Old Mill Camp to Boar Gully Camp, Burchell Trail, Brisbane Ranges National Park - July 2021

I was pleasantly surprised to be walking under blue sky this morning.

Well it was a wet and wild old night in the Duplex last night. The rain started pretty soon after I'd crawled into the tent last night and didn't stop until the middle of the night, and then the cloud cleared and it became very cold. The Duplex held up perfectly in the rain, I didn't get a drop inside and even the condensation wasn't too bad. Waking this morning just before sunrise I pulled on pretty well all the clothes that I was carrying and crawled out of the tent to greet the new day. Looking towards the sky I was pleasantly surprised to see not only the first colour of sunrise, but also a fairly clear sky, the forecast for today was for rain with hail so a clear sky was a good thing. Squelching my way across the sodden grass to the picnic table with my brekky set up I settled down to enjoy the sunrise with a coffee... life was pretty good!

After around 14 hours in the tent it wasn't too much of a hardship to be up early this morning.

Breakfast is on the go.

It was around 8:30am by the time I'd had breakfast and packed up camp today, not super early however I still should have enough time to get back to the ute in daylight hours. This walk is normally done as a three day walk however I was looking at combining the second and third days today, making it into a two day stroll. Leaving Old Mill the Burchell Trail climbed the Furze 4wd track up towards the Geelong-Ballan Road and this turned into a nice relaxing warm up for the day ahead. It is around 4 kilometres from Old Mill Camp to Geelong-Ballan Road and while I was gaining height the climb was very gentle, to improve my mood even more I was passing through extensive forests of grass trees and even shared the forest with a huge flock of noisy Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoos.

The Old Mill Camp is down to the right, the toilet and tank is to the left. The weather is certainly looking more promising over towards the south west.

Early morning on the Burchell Trail. 

You'd think I'd look a bit fresher after 14 hours in the tent...

These birds a beautiful creatures.

Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoos.

Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoos.

I'm about to cross Geelong-Ballan Road. This is the only bitumen road that I'd cross along the whole length of the walk.

After safely crossing the busy Geelong - Ballan Road I melted back into the scrub and set off on the next leg of today's stroll down to Anakie Gorge. Whereas my walk so far this morning had been mostly climbing I now started a long descent, once again following closed 4wd tracks - this time Triggs Track. With the shimmering water of the Lower Stony Creek Reservoir coming into view through the trees to my left I knew that I was getting close to Anakie Gorge now. Passing above the reservoir wall I could see and hear some day walkers at the base of the wall, I actually saw more people on this short Anakie Gorge section than I'd seen over the length of the whole walk so far. Continuing on a bit I soon dropped down to meet the main Anakie Gorge Walking Track which I followed downstream for five minutes or so before leaving the main track as the Burchell Trail started the long climb up the eastern side of the gorge.

Triggs Track.

Triggs Track drops down to Lower Stony Creek Reservoir.

Triggs Track, Brisbane Ranges National Park.

Lower Stony Creek Reservoir.

Now while my earlier climb out of Old Mill had been fairly gentle the climb out of Anakie Gorge was a pretty solid one. Thankfully I was still walking beneath a blue sky so as I gained height I was able stop occasionally and enjoy the extensive views, including the Lower Stony Creek Reservoir now a satisfyingly long way below me. After passing a boot washing station I emerged from the scrub onto Switch Road for a fairly uninspiring couple of kilometres of gravel road walking. Arriving at the McLeans Highway (another gravel road) the Burchell Trail crossed straight over and headed bush again. This section of the walk was once again along old 4wd tracks, although it looks like these ones had been closed for many years. This section of the walk from the McLeans Highway to the start of the descent down into the Little River Gorge was incredibly slippery this morning, the smooth and hard packed surface required a fair bit of concentration and respect for an old bloke like me.

The climb out of Anakie Gorge is fairly solid.

The Burchell Trail - still climbing out of Anakie Gorge.

Lower Stony Creek Reservoir is down in that valley.

Arriving at the boot cleaning station...

... meant that I was about to start the two kilometre road bash along Switch Road.

The Heath was just starting to flower.

Burchell Trail, Brisbane Ranges National Park. 

Once I arrived at the start of the descent down into Little River Gorge the walking improved again. This gorge is a bit of a hidden gem I think as it flies under the radar of most walkers, the gorge itself is a fairly rugged spot (it looks like it should be at Lerderderg actually) and the track makes its way down a fairly acute spur. Arriving at the bottom of the steep descent I found Little River flowing fairly well today, something that isn't all that common in the Brisbane Ranges. The adventurous walking wasn't over now that I was in at the bottom of the gorge though, I now started a rough twenty minute walk upstream to reach Little River Picnic & Camping Area. This short stretch is arguably the most scenic kilometre along the length of the Burchell Trail and I made the most of it today.

When the views to the east open up it meant that I was about to start dropping into the Little River Gorge.

My luck with the weather was still holding.

Dropping into Little River Gorge.

Little River had a reasonable flow coming down today.

The Burchell Trail is surprisingly rough through Little River Gorge.

