An Easter Holiday

Over the Easter break we headed off for 10 days camping at Girraween National Park just north of the Queensland New South Wales border in an area know as the Granite Belt.

It is an area of outstanding natural beauty, amazing wines, bountiful fresh fruit and veg and artisan foods.

We had been to stay about 7 years ago and at the time did a few bush walks but this time we planned to do a lot more of the walking tracks.

The first walk we tackled was 'the pyramid' which is a climb up a granite rock (pictured on the left in the photo below) and is one of the steepest walks.  We started all of our walks really early (about 6 am) and took our breakfast with us to eat at our destination each day.

The walk starts off with a gradual climb up through the bush before climbing up the granite face to the top.  In the photo below you can see a row of granite going up the rock face on an angle and just to the right of this you can make out a pale mark running parallel which is the wear mark of everyone treking up there.

On the way way to the top we stopped off to test our strength, but as much as these boulders look like they are just balancing there, they are really quite rooted in place.

The walks up these granite mountians can only be done when the weather is dry as the granite become incredibly slippery and dangerous with moisture and even a heavy dew could prove trecherous.
Thankfully the weather was dry so we had no dramas on our early morning climb.

It is hard to show in the photos exactly how steep this top of this climb is but let me just say it is scary steep.  Going up is ok but coming down had my nerves on edge as there are no hand rails, no steps and nothing to stop you rolling off the edge if you fall.

But the climb to the top is worth the effort and the nerves on edge.

Even up on the top of the mountian there are giant boulders left behind after the soil and rock around them has washed away over millions of years.

The view from the top was amazing and even though it was misty and the weather did not clear while we were up there we were glad we made the effort and got up early.  We had the walk to ourselves (we were half way down before we encountered other people going up and they were a noisy bunch so we were glad we missed them) and got to enjoy the peace and quite as the sun rose up and shone through the mist.

 On the way back to camp we walked to the granite arch which is exactly that.

There are amazing vistas where ever you go and these are a few of my favourites.

W walked between 5 and 9km for 7 days out of the 10 we were there and spend the other 3 days visiting wineries and local artisan producers or resting at camp.

Hubby at 'The Sphinx'

We spent our afternoons chilling by the fire and I read a stack of books and magazines.

A while back I posted about recycling soft plastics and I discovered that the sign posts around the park are all made of this recycled plastic

And just because here is a camping selfie.

How was your Easter/school holidays?