Itinerary

Day 1
We’ll start our day with a summit climb in the Glass House Mountains National Park to view surrounding volcanic formations steeped in history and Aboriginal dreamtime legends. We’ll travel through picturesque rural scenery to The Great Dividing Range allowing time for a village or lakeside lunch and then an easy walk on trails through the Ravensbourne National Park. Here we’ll discover the complex rainforest environment and view many prominent bird species including Brush Turkeys and Rufous Fantails. We’ll overnight in the prosperous regional Garden City of Toowoomba amidst beautiful parklands featuring century old cold climate trees perfect for a roam at dusk or dawn, as time allows. Tonight we’ll stay at the Comfort Inn on the Park.
(Walk up to 4 hours, Drive up to 3 hours)
 
Day 2
A full travel day rich in history, scenery, some short walks and the unexpected. We’ll visit the homeland of three national icons, literary figure Steele Rudd, nurse Sister Kenny and legendary bushman RM Williams, all of whom had a significant role in crafting the image, culture and character of Australia internationally.
We trace the headwaters of Australia’s greatest inland river system, the mighty Darling River (3370kms) surrounded by the peaks of the World Heritage Main Range National Park, the Scenic Rim and Queen Mary Falls National Park where we’ll pause for a short walk and bird observing – Crimson Rosellas, King Parrots and Satin Bowerbirds.
A backcountry road leads us to a bush retreat for lunch before we embark on a steady climb and descent of the largest granite rock in the southernhemisphere, at Bald Rock National Park. We’ll visit briefly, one of the remote rocky hideouts of the bushranger Captain Thunderbolt, immersing ourselves in his lifestyle, before completing our day at the comfortable Girraween Lodge nestled beside Girraween National Park, our retreat for two nights. Expect an arrival reception from large numbers of Kangaroo and Wallabies. (Lodges are 2 bedrooms with shared facilities)
(Walk up 3 ½ hours, Drive up to 4 ½ hours)
 
Day 3
An early roam of the lodge precincts is likely to be rewarded by sightings of grey kangaroos, wallabies and birds feeding in the dawn and looking harder, possibly the resident Koala. Today we’ll enjoy a leisurely start to a full day walk through a landscapeof granite monoliths, balancing boulders and tors, taking in such features as Castle Rock, The Sphinx, Turtle Rock, and The Pyramid, before returning to a classic Aussie barbeque dinner with locals at a boutique winery, including inspection and wine tastings. Some nocturnal wildlife spotting follows if you please.
(Walk up to 7 hours)
 
Day 4
We’ll enjoy an early breakfast and an easy grade walk over the expansive granite creek slabs to The Junction, pausing to enjoy the abundant bird life along the way, and then we’ll travel south across the New South Wales border along the New England Tableland, pausing to visit historic Tenterfield. Here in 1889 an impassioned and provocative speech by Sir Henry Parkes gave rise to our nation as a Federation. Creative sons of the town have emerged over the years, plying a saddlery trade, writing legendary Aussie bush poetry and performing at the dizzy heights and footlights of Broadway. We’ll enjoy a local café lunch and coffee break, then journey on to an assembly of Celtic Standing Stones honouring the thousands of Irish, Scottish, Welsh and others who over 200 years have made Australia home. We’ll drop by the Mother of Ducks Lagoon to view the water birds. Time permitting a visit and walk in Gara Gorge, Oxley Wild Rivers National Park. Tonight we’ll stay at the Westwood Motor Inn in Armidale.
(Walk up to 3 ½ hours, Drive up to 3 ½ hours)
 
Day 5
Another early and full day as we travel a short distance to the Wollomombi Gorge and Falls, reputed to be the fifth highest in the world, perhaps more interesting for the precipitous and rugged land form than the falls themselves as they are served by a relatively small catchment. The largest bird of prey, the wedge-tailed eagle with its 2.5 metre wingspan often soars and glides on the thermals above, to a height of 2000 metres. We’ll enjoy a leisurely walk to the head of the falls and continue to the neighbouring Chandler Falls. We’ll spend the rest of the day on a walk in the World Heritage Listed New England National Park, declared in 1935 after 15 years of local lobbying. It was noted for its geological significance, scenery, and diversity of plant and animal life. Expansive distant views over the wilderness from the edge of the escarpment span some 70kms to the beaches of the Pacific Ocean and represent an elevation gain of 1563 metres. The cross section of habitats range from cool temperate rainforest with Antarctic Beech, mosses lichens and ferns to high exposed windswept plateau country, heath land and Eucalypt woodland. A little luck and we may hear the curious song and mimicry of the shy Superb Lyrebird, a chorus of endangered Sphagnum Frogs or spot the ferocious marsupial carnivore, the Spotted-tailed Quoll. If time allows we’ll walk out onto the exposed plateau of Wright’s Lookout for an inspiring connection with the wilderness. We’ll stay at the same accommodations tonight.
Walk up to 7 hours, Drive up to 3 hours)
 
