the road early than we did & aim to go up the Southern slab of Slip Rock via the eastern side (of the slab). As it was, we ended up pushing through some heavy scrub and found we couldn’t easily/safely assail the western side of the slab. Mark drop back down under the slab & easily walked up the eastern side whereas Emil & I scampered across slightly slippery lichen covered slab to get to the eastern side. It would have been a 90m slide down the 60 degree slope of granite if we’d lost our footing….so, next time we’ll aim to ascend via the eastern side :-S
Slip Rock has great southern views
and a very interesting landscape on its northern side.
It’s on the northern side where Kitchen Cave is found.
After exploring Slip Rock, we dropped off the northern side to a creek that led us past the two Pyramids and eventually hooked us back onto a trail. A quick look at the Granite Arch, and then back to the carpark to rest some well used feet.
