Nine days in Great Sandy National Park

[jobell]

I recently completed a nine day walk through Great Sandy National Park. I started on Thursday 30 July at Kingfisher Bay Resort, linked up toothed Great Walk at Lake McKenzie, diverted via Pile Valley to Central Station then south to Dilli Village, out at Hook Point via the access track. Then to Rainbow Beach and into the Cooloola section on the Cooloola Great Walk. Popped out at the other end on Fri 7 August. Very pretty walk, did not see one other overnight walker on entire walk and only a small handful of day walkers. It felt a bit Like had the place to myself. Good and bad; I like threepence and quiet and having my pick of campsites, but sad that the resource isn't attracting more people to interest them in our great outdoors. Anyway, I'm using this post to experiment with posting a few photos via Tapatalk. Please note, I'm a phone photographer who snaps as I walk!





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[jobell]

Lots of wildflowers...

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[jobell]

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[jobell]

Closest I got to a dingo (that I knew about) was this warning sign. Second time I have walked on Fraser with no dingo sightings.

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[jobell]

Playing with the pitch of my double rainbow. Still getting to know it.

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[jobell]

Got a bit more technical with my food this hike looking at nutrition and calories. This measley looking portion of raw nuts and a bit of dried fruit weighed 100 grams and represented 500 calories. Biggest lesson learnt; I might need to go easier on this stuff on the days I am not walking!

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[jobell]

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[jobell]

Lake Birrabeen late afternoon

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[jobell]

Lake Boomanjin

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[jobell]

Access trail from Dilli Village south to Hook Point. Walked about 27k that day, fairly comfortable walking with a little bit of soft sand mainly closer to Dilli Village end. Not particularly fond of soft sand walking after 8 days on the Cape to Cape track earlier this year.

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[jobell]

Crossed the Carlo Sandbox near the northern start to the Cooloola Great Walk and found the track closed for a burn, at short notice. QPWS showed up shortly after and indeed escorted me past their burn in one of their trucks. How's that for customer service.

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[jobell]

Turned a corner in the forest and found this blocking my way, or so it felt. Biggest cane toad I have ever seen, easily the size of four of my fists combined, and I have big hands. Wasn't sure about what the PC thing to do was... Was I meant to bludgeon the thing to death with a branch? Not being the violent type I gingerly stepped around it and kept going.

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[jobell]

First couple of days in the Cooloola section were like walking in a green tunnel. No sunnies or hat needed. Lots of tall beautiful trees, some covered in fig tree roots which tempted me to climb them.


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[jobell]

Having a lunch break at Lake Poona, one of Cooloola's perched lakes.

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[jobell]

Lots of pretty fungi

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[jobell]

The trail down on the river flats near the Upper Noosa River

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[jobell]

Great views from the Cooloola Sandpatch both inland and out to the ocean.

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[jobell]

Great walking on top of the dunes after the Sandpatch.

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[jobell]

Guessing it must get a bit windy here

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[jobell]

At the southern entrance to the walk

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[jobell]

At my finish point, just off the car ferry over the Noosa River at Tewantin

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[jobell]

All in all. Fabulous walk. Covered about 160k, longest day 27k, hardest day was just over 20k but had a few more climbs. Great Sandy National park is definitely a favourite walking destination for me. I resupplied at Rainbow Beach; not the biggest supermarket but enough on offer to meet my requirements. Hope you enjoyed my little pictorial account. Cheers.

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[north-north-west]

Nice cross-section of shots. Gives a good idea of the area.

Also good to see a happy Aarn packer out and about.

[Lizzy]

Well done! Thumbs up to the AArn

[weeds]

Was there plenty of water along the way??

[RonK]

It's interesting to see you visited McKenzies jetty. Did you find the Z Special Unit training camp?

Not much left when I visited (years ago), just a few foundations. But there was an interesting concrete formation there - kinda like a floor but but with hollows, humps and bumps. It was only after staring at it for while that I realised it was a relief model of Singapore Harbour, and probably would have been painted to distinguish sea and land areas. Z Special Unit conducted a commando raid on Singapore Harbour in 1943 and sunk seven Japanese ships.

[jobell]

Plenty of water in the tanks at campgrounds. One spot did require getting some from a lake (I think the campground at Lake Benaroon, filtered was fine) and the access track from Dilli Village to Hook Point did require a bit more creativity. Not much between Jabiru Swamp campground and Hook Point unless you want to climb down through reeds to the swamp, which I didn't want to do. Had plenty on board anyway.

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[jobell]

Yup, found the Z Special training camp, but not the concrete relief map. Should have looked harder! I did poke around more than I had on my previous visit.

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[jobell]

This is my second walk with the Aarn and so far I'm loving it. So much more comfortable. I do have some minor fit issues to iron out still but working on those.

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[Damo2010]

Hi Jobell,

Great write up. I've been to the southern end of Cooloola and the upper noosa river, but not the northern end nor Fraser, by foot that is, I've done a lot on motor bike and 4be but still so much more to see when your walking.

I've done one over nighter into Cooloola with my Aaron pack but plan to do similar to your trip.

It interesting that you did not see any Dingos, I've heard that even away from the popular tourist spots that they can be a problem.

http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd3 ... 7DBE44.jpg

Thanks for sharing your trip and tips

Damo