Mount Glorious
Most are a delight (the scramble up Cedar Creek to Love Creek Falls), but some are a little disappointing (the walk to a dry Enoggera Creek).
On New Year’s day we explored the upper reaches of Cedar Creek, from the top of the mountain down, from Mount Glorious, through wet sclerophyll forest and patches of rainforest.
Logging in Mount Glorious region
Timber was a mainstay of the early Brisbane region economy. An abundance of appropriate and ostensibly free and boundless trees saw logging established early in the area’s history.
The Mount Glorious region was first logged in the 1920s. Its wood was used to build the Hornibrook Viaduct to Redcliffe. Timber was extracted down a dangerous zig zag track (I’ll have to find this) by bullock teams into Cedar Creek valley, after earlier attempts at operating a gravity-driven shute, down the mountain, led to smashed logs.
Later, in 1919, a sawmill was established at the site of the Miaila picnic ground. A boiler from the steam-powered saw can still be seen at the site. From here, cut timber took the easier, but more circuitous route, down the (current) Mount Nebu road to Alderley.
Logging continued in a profligate and wasteful manner until the Miaila area was gazetted as National Park in 1930.
The majority of the walk was OK, the track could be followed well enough, and when it did disappear, various way-markers, small cairns or a marked tree would be your guide.
It was interesting to see the tree stumps from the areas that had been logged in the past, before it was declared National Park. Some areas are devoid of any trees greater than 3 or 4 feet in diameter, providing dendrochronological evidence of when logging ceased.
Before the final hurdle and down an ever-steepening ridge, the path ultimately disappeared completely. The last section was a little hairy for the kids, edging down a scree/dirt/forested bank at a 50-degree angle, through an assortment of plants keen to sting you.
In the creek bed at the bottom it was clear that our (my) navigation had gone a little wrong and the ridge at the creek confluence – where we should have emerged - was some hundred metres further downstream. Little worry, as the scramble up the creek bed and the climb up Greene’s Falls was wonderful and not only for the rather surprised looks from workaday walkers at the top of the hill on seeing young children and grandparents appearing dishevelled, sweaty and exhausted from the impenetrable jungle.
A great trip for the future, sans les enfants, would be to park a car at the top of the mountain and another at the bottom and navigate the entire stretch of the Greene’s Falls and Love Creek sections downwards.
| I am employed by Brisbane City Council. All views expressed in this blog are my own and in no way reflect the views of my employer. |
From WeaselWords.com.au
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