After Christmas we spent four days in the Granite Belt south of Stanthorpe, checking out the splendours of Girraween National Park. Girraween is an Aboriginal word meaning ‘place of flowers’ though the best time to see those flowers is in July when the golden wattle blooms. Nevertheless it has great bushwalks through the granite outcroppings any time of year. Girraween is part of a larger ecosystem with Bald Rock National Park across the border in New South Wales. But with COVID border restrictions, we stayed on the Queensland side.
The National Park covers 11,700 hectares of bushland. Arriving mid-afternoon the first day we have time for one trek to the Pyramids. The walk starts from the Bald Rock Creek day area, 40km south of Stanthorpe. Nearby is Bald Rock Creek which has swimming waterholes. There are also two camping grounds here.
We set off on the 3.6km return hike to the Pyramids. There are two pyramids side by side but only one is walkable to the summit. Along the way we see the first of many granite outcrops precariously held in position, reminding me of the NT’s Karlu Karlu (the Devils Marbles). Like the Marbles these stones are made of granite, just one small section of a great mass of rock that covers the region – the Stanthorpe Granite.
The Stanthorpe Granite was a molten mass of magma that rose up and pushed into surrounding older rocks 240 million years ago. The magma resulted from heat in the crust when the eastern side of the continent was compressed by two tectonic plates combining. It melted surrounding rock and assimilated fragments called xenoliths into its mass. Some xenoliths are still visible in the granite but most eroded from weathering. After a kilometre, we left the bushland and started the difficult climb up the Pyramid. Extreme care needs to be taken on the slippery rocks with few handrails.
It is tough work heading up but the gravity-assisted trip down has its own issues. The view from the top banishes those concerns with magnificent granite outcrops in every direction.
The Cunningham’s Skink blends naturally into the landscape. Egernia cunninghami is a sun-loving spiny-tailed skink named for explorer and botanist Allan Cunningham who collected the first specimen in the Blue Mountains. This large skink has a long tail with keeled scales from the back of the neck to the tip of the pointed tail. Its legs are short, so it slides on its belly to move around. The skink lives in forests and open woodland which feature rock outcrops anywhere from south-east Queensland down through New South Wales and central Victoria.
North of our pyramid is its twin, which is too dangerous to climb. Also here is the massive Balancing Rock, the most photographed feature of the park, with people getting into Instagram poses to “keep up” the precarious rock. Normally 120,000 visitors a year check this out, but with COVID ruling out interstate visitors it was a quiet site today to contemplate nature’s wonders.
Our lodgings were 20km away at Ballandean. The old railway station is on the southern line from Toowoomba to Wallangarra on the border. Opened in the 1880s it survived 100 years as a passenger line and then as a freight line to 2007. Heritage rail services still run occasionally. Ballandean station was rotated so its entrance now faces the New England Hwy rather than the railway.
As evening comes we enjoy the sunset on the Granite Belt and plot further adventures in the days to come.
The following morning was our most ambitious trek of the stay – a 15km hike taking in The Sphinx, Castle Rock and the park’s highest peak, Mt Norman. We passed tree ferns along the way before we were climbing in the granite again.
Sphinx Rock bears passing resemblance to the Egyptian Sphinx but its beauty needs no comparison. It is a granite pinnacle with a massive balancing topside tor. Cunningham was the first European to enter the Girraween. In 1827 he noted “large detached masses of granite of every shape towering above each other and in many instances standing in almost tottering positions constituted a barrier”. He saw Aboriginal people only five times during his journey between present-day Tamworth and Warwick. “And they”, he said, “suffered us for the moment to view them at a distance.”
Below the Sphinx is this giant carved rock like a wheel that towers over humans.
Turtle Rock lives up to its description.
Then we turn back and head to Castle Rock which we see ahead through the foliage.
Castle Rock is almost as difficult to climb as the Pyramid but the views from the top are equally breathtaking.
After a rest, we move cross country to Mt Norman. After going through rainforest we emerge again to climb the granite boulders.
Again topside there is the feeling of being on the roof of the world. Mount Norman is the highest point in the park at 1267 metres.
Below is the view looking back to Castle Rock from Mt Norman. From here we could have headed to the southern car park which links to the road to Wallangara on the border but after a five hour hike we went back the way we came to the day area.
On Day 3 we did some of the Granite Belt bike ride between Ballandean and Stanthorpe. The well-marked bike route tackles 30km of peaceful backroads with wineries aplenty.
In the afternoon we returned to Girraween for a short walk to the Granite Arch. A combination of forces including water, wind and plants have sculpted this creation over a million years. Blotchy lichens eat away at the granite by concocting a weak acid that breaks down the felspar, pink material in the granite.
We head to The Junction, a lovely swimming hole where Ramsay Creek and Bald Rock Creek meet. The area is full of rockslides and pools, white sandy beaches and welcoming waterholes. The water comes down from the western side of the Great Dividing Range and continues as part of the mighty Murray-Darling system that empties into the sea at South Australia, thousands of kilometres away.
On the last day, we do more of the bike trail. Localities like The Somme are a reminder of soldier settlement blocks. Under the Discharged Soldiers’ Settlement Act 1917, discharged soldiers could apply for land and financial assistance. Around 7000 hectares was set aside near Stanthorpe and 700 returned soldiers were allocated blocks in the Pikedale Soldier Settlement. Soldiers named the locations in honour of battlefields including The Somme, Amiens, Messines, Bapaume, Passchendaele, Bullecourt, Pozieres and Fleurbaix.
We stopped in Stanthorpe for a coffee. Stanthorpe was founded by tin miners in 1872. When the tin price fell, many miners turned to farming as the subtropical highland climate was suitable for growing cool climate fruits and vegetables. They planted grapes in the 1860s with encouragement from the local Catholic parish priest Father Jerome Davadi to produce altar wine. The idea caught on among Italian settlers.
We went up Mt Marlay to the town lookout. The hill was named for Edward Marlay, selector and tin miner. There is a short walk around the summit, which follows a path through the trees offering a scenic vantage point towards the north.
That afternoon it was time for a final look at Girraween. This time we drove further into the park to the Dr Roberts car park. First walk was a 2.8km return trip to the underground creek. Millions of years ago this rock formation probably resembled a tumbling wave but gradually cracks and crevices occurred causing masses of rocks to collapse onto the flowing Bald Creek below. The water now flows below the cluster of boulders.
We finished with a 2km trek to Dr Roberts Waterhole. In the 1930s local doctor Spencer Roberts was a guardian of the local superb lyrebird and wombat populations. He lobbied the government to protect them in a national park. Roberts died in 1939 aged 59 but his visionary work was rewarded. In 1930 Bald Rock Creek National Park was declared followed two years later by Castle Rock National Park. Together they were known as Wyberba National Park formally amalgamated in 1966 as Girraween National Park.