Carnarvon Great Walk- 90km. Queensland, Australia.

 

The Trail:

The Carnarvon 'Great Walk' is a circuit loop hike up in the lush, gorgeous highlands of Carnarvon National Park in central Queensland.  

It's a long way from anywhere and perfect for those who long to lose sight of power lines and fences and other humans.

You get tall gum trees, iconic wildlife, easy walking and big skies.

The trail is operated and maintained by Queensland Parks and Wildlife, bookings for the campsites can be made on the website where all other relevant information concerning the walk is found. Queensland Parks

Travel time is huge from anywhere you are coming from.

9 hours from Brisbane by vehicle. 

7 hours from Toowoomba.

No public transport (you could try a tour bus) and sealed roads all the way to the start of the walk which kicks off in the upper carpark near the visitor center.

Map sourced from Google maps.

Map sourced from www.parks.des.qld.gov.au

What we did:

I hiked the trail with my partner Jen.  We allocated 5 days and took our time muddling along the track.  There was a prescribed burn off for the month of June before we wandered the trail so very little long grass and mostly open horizons and simple navigation.

Day 1- Start to Big Bend Campsite.  12km.

We drove up in the morning from an overnight at Injune and plugged along the heavily trafficked tourist trail that rolls up Carnarvon Gorge with many side trails to various 'highlights' along the valley.  

We encountered many middle age pear caravan dwellers, difficult to avoid signage extolling the virtues of the area and a sense of being underwhelmed by mediocrity.

In all honesty I could have easily skipped the crowds and just nailed it to Big Bend as I have seen most of this kind of thing in Australia before.  

It's pretty, yes.  

There is rock art, lovely natural features and a very well graded pathway interrupted by numerous creek crossings.  But fuck me there was quite the fair number of homo sapiens all compressed into a small space.  Including us... 

Big Bend Campsite is situated on a side trail before Boowinda Canyon.  

Beautiful but windy as all hell the evening we dropped by.

Water, toilet.  Avoid if possible.

Big Bend Campsite.

Boowinda Gorge.

Day 2:  Big Bend Campsite to Gadd's Campsite.  15km.

Through the gorge and up the slope to views and cruisey walking through grasslands and undulating landscapes.

Gadd's has water, shelter, toilet.

Day 3:  Gadd's to West Branch Campsite.  16km.

Another low volume mileage day enjoying the changing flora and camping at the car accessible camping ground.

Water, toilet, tables.

Day 4:  West Branch to Cabbage Tree Campsite.  31km.

The Mahogany Forest was bewitching, full of crowded, competing plant life and bustling birdlife.  We stopped for lunch at Consuelo Campsite and sat in a tree and made coffee and went wow, yes.

Onwards to Cabbage Tree the track stayed flat and a no brainer.  Just back up and keep following the management fire trail when things get confusing.  That night we lay in the tent under an impossibly star laden sky and listened as a powerful owl swooped in and hunted the shit out of resident gliders.

Water, shelter, table.  No toilet and poop paper everywhere.  

Please bury your kaka and bag up your used bog roll and take it with you.  

Some people are fuckin disgusting.  No excuses. 

Day 5:  Cabbage Tree to end of the trail.  16km.

Views, up and down and up again.  

There's a dam with great wildlife viewing opportunities, some stupendous sheer cliffside outlooks and the obligatory downhill plunge to the end.

Navigation:

Orange triangle markers are hammered onto trees every 50 metres.  

There is a deliberate footpad that is hard to miss and signage when needed.

We used the topographical map provided by Parks Queensland and the All Trails offline digital map.

 

West Branch Campsite.

Flora and Fauna:

Fauna; Loads of feral pigs and horse and cows left their tracks and scat for us to clearly see and in the case of the pigs; immense amount of churned earth where they had chased a feed.  

That was the not so good but not the end of the world.

Other than those species it was a fantastic assortment of some the greatest hits of Australian wildlife.

Emu's, dingoes, roos, raptors, scuttling goannas, darting woodland birds and chunky insects.

Flora;  mighty gums, endemic Carnarvon fan palms, cycads.   There's an amazing variety of plant life in the various temperate zones of the park.  

Rainforest habitat in the gorges and temperate open forest on the plateau host diverse genus specialising in the particular locations.  

Shit, we live on a spectacular continent.  I certainly re-appreciated it during this walk.

The invasive plant species usually prevalent in South East Queensland public lands were noticeably absent in Carnarvon.  No lantana, very little cobblers peg, no spikey stuff; just healthy forests, thriving grasslands and prolific birdlife including pardalote, pheasant coucal and black cockatoo.

Water and Camping:

Water is available from pumps at each campsite.

Camping is $7.50 per person, payable upon booking on the Parks website.

We only encountered one other person walking clockwise as we were.  A few other hikers bumped into us heading the opposite way but the trail was in no way crowded.

When we reserved the campsites, they were reportedly booked up solid online but we only had company from that one solo hiker every evening.

Thoughts:

Once you get away from the main tourist track in the gorge area and head up out of Boowinda I felt a genuine sense of solitude and wildness.  

The walking is simple and low effort and affords a slower pace that lends itself to peeking up every tall tree and soaking up the distant drumbeat of resident emus and dingoes howling away.

Absolutely worth the effort and recommended for those that revel in pristine Australian environs.