Day 6
We’ll journey south on lonely back tracks for some more breathtaking rim-top walks and gorge viewing at Dangars Falls, scene of a daring tight rope walk by an Italian showman in the 1800’s. There are roadside diversions to an eccentric monument to local rural sons, an historic woolshed of unique design (1869) and a quaint bush chapel (1921) set amidst a magnificent avenue of 200 English Elm Trees. We’ll enjoy lunch refreshments at a village gallery café. We are now in bushranger territory where the legendary and elusive Captain Thunderbolt made his final stand – or did he? After lunch it is a highway run to the township of Muswellbrook, in the heart of Thoroughbred horse breeding country. Tonight we’ll stay at the Muswellbrook Motor Inn.
(Short walks and roaming, Drive up to 4 hours)
 
Day 7
Today our journey takes us into the picturesque rolling farm land of the upper Hunter Valley, noted for its meticulously groomed thoroughbred breeding studs and wineries, (including the highly awarded Rosemount Winery), quaint historic pubs, tiny villages of stone buildings and populations of just a few hundred. We favour the back-roads to the Greater Blue Mountains National Park and our retreat for three nights at Blackheath. We’ll pass through the Wollemi National Park (now associated with the recent re-discovering of a living fossil, the Wollemi Pine, an evolutionary line thought to be long extinct, arguably the greatest botanical discovery of our time and now attracting world-wide demand.) Dramatic continuous ranges and escarpments emerge, sheltering the site of an oil-shale mining town of 1881, once a thriving industrial enterprise employing 2500 people, now in ghostly ruin and solitude. Our arrival in the Blue Mountains is celebrated with a short walk out onto the precipitous Pulpit Rock presenting unsurpassed 280-degree views deep into the wilderness of the Gross Valley. Other late afternoon walks will be scheduled as time permits. We’ll spend the next three nights at Redleaf Resort Motel Blue Mountains.
(Short Walks, Drive up to 5 hours)
 
Day 8
Given fine mountain weather and unveiling deep valley cloud, we’ll indulge in a picnic breakfast at a sublime location overlooking a panoramic valley and wild sandstone escarpments tinted blue by the presence of Eucalyptus tree oil drifting in the atmosphere. The scenery is superb, shared only with an abundance of bird life, which frequents the area, including the Glossy Black Cockatoo. We’ll continue from breakfast to complete a long walk on a formed circuit trail. This features a cliff top section with numerous grand valley panoramas, the historic Wentworth Falls, a descent down cliff face staircases to the historic National Pass etched into and along the cliff face, an ascent through the cascading Valley of Waters to a well-deserved late café lunch at the Conservation Hut. The day will conclude rubbing shoulders with “a few” photo snapping tourists at celebrated iconic features in the area, then some education or retail therapy at the National Parks Blue Mountains Heritage Centre adjoining Govetts Leap.
(Walk up to 6 hours)
 
Day 9
For some, today will be the wilderness highlight of our journey, a full day of walking, commencing with a steep descent into the historic Gross Valley wilderness where grand stands of Blue Gum forest await us. The bird life is abundant and historically in 1932 the push for a Blue Mountains National Park commenced here with a bushwalkers club raising sufficient funds to buy out the lease over land containing the Blue Gums. The wilderness trail continues up Govetts Creek bringing us to the picturesque Acacia Flat beneath the towering Pulpit Rock and continuing to the Grand Canyon, where we will emerge from a climb and the valley at Neats Glen. For those not so adventurous a half-day walk into and out of the Grand Canyon timed to meet other intrepid members of our group, will be most satisfying.
(Walk up to 8 hours or a 4-hour option)
 
Day 10 – June 13
We’ll rise to an early breakfast and a slow scenic drive to the Jenolan Caves, historically one of the jewels in Australian tourism since the 1880’s. Here is a natural wonderland of discovered and undiscovered limestone caves, a number of which have been illuminated for spectacular viewing under different themes. We’ll arrive early ahead of the tourist coaches for one of the early guided tours and a coffee beside the historic caves house (1887). Following our underground experiences we’ll travel a short distance to the wilderness national park of Kanangra Boyd to enjoy a walk on the exposed plateau savouring cliff top views of undisturbed wilderness valleys, the Thurat Spires, sections of the precipitous Kanangra Walls and the Kanangra Deep. We’ll lunch with a spectacular wilderness view into the deep. After lunch we journey back to our base at Blackheath for refreshments and then take a late afternoon / early evening drive into Sydney and the end of our adventure.
(Walk up to 3 hours, Drive up to 5 hours)

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