Gathered at Shell Wild Horse Mountain and were on the road by 9:20. Travelled through Nambour and on to Mapleton, Obi Obi and on to Kenilworth. The scenery was beautiful and then we reached the campsite at 10:20. Ray and I have never been here before and we thought the site was just beautiful with a running creek, toilets and fire dotted around.
There were 4 cars on this trip so we all picked our spots and dibbed our fireplace. Up until now Ray and I had been camping with a rather large 10 man tent (supposedly), however we had decided to take my daughter’s (supposedly) 2 man tent, it was quite psychedelic and hippy like and looked like a happy little bubble. It did make setting up and packing down faster which was the aim, but not a lot of ventilation and by morning all the internal walls were absolutely saturated with condensation ……... haha
We had lunch and set off finally at 2:10 for a quick run to the café for firewood and ice creams and into Kenilworth for the all important refreshments to be enjoyed sitting around the camp fire that night.
Finally we were off road but still hadn’t locked in our wheels then comes the call from our trip leader Davo, think we’d better go to low range now and no sooner had he made the suggestion and we were crawling down some rather steep tracks and a couple of nice deep ruts.
The forest was beautiful and the terrain was ever changing from the dry soil to red clay. As we were winding our way up one track we came across a rather big hole in the road which would have swallowed us up so we went left to come round through a tight right turn, glad it was a day trip and not a night drive, would have been a bit nasty to fall into.
We came upon a couple of shallow water crossings and then found some slippery clay halfway up a hill that brought me to an abrupt stop. We slipped straight into a big rut, reversed out and had another go staying to the left and our trusty patrol took us up and over all the way, yeehaa. Davo made it through easily before us and then Nathan and Tanya came up after us and went a little sidewards. Of course Tiny and crew walked up in the little Jeep, however a few tracks later the little jeep lost traction and had to slide down and have another go. Made it up and there was no winching or recovery needed on this drive. The scenery was just so relaxing the sun filtering through the flora.
We travelled some tracks and in the end weren’t sure exactly where we were so just kept driving until we hit a main road and ended up on the other side of Kenilworth. We arrived back at camp around 5:30 to start the “happy hour” which went for a few hours. Everyone congregated by the fire and had dinner and a few drinks and little by little the group shrunk and shrunk as we all started turning in for the night to be up and ready for an 8:30 departure the following morning.
Up and off the next morning we went to another camp ground called Booloumba Creek, aahhh what a beautiful pristine part of this amazing country. It was so breathtakingly beautiful, clear water and beautiful straight huggable trees – just gorgeous.
We meandered back to camp from Booloumba without any interruptions or hill challenges and all packed up left camp at 1:00pm and went to Kenilworth Cheese factory for some belated morning tea and to partake in some of the selections of gourmet cheeses and foods and had a coffee or beverage of choice or ice cream or ……..
Then it was on to Maleny to show our “new to Queensland” visitors a little of the Hinterland lifestyle and we all enjoyed a look around town and then lunch.
After filling our bellies we left Maleny to travel the back roads back to home peeling off 1 by 1 at our turn offs. Ray and I drove into our driveway around 6:30pm and had enjoyed our lovely weekend away immensely. Debbie Sullivan.
There were 4 cars on this trip so we all picked our spots and dibbed our fireplace. Up until now Ray and I had been camping with a rather large 10 man tent (supposedly), however we had decided to take my daughter’s (supposedly) 2 man tent, it was quite psychedelic and hippy like and looked like a happy little bubble. It did make setting up and packing down faster which was the aim, but not a lot of ventilation and by morning all the internal walls were absolutely saturated with condensation ……... haha
We had lunch and set off finally at 2:10 for a quick run to the café for firewood and ice creams and into Kenilworth for the all important refreshments to be enjoyed sitting around the camp fire that night.
Finally we were off road but still hadn’t locked in our wheels then comes the call from our trip leader Davo, think we’d better go to low range now and no sooner had he made the suggestion and we were crawling down some rather steep tracks and a couple of nice deep ruts.
The forest was beautiful and the terrain was ever changing from the dry soil to red clay. As we were winding our way up one track we came across a rather big hole in the road which would have swallowed us up so we went left to come round through a tight right turn, glad it was a day trip and not a night drive, would have been a bit nasty to fall into.
We came upon a couple of shallow water crossings and then found some slippery clay halfway up a hill that brought me to an abrupt stop. We slipped straight into a big rut, reversed out and had another go staying to the left and our trusty patrol took us up and over all the way, yeehaa. Davo made it through easily before us and then Nathan and Tanya came up after us and went a little sidewards. Of course Tiny and crew walked up in the little Jeep, however a few tracks later the little jeep lost traction and had to slide down and have another go. Made it up and there was no winching or recovery needed on this drive. The scenery was just so relaxing the sun filtering through the flora.
We travelled some tracks and in the end weren’t sure exactly where we were so just kept driving until we hit a main road and ended up on the other side of Kenilworth. We arrived back at camp around 5:30 to start the “happy hour” which went for a few hours. Everyone congregated by the fire and had dinner and a few drinks and little by little the group shrunk and shrunk as we all started turning in for the night to be up and ready for an 8:30 departure the following morning.
Up and off the next morning we went to another camp ground called Booloumba Creek, aahhh what a beautiful pristine part of this amazing country. It was so breathtakingly beautiful, clear water and beautiful straight huggable trees – just gorgeous.
We meandered back to camp from Booloumba without any interruptions or hill challenges and all packed up left camp at 1:00pm and went to Kenilworth Cheese factory for some belated morning tea and to partake in some of the selections of gourmet cheeses and foods and had a coffee or beverage of choice or ice cream or ……..
Then it was on to Maleny to show our “new to Queensland” visitors a little of the Hinterland lifestyle and we all enjoyed a look around town and then lunch.
After filling our bellies we left Maleny to travel the back roads back to home peeling off 1 by 1 at our turn offs. Ray and I drove into our driveway around 6:30pm and had enjoyed our lovely weekend away immensely. Debbie Sullivan.
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