Basalt Wall 1975
Basalt Wall trek, Queen’s Birthday 1975: a scenic hike via Red Falls on Lolworth Creek with swimming holes, perch fishing, emus, kangaroos, and prolific birdlife around billabongs and basalt cliffs. A cold but rewarding North Queensland bushwalk rich in geology, wildlife, and adventure.
Queen's Birthday Weekend
14, 15, 16th June 1975.
Map: Hillgrove
Participants: M. Paterson, R. de Jongh, K. R. Williams, Irene Davies, Jenny Elliott, R. Gregory, Lyn Murray, G. Wells.
Rating: easy going, very enjoyable & interesting.
Saturday morning.
Drove to Red Falls on Lolworth Creek. The creek drops over a 5m high "horse shoe" of red rock into a magnificent large pool with sandy beach (good campsite). The pool yielded a number of yellow spotted perch for little effort with a fishing line. In the afternoon, we walked for two hours upstream to camp for the night. For about the first half-mile the creek is wide and deep, then narrows to a small stream in a sandy bed, lined with paperbarks, gums and casuarinas, all along. Birdlife was prolific and very audible. The campsite was on a sandy stretch beside a long pool in the creek - the same pool had yielded some perch for dinner on a preliminary trip two weeks previously. That night, sleeping bags were thoroughly tested as the mercury plunged to its second lowest on record (4.6°C in Townsville) - a big campfire burned throughout the night!
Sunday
Next day, we headed north away from the creek and in about 20 minutes reached a spur of the Basalt Wall, over which we walked into Long Pocket: lots of emus were seen racing away into the S.W. We crossed the pocket to a beautiful extensive billabong, with much birdlife - pelicans, spoonbills, egrets, ducks, stilts, etc. Also wild pigs and kangaroos. The water lies between two arms of black basalt and spills into a large swamp in Pony's Pocket. An ornithologist would be useful on this trip! Continued across Pony's Pocket and into the basalt to the north before returning to camp amongst some trees on high ground beside the swamp (lake). Burnt an incredible amount of wood that night too - another cold one!
Monday
On the last day, we retraced our steps to Lolworth Ck. and Red Falls, enjoying lunch and an icy swim (numbing!!) a few hundred metres up from Red Falls.
The wall is a very interesting area from the point of view of both geology and wildlife. The walk could have been done comfortably in two days, and further forays would be rewarding, such as crossing to Fletcher Ck. or exploring the country north of Lochwall Station (the map indicates numerous lakes, swamps and pockets of land). Permission should be obtained from the stations involved.
[Information obtained from Toomba Station prior to the present trip indicated that White Falls were dry]
The trip is not advisable in or immediately after the wet season as many of the pockets become lakes, and road access would be very difficult.
R. Gregory
