Bog-Hollow Creek Gorge (private trip)
Bog Hollow Creek Gorge hike, Aug 1975: a rugged private trip from Hervey’s Range into steep spurs, rainforest vines, and rocky creekbeds. The gorge revealed casuarinas, hoop pines, towering cliffs, and pools before meeting Keelbottom Creek—an adventurous North Queensland bushwalking route.
3rd August 1975
Map: Ben Lomond (Army, 1973) Scale 1:50,000
Participants: 15 members left Townsville 6.30am
The trip was a new one and involved walking into Bog Hollow Ck, then following this down through its gorge, to Keelbottom Creek
The party drove past the Hervey's Range settlement (?) at Thornton Gap and left the cars on the near side of a locked gate. We then struck off through open forest towards the hills and eventually picked one spur to climb. This turned out to be a steep hillside climb along a valley - a recent fire made the going relatively easy if a little black. From the top, we crossed down a saddle & into one of the side creeks of Bog Hollow Ck. After some dalliance with vines, gympie & lantana, we emerged into a winding, rocky creekbed which led into Bog Hollow Ck. Lunchtime!
Then followed Bog Hollow Ck down, mostly dry with a number of pools, casuarinas abundant & hoop pines on the gorge walls. The gorge was quite interesting in the last mile where it ran almost straight between walls several hundred feet high in places. Emerged into Keelbottom Ck - also very impressive & on a larger scale. This Ck was still flowing slowly & had some magnificent pools, with sandy stretches & rock hopping alternating to make the walking interesting. At about 5pm we reached the flying fox across the Keelbottom and found our pre-arranged transport (2x 4 wheel drive vehicles) waiting to take us 14 miles back to the cars. Quite a long day but interesting country, worthy of another visit.
