Caves Circuit, Lamington National Park - June 2016

Kweebani Cave.

On the third day of our recent trip north to do a few walks and catch up with Ms Extreme, Jane and I decided to do the Caves Circuit. The original plan had been for us to do the Ships Stern Walk, but to tell you the truth I was pretty rooted tired. Now I don't want to make excuses put the previous few days had been full on, culminating the day before with an all day walk around the Coomera Circuit trying to keep up with Ms Extreme, before heading down to Coolangatta Airport and picking Sam up, of course the plane was late so she didn't turn up until almost midnight and then we had to drive back up to Binna Burra, like I said I was getting a bit tired, but then again I am old! So instead of us heading out to Ships Stern I talked Ms Extreme into accompanying me on the Caves Circuit.

After leaving the lodge the track drops straight into the rainforest.

The good news is that the track started at the bottom of the entrance driveway for Binna Burra Lodge so we didn't have far to go to start the walk. The Caves Circuit dives straight into the rainforest and starts a fairly gentle descent, as the route slowly meanders its way down hill it passes a couple of sections where big trees have come down, the fallen rainforest giants having ripped big holes in the canopy and changed the whole ecology on the ground, its in these open spots that you need to be careful of stinging trees. The advantage of these open spots though is that they sometimes allow you to get a bit of a photo of the surrounding dense rainforest, although I was still suffering a bit from stage fright when it came to taking photos with Ms Extreme.

The views through the trees started to open up towards the Coomera Valley as we descended.

After a few zig zags the track starts descending down a trickling creek for awhile, the views were also starting to open up over the Coomera Valley below us. The main interest though was the huge caves that the route passed by. The first large cave we got to is called Kweebani Cave (Cooking Cave), bone and charcoal fragments found on the floor of the cave indicate that it was used by the local indigenous people, and why wouldn't they I reckon, with water close by, good shelter and an awesome view it would have made a very comfy camp. Its a great section of the walk along here, the track excavated into the rock in spots to traverse the steep slopes, on leaving the caves the track even passes through a small tunnel in the rocks, not something you experience on every bush walk.

The Caves Circuit is a well graded track, there are plant of zig zags to take the pain out off any descending or climbing.

The rocky Barrabareen Creek.

Jane, aka Ms Extreme, taking in the great view from Kweebani Cave.

Apparently the cave features three different types of rock, perlite, breccia and tuff.

After passing through the small tunnel the track climbed a bit to a beautiful lookout, unfortunately the overcast conditions weren't conducive to great photos today, so you'll have to take my word that the view was good. This quite spot features a quiet bench to rest on that is a memorial to Robert Collins one of Australia's first conservationists. The view extends over the wild Coomera River Valley and up to the Illbah Valley, identified by its cleared land. We spent a bit of time taking in the view and enjoying the serenity, its hard to believe that a place this peaceful and un crowded exists so close to the Gold Coast and Brisbane.

The section of the walk that traverses the steep slopes around the caves makes for interesting walking.

The view over the Coomera Valley from the lookout.

Eventually it was time to tear ourselves away from the lookout, the route now climbs a little through some more lush rainforest before popping out on Binna Burra Road at the National Park Visitor Centre. Now to make this into a circuit means that you have to head up Binna Burra Road back to the lodge, normally I wouldn't be overly keen to finish off the walk on a road but the views from the quiet road as we climbed made the walk pleasant enough today, walking side by side chatting away it was a nice way to finish my short walking holiday with Ms Extreme. The only thing to keep an eye out for on the short climb up the road are the one lane sections, its probably best to try and avoid any cars on these narrow sections, although any traffic that does come along is normally poking along slowly taking in the view as well.

I think those white cliffs in the distance are Noowongbill Lookout.

As we climbed we got some views of Egg Rock in the valley below as well as a look at our Sky Lodge sitting high on the ridge above. Nearing Binna Burra Lodge we turned up Possum Track which deposited us back at the lodge car park. After saying my farewells to Ms Extreme, who was continuing on with her exploring, I headed back to my room for a quick nanna nap, yeah I know I'm getting old. 

The road walk back up to Binna Burra Lodge wasn't too bad, that's our accommodation  on the top of the ridge.

Illinbah Valley

The Dirt.

We walked about 5.2 kilometres on this easy walk, once again I didn't get a metres climbed figure but I'd guess it at around 150 metres I suppose. I used the notes from John & Lyn Daly's Take A Walk In South-East Queensland book. This is a great little stroll with a few views, the usual great rain forest, and  a little bit of indigenous and early european history as well, but don't forget you have a little bit of road walking to make it into a circuit. Lamington National park is a great spot and I've enjoyed it every time I've been lucky enough to visit, I'd really like to get up there for two or three weeks one time and have a good poke around, I really have hardly explored the O'Reilly section at all. As I mentioned above this was the last walk I did in Queensland with Ms Extreme, it was interesting to meet a fellow blogger and hopefully we'll be doing lots more walking with Jane over the years. Ms Extreme has actually written up this walk on her excellent blog, her photos are beautiful.

I haven't got a lot of links to share for any of my posts around the area really;

Here's my Coomera Circuit post

and heres my Tullawallal Circuit post,

the only other post I've got up from SE Queensland is Mt Barney

If you are parked at the lodge look out for Possum Track disappearing into the rainforest on your right as you climb up the road, it makes a nice short cut.

Binna Burra Lodge has a few saw milling remnants left over from its distant past.