Newsletter - February 2022
Townsville Bushwalking Club newsletter – upcoming hikes, trip reports, walk schedules, safety tips, and bushwalking resources. Highlights include Crystal Creek Falls, DCK Hut, and plans for Bambaroo and Insulator Creek Canyon.
In this edition : upcoming walks, walk scheduling info, walk report from Sunday, and other general info. So grab a coffee, chocolate bar, or a G&T or coldie, and read on.
Next Walks
20th February – Leader Keith. Bambaroo Track and Insulator Ck Canyon. Amazing giant trees and great scenes.
6th March – leader Wilfred. Location TBA.
20th March – leader Wilfred. Location TBA.
3rd April – leader Keith. Location TBA.
Upcoming walks may include Forgotten Falls / K Traverse / Williams Creek, Hermit Falls, Dalrymple (Abbey) Waterfall, Puzzle Falls, Three Lagoons, and various Mt Spec / Paluma tracks.
Walk details will be published by email about two weeks prior to the relevant activity.
Walk Schedule
The club schedules one day bushwalks every fortnight Sunday. There are also some two day weekend trips during the year to special remote wilderness locations. On long weekends the club operates multi-day walks in remote spectacular areas - may include Great Basalt Wall, Porcupine Gorge (4 day), White Mountains (3 to 7 days), Herbert Falls Gorge, Blencoe Falls / Herbert Gorge, Hinchinbrook Island / Mt Bowen and other remote peaks, Pelorus Island, Hell Hole etc. Keep an eye out on FB and club emails to discover fantastic places that few explore.
We also occasionally run day walks on other days, e.g. the occasional Saturday and maybe even midweek. These are not scheduled in advance and run as required subject to leader availability. If you have a special request, feel free to ask us and we will see what we can do.
Introduction Walks – we often run introduction walks in the first part of each year. These are aimed for those new to our type of wilderness bushwalking and creek rockhopping, and give you an idea of the terrain used and level of fitness required. We will advertise some soon when the temperatures and creek conditions are a bit nicer for safe creek rock hopping.
Monthly Meetings
Monthly meetings are generally held on the second Monday of each month. These are a good opportunity for meet and greet of prospective new walkers to have a friendly chat with our walk leaders, knowledge sharing, and walk planning. So come along to the monthly meetings, 6 pm at the club meeting room. For the multi-day walks we request that intending participants attend the relevant meeting to enable detailed planning including logistics.
Who runs this mob ? - da Committee
President – Phil
Vice Pres – Luen
Secretary – Phil
Treasurer – Keith
Wise Committee Member – Wilfred (we need one wise person on the committee, and Wilfred is it)
Club delegate to Bushwalking QLD (BWQ) and BWQ Committee Member - Keith
Walk Report – Sunday 6th February Rock Garden – Crystal Creek Falls – DCK Hut
Now before we talk about Sundays walk, beware of the road toll collector in Paluma. But first, having a leech loose in the car is fun. Driving home from the dam, notice there is mud on my big toe – touch it, it moves – uh oh, that is not mud, but a huge black leech sucking on my big toe. Flick it, surprisingly it comes off – now it is loose in the footwell of the car – but where ? We stop and search the footwell, no sign of it. Search again, and again. Look everywhere, under the seat, under mat, dashboard, everywhere. Eventually we found a leech in my sandals, but that looks different colour and size – hopefully that is it - constant looking at feet as we drive home.
Back to the Paluma road toll collector. We enter Paluma village on the way home, the road is blocked by a car (one of our walkers) being held up by the ‘mayor’ of Paluma. Must be road toll collection ? We pull up behind, he lets the car in front go and we inch forward, still in middle of road. Get some coins, and offer them to him as the toll fee. ‘What the ...’ he says? ‘Well, obviously you must be collecting road toll’ we say. With us blocking the road as he ‘interrogates’ us, a strange ‘vehicle’ pulls up behind us (also in middle of road). It is an old fella walking pushing a pram – and in the pram – his dog ! Must be something in the mountain air up there. As for the toll fee, the ‘mayor’ hands our coins back muttering something about our stupidity (or low IQ ?) lol.
The walk was in the Mt Spec area – rainforest track walking Paluma dam to Rock Garden, Crystal Creek Falls, DCK Hut loop, a great walk. Paluma greeted 13 keen walkers with clear, blue sky and a cool 24 degrees. After introductions, the convoy of cars headed to Paluma dam and the walk began at 8.45am. Up heartstart hill everybody had their blood pumping (except the two greyhounds out front who sprinted away talking madly and not even puffing), and then we enjoyed the downhill section to Wilfred's lookout. Yes it is nice going downhill, but us wiser ones warned others ‘what goes down, must go up later ....’. At the lookout, despite searches no sunbaking snakes were found to everybody's disappointment. Wilfred held an IQ test – assembled everyone (gee, our walks are getting hard if we have IQ tests now lol). Everybody failed the IQ test by not figuring out what the two small concrete pads at the lookout were for (I knew but kept my mouth shut, does that mean my IQ is high ?).
After a short break the group moved on to Torsten's Rock Garden, where the bat cave was explored, but only one single bat was found to be in residence. The ferns and mosses were vibrant and a great sight on the sheer rock walls. Dyso ‘demanded’ that Wilfred remove a fallen tree that was disrupting photo compositions. Little did we know ........... but should have anticipated something ...... but didn’t (ok, we proved we have low IQ apparently) ................
From his backpack, with a wry grin Wilfred drew out something– then showed off his new "TOY", a battery operated mini chain saw. He managed to cut through the 4" diameter tree that had fallen across the entrance to the cave, even though it is designed for slightly smaller branches. All the blokes were eying off that ‘toy’. Why didn’t Santa bring us all one ? How heavy is it ? How long does the battery last ? What can it cut ?All important questions as we grilled Wilfred. We then explored two more caves that we normally don’t.
