16-17 April 2005
The Running Creek campsite is a small campsite at the
junction of England and Running Creek. Only 4 campers
are allowed at a time. On this throughwalk there were
just the three of us, Gil, Steve and myself.
Many walks have been done to Running Creek Falls just
as a day walk. However it is such a long walk that
usually only a few minutes can be spent at one of the
most spectacular falls in south east Queensland. This
throughwalk would allow us more time at the falls and
to do some exploration of the surrounds.
We parked the car at the farm at the end of the road
and began the five kilometre walk across cow paddocks
to get to the National Park.
After an hour and a half, we reached the crossing of
Running Creek. Due to the drought, the creek was low
and the crossing was an easy rock hop across. On the
other side of the creek the vegetation changed from
open sclerohyll eucalypt forest to rain forest. In
places trees had fallen across the track and we had to
navigate round them to rejoin the faint track. Close to
midday we reached the campsite, put up our tents and
had lunch.
From the campsite it is about 800 metres upstream to
the falls. Again we made good time rock hopping up the
creek and reached the falls within a half hour. Gil
even ventured in for a quick swim but the cold water
deterred the rest of us.
After about an hour at the base of the falls we began
exploring various ways to get to the top of the falls.
A small gully was considered too dangerous while a
ridge was overgrown with wait-a-while which forced us
back. We decided we would try another day and made our
way back to the campsite. There I did a quick rock hop
up England Creek and found it a fantastic place for
more exploration another day.
There was no rain that night and as soon as it was
light the next morning we had breakfast, packed our
tents and made the return journey. We stopped in
Beaudesert at lunch time and enjoyed a large counter
lunch at one of the hotels. It was a fitting end to a
great weekend camping in the Australian rainforest.
Many thanks to Steve and Gil for their company. Richard