Bare Rock

16 January 2005

Lyn, Catrina, Shirley. Suzana, Suzanne, Stan, John, Steven and myself met at Aratula at 9.00am for our ascent to Cunningham's Gap, the starting point of our leisurely 12km return trip to Bare Rock.

Bare Rock is a small rocky outcrop on the edge of the escarpment north of Mt Cordeaux which affords 270° views facing east. Weaving through 8 metres of light scrub to the west completes the 360° view.

This is a good summer walk as most of the walking is through beautiful dry rainforest which opens out to tall dry grasses dotted with many large strappy Spear Lilies and grass trees. The graded track is in good condition and made for easy walking despite the 2 tree falls across the track.

After passing through a large area of distinctive tree ferns a side track to Morgans Walk appeared. John assured us all that it was quite overgrown and not worth the 350m detour to see, so we continued onto our destination.
Beautiful clear skies with the occasional light cloud ensured top class views while we had lunch at our destination.

Good humoured banter and lighthearted threats to John regarding the quality of the views from Morgans Walk made it a compulsory visit on the return trip. Lo and behold his knowledge proved to be indisputable, although we tried. QPWS policy of not trimming vegetation at lookouts has rendered this view/ side trip quite unimpressive.

Returning to the cars by 2.30pm left us plenty of time for drinks, tucker and a debrief at Aratula.

I believe that we all had a most relaxing day and I hope that this walk has whetted the appetites of Lyn, Catrina and Steven to our style of walking and that we will see them on many more walks in the future.

Note: QPWS has produced a glossy new brochure of the walking tracks at Goomburra and Main Range. It includes walk descriptions and important information on "Walking track classification" and "Matching experience and expectations". These can be sourced from the Ranger station 3kms west of Cunninghams Gap. Kerry de C.