Back up to the main track via the hill climb (told ya, what goes down must go up later), quick admire of the Golden Bower Bird bower and holding the greyhounds back (well, trying to), then downhill we arrived at the Big Crystal Creek falls just before lunch. But Wilfred confused the issue by saying ‘this is early lunch, we will have late lunch at the shelter’. Looking at my lunch which was designed for one sitting only, thinking, damn, I have to make this last over two lunch sittings now ? Which lunch sitting is more important ? I was going to ask, but thought, on this day of IQ testing, better keep mouth shut. While I struggled internally and alone with my dilemma ...............
Most people were keen to cool off in the refreshing waters of the top pool, which we had to share with a group of eight women (included some club members/walkers), who were on their way out after spending a night at the DCK shelter. Some of those packs looked big and heavy .......... must have been for the decadent luxuries they carried in ? How much ‘red’ D ?
After ‘early lunch’ everybody was keen?? to tackle the big hill up to Bullocky Tom's track. Yep, always a steep hill after lunch ! Apart from a couple of wet boots the crossing of the creek was uneventful, much to the disappointment of the group's official photographer, who had the camera poised to get some good action shots, maybe next time. Although, mentioning no names of course, but M1’s crossing was amusing – Wilfred ended with arms full of M1’s boots, smelly clothing, socks, poles, and something else, so couldn’t help M1 climb up the rock. So M1 was kinda stuck in a long reach for a minute (we weren’t laughing at her – well, maybe a little bit – we were accused of it). I am sure we must have a photo .... blackmail to keep it hidden M1 ?
On the Bullocky Toms track, we all crossed Crystal Creek without falling in, although the overhead rope and staying on dry rocks (long step reaches) did not quite align nicely for the shorter walkers – it was a stretch even for taller ones. And that last rockhop step was very long ! After checking out the historic photograph of the hut at Johnson's Clearing and Jungle Jane went off to battle spiders, mozzies and snakes, we then continued on to the DCK shelter. On the way checking out the historical tin mining water race and the tin workings in a dry gully with hand built rock walls, the reason for the construction of the water race.
At DCK shelter, another refreshing brisk swim was enjoyed at the icy spa creek pool at the shelter. Now, the greyhounds had bounded ahead and arrived at the hut well before us, so naturally they would have put the kettle on wouldn’t they ? Rule is - First to the shelter, put the kettle on -right ! But, no – they were just lounging around, making excuses. Eventually we got organised, kettle on, for cups of tea or coffee and snacks (lamingtons) (oh, and second lunch) to recharge energy for the direct 8 km route back to the dam (with hills of course).
A brisk walk back to the dam, the greyhounds disappearing again (we held them on a leash occasionally, but they broke the leash), the last leg took two hours, a great effort considering it was the end of a fairly big walk and the first one after the Christmas break. Back at the dam the usual debate over how far we had walked on the day, the experts eventually settling at between 17.5 and 18 kms, 8 hours hiking - not bad for the first effort for the year. The temperature was very nice and much more pleasant than in Townsville – great walking conditions for this time of year. Everybody agreed that it had been an enjoyable day out with a great group and keen for the next walk, even if the legs might tell them otherwise during the next couple of days.
Bushwalk Manual
A good resource for bushwalking is the Bushwalk Manual published by Bushwalking Victoria. This manual provides guidelines and information for safe and enjoyable community-based bushwalking across Australia. Some of the info is similar to what we have had on our club website since 2009. Link to the manual - Home - Bushwalking Manual
Wilderness Remote and Wilderness First Aid Course
Non club event but handy for remote wilderness bush walkers - 12-14th February - Outer Limits Wilderness Remote and Wilderness First Aid Course link - Wilderness First Aid Course - Outer Limits Adventure Fitness
Topographic Mapping live (GPS) on Smartphones
Using smartphones for bushwalking, you can download digital topographic maps to some GIS mapping apps on your smart device (e.g. app like Avenza). If the map is geo-ref’d (GPS reference set-up), then you have live location mapping as you would with a dedicated GPSr. State published digital topographic maps (e.g. QTOPO) are normally georef’d now. Also for our local area there are georef’d versions of the Mt Spec and Paluma tracks maps available – handy for live GPS tracking and locating to follow the rainforest tracks.
However, the club encourages walkers to also carry paper topographic maps – you can print the maps from QTOPO if you prefer paper map (batteries don’t go flat on paper maps). The club recommends always carry a paper map as back-up if you do use smart devices for bushwalk navigation / mapping.
If you want the Mt Spec and Paluma tracks maps, the paper versions can be downloaded from www.paluma.org. Do not go walking in those rainforests tracks without a map!
BWQ Walk Database
BWQ Bushwalk database portal –BWQ have a walk database for members of clubs.
Why walk with a club?
Bushwalking clubs provide peer group support, offer resource and knowledge sharing, advise on walk grading suitable for beginners, and teach you minimum impact bushwalking skills so you can walk ethically and safely and in a friendly supportive group.
Official clubs are affiliated with state and national peak bodies, are Incorporated Associations (QLD), and have public liability and personal accident insurance cover. Importantly, clubs provide a social structure that serves its members for a lifetime. When you visit other areas, our club members can join in other club walks in areas visited. There are 24 bushwalking clubs in QLD affiliated with BWQ (Bushwalking QLD, the state peak body).
Townsville Bushwalking Club - 61 yrs old and still going strong
Exploration is in our club DNA
Email - [email protected]
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