The Pyramids Loop, Girraween National Park - January 2017

A typical scene in Girraween National Park.

On our way home from Brisbane last Christmas I broke the road trip with a walk in Girraween National Park, I decided to check out The Pyramids Walk. I'd heard stories of Girraween for years and have always wanted to visit but I always seemed to be passing by on journeys further afield, today though was my chance to check the place out for myself. Girraween National Park is a bit of a granite wonderland, with all manor of rocks, hills and tors to be explored. Pulling up at Bald Creek day use area in the early afternoon, I left Sam snoozing in the ute and headed off to explore a bit.

The tracks are well sign posted in Girraween National Park, although there are a lot of them around the day use area.

There are a lot of tracks around here but I just headed west until I arrived at the Bald Rock Camping Area, from here on the way forward was a bit more obvious. Leaving the camp I continued on, the path alternating between crushed granite and huge granite slabs. I was on the Bald Rock Creek Circuit now and after a few minutes I arrived at the more or less dry Bald Rock Creek, while the creek wasn't really flowing much here the huge granite slabs and large pools of water still offered plenty to please the eye. 

Easy walking on my way to Bald Rock Creek camp.

That's The Pyramid in the distance.

My first crossing of Bald Rock Creek was enlivened by some photogenic pools of water.

After crossing Bald Rock Creek the route climbed a little and headed on a bit of a convoluted journey back up stream along the north bank of the creek. The walking here was through dry eucalyptus forest interspersed with quite a few native pines, which are a bit of a personal favourite of mine, so all was pretty good in my Feral world. Now whilst I was generally heading upstream beside the creek for the most part the creek wasn't really visible from my route, the route meandering around the sides of the broad valley taking in points of interest. The next interesting feature marked on my map was the Granite Arch, the track builders here having routed the track between two huge granite boulders with another massive rock balanced overhead, hence the arch, gee you wouldn't want to be here in an earth quake.

Heading back up the valley parallel to Bald Rock Creek, featured more big rocks.

The Granite Arch.

Safely making my way under The Arch my route dropped a little and passed what would be my return route to the ute, I headed left though towards The Pyramid. Initially this track dropped gently crossing a branch of Bald Rock Creek before starting a fairly unrelenting climb up to the top of The Pyramid. Even for a fat old bloke like me the going wasn't too bad to start with, the track climbing a seemingly never ending series of steps. The numerous weird and wonderfully wind warn granite rocks along here kept my mind off my red lining heart beat, and what do you know, every time I ran out of breath there was conveniently something to photograph.

Climbing up the seemingly never ending steps towards The Pyramid.

It seemed that every time the heart rate got a bit high there was something to stop and take a photo of.

Eventually the steps ended and I climbed up onto the bare granite slabs of The Pyramid, this is the crux of the walk as from here on the route sticks to the steep granite slabs, it seems like a lot of punters content themselves with the views from near the base of the slabs rather than tackling the steep incline. Being your intrepid Feral walker though I pushed on, following the splashes of paint on the granite which marked the safest route to the summit. I think that the initial section of the climb is probably the toughest bit as the route climbs very steeply up the granite towards some long slabs of rock that have broken away, there is no natural protection on this bit so it can feel a bit exposed on the bare rock. Once the route meets the long slabs it never feels quite so exposed, although there are definitely some very steep sections they are generally either pretty short or there is some natural protection in the form of big granite boulders. 

This section is probably the crux of the climb up to the summit of The Pyramid, there is very little natural protection on the bare slabs.

But the views are pretty good even if you don't make it to the top.

Native Pines and big rocks, my kind of walk.

While I was on the summit I actually got a few drops of rain which hastened my departure a little.

Reaching a bit of a broad plateau the route doubled back a bit and I climbed up to the summit proper. The view from up here was pretty sweet, although the overcast conditions meant that my photos are a  bit flat really. If you ever find yourself up here take a bit of time to explore the summit area a bit, backtracking I dropped down slightly and headed into an area of massive granite boulders, the many caves and crevices offering plenty of opportunities for exploration. Coming out of the boulders I found myself looking across at the huge bare granite slopes of the imaginatively named Second Pyramid, this is the largest single granite slab in the park and is only accessible to climbers. With the weather threatening to rain on me at any minute I figured it would be a good time to get down before the rock got wet, so it was time to leave.

There is a great area of huge granite boulders to explore just below the summit.

The Second Pyramid is rock climbers territory.

The feared rain thankfully never came (well until I was back in the ute and heading for Coonabarabran anyway) so I managed to get down the rock safely. My route back to the ute was a bit of a retrace initially, descending the long series of steps and crossing the Bald Rock Creek tributary. Once across the small creek I took a left fork and dropped down to the Bald Rock Creek, following it down stream for awhile before crossing the creek on some slabs of rock and then doubling back up stream. Now I could of headed straight back to the ute from here but I decided to check out a swimming hole that I'd seen from the other side of the creek and it proved to be a good move. The swimming hole in Bald Rock Creek is a peach, bugger me there is even a pool ladder to help fat bastards like me enter the water with a little dignity intact! Soaking in the cool water for awhile was a great way to finish what had been a good walk, yeah it would have been a little better with some sun and blue sky but at least it didn't rain and even though it was overcast it was still pretty warm. Sweat free after my little swim I returned to Sam and we headed off on our trip back to Melbourne.

Heading back down to Bald Rock Creek.

After crossing the creek I doubled back up stream for a swim.

Yeah, it's a hard life!

Hey Hey, I even got some patches of blue sky as I floated in the water hole.

The Bald Rock Creek waterhole was a very civilised swimming hole.

The Dirt.

I walked 6.8 kilometres and climbed 295 metres on this medium grade stroll. I used the mud map and notes out of Melanie Ball's book Top Walks in Australia as well as my GPS. Melanie is one of the newest guide book writers and her books are published through Explore Australia, her notes are generally very good and she has written up some walks that either haven't been written up before or it has been awhile since they have been written up. This walk would be an easy walk if it wasn't for the final steep climb up the granite slabs, while the granite has pretty good grip the exposure worries a lot of people, the good news is that the view from near the start of the steep slabs is pretty good so you can just turn around and head back if it all gets a bit freaky.

Relevant Posts.

Mount Barney Circuit, Mount Barney National Park, 2014.

The Grand High Tops, Warrumbungle National Park, 1999.

Here's another look at the dodgiest bit, this lady had decided that she'd give it a miss.