Sunday, April 24, 2005
Kobble Creek Falls: The Lepidozamia Track

This creepy guy was guarding the track down to Kobble Creek Falls (or not falls, as the case was).

An eerie, melancholy sort of chap, frozen into the tree.

Having bought a decent topographic map of Brisbane State Forest we now have a better idea of where we are going when we hack off into the rainforest.

This walk took us north from Mount Glorious along the ridge line at the top of the D'Aguilar Range on the "Lepidozamia Track". Lepidozamias are endemic cycads, the largest of which we saw was prehaps 35 feet high. The peak of the range is 770m, so you are afforded some good views of the coast when you find a break in the trees.

I had hoped/presumed that the recent rain would have meant that the creeks were flowing, but it has generally been a pretty dry summer, as evidenced by a huge swathe of the lower scelophyl forest here having been recently burnt away in a bush fire.

The walk dropped us down some 380m from the rainforest at the top, through progressively drier and thinner forest lower down, which at the falls was pretty much open bushland forest. It was hard work too, so it was all the more disappointing to get to the bottom and find the cascades bone dry.

We will have to judge the weather more carefully next time we expend such effort. That said, Kobble Creek will probably not flow again until next summer. At the top of the cascades was a wrought iron BBQ; an excellent spot for an overnight bush camp when the weather warms up again.

By the time we had climbed all the may back up again, little Matthew had clocked up some 17,500 steps on his pedometer.

The guy in "Supersize Me" suggested the average American clocks up just 1,200 per day, so I reckon Matthew has nearly a fortnight sitting on his arse to make up for his exertions.

You would think that the forest would be teeming with life, especially here as this is well off the beaten track. None of the paths we walked on today are marked on the official EPA or State Forest guides - we only saw 4 other people.

The two specimens we did see, a lace monitor and some kind of frog, were both dead. There is generally plenty of bird life (but you never see it) but as far as anything else was concerned, nothing.

Why? Not sure. Maybe it is there and you just can't see it (as we have seen wallabies in the forest just up the road). Maybe the recent bush fires have pushed most of it away (but then there was still plenty of green grass around from the recent wet weather). It is odd - and slightly worrisome.

No shortage of trees, of course, including some fine Grey and Sydney Blue Gums, Bloodwoods and Tulip Oaks and Piccabeen Palms in the wetter parts.

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