Little River Gorge, Brisbane Ranges National Park.

Little River Gorge, Brisbane Ranges National Park.

Little River Gorge, Brisbane Ranges National Park.

Arriving at the Little River Picnic & Camping Area I pulled stumps for awhile for lunch, it was around 1pm now and with only 10 kilometres to go to get back to the ute I wasn't in too much of a hurry. Little River Picnic & Camping Area is the second Burchell Trail campsite and features a nice grass shelf above the river to pitch your tent on along with a long drop, a water tank and picnic table. The issue as I see it here is that you can drive here, the McLeans Highway (remember it's only a gravel road) runs right past the camping spot and I'm not overly keen camping in these vehicle access spots when I'm bushwalking. Still, it wasn't the vehicles I was thinking about as I enjoyed lunch today, nope it was the looming dark clouds that I was keeping a close eye on now. With lunch finished I set off at around 2pm for the last leg of my Burchell Trail Walk over to Boar Gully, and almost as soon as I started off up the long climb up McLeans Highway the rain arrived...awesome! 

The Little River Walkers Camp. The long drop and tank is in the tree line at the other end of the grassy shelf.

Leaving Little River the Burchell Trail makes a fairly long climb up the McLeans Highway.

I enjoyed all four seasons on my climb out of Little River Gorge.

By the time I'd climbed out of the Little River Gorge along the McLeans Highway and arrived up on Thompsons Road the rain had passed by and I was once again walking beneath a relatively clear sky... for now. Almost as soon as my climb out of Little River had finished the Burchell Trail dropped again into another deep valley. After a very steep descent the Burchell Trail follows an old benched track up a dry gully before crossing a bridge and climbing, again fairly steeply, to meet Slate Track. I was starting to feel things a bit by now so I was pretty happy when Slate Track levelled out a bit, joined up with Quarry Track and headed off west to meet Thompsons Road again. Apart from feeling a little tired I was also struggling to keep warm now, even the long climb up Slate Track hadn't really raised a sweat as the frigid biting wind kept me cool, after arriving at the spot where the Burchell Trail headed away from Thompsons Road I gave up and pulled on some thermals to keep the wind at bay (when I arrived back at the ute the ambient temperature was reading 5˚ which combined with the breeze I'm thinking would of made it more like 0˚).

After crossing over Thomson Road the Burchell Trail follows a nice walking track again.

I was about to cross this valley.

There wasn't much in the way of zig zagging as I dropped into the valley.

After a few minutes down in the valley the Burchell Trail crosses this bridge and starts another solid climb.

Climbing up to meet Slate Track.

Slate Track, Brisbane Ranges National Park.

Slate Track, Brisbane Ranges National Park.

By the time I arrived on to Thomson Road I was really struggling to stay warm this afternoon.

Heading west I was now making my way across the park to join up with Little River Track, the showers now stalking me again. Looking at the map you'd think that once the Burchell Trail joined Little River Track it would be pretty well game over, yeah you'd be wrong though. The Little River Track was the sting in what had been a fairly long day, instead of contouring around the hills Little River Track seemed to drop into and climb out of every steep gully in the vicinity I reckon. By the time some cleared rural land appeared to my left I was pretty well ready to jump into the ute and crank up the heater and thankfully the Boar Gully trail head wasn't too far away. After tracking the fence line of the private land for a few minutes the Boar Gully Camping Ground came into view and my two day walk was over.

Link Track.

The rain caught up with me again as I walked Link Track.

Link Track.

Link Track.

Turning north on Little River Track the walk was almost over.

Little River Track crossed couple of decent sized gullies.

The Dirt.

According to my GPS I walked around 23.4 kilometres today and climbed about 785 metres on what I'd call a medium-hard grade days walking. Navigation today was pretty easy with all the major junctions signposted or way marked. Once again the Burchell Trail utilises to collection of walking tracks, 4wd tracks and quiet gravel roads and once again some of those track were very slippery - particularly the old 4wd tracks. I used the Meridian Maps Brisbane Ranges National Park 1:30,000 topo map on this stroll along with my GPS topos. A lot of different walking guide book authors have written up walks that incorporate sections of the Burchell Trail if anyone wants some printed information.

Over the two days of my Burchell Trail walk I covered 38.9 kilometres and climbed around 1174 metres according to my GPS. These figures are slightly surprising as Parks Vic promote the Burchell Trail as being a 39 kilometre 3 day walk, and I added at least 2 kilometres on the first day by starting the walk in Steiglitz. I picked up a case of giardia somewhere along this walk and my suspicions are that it was from the tank at Old Mill Camp although I did pick up a couple of litres of water from the tank at Little River Camp so it's possible that I got the dodgy water there. The Burchell Trail is a good track for new bushwalkers I think as it is mostly very well signposted and there aren't too many hard climbs, the surface of the track requires a bit of respect in winter though as the clay/dirt surface is incredibly slippery in spots. There are two official walkers camps along the walk, Old Mill and Little River, and both need to be booked with Parks Vic.

Relevant Posts.

Day 1 of this walk, 2021.

Boar Gully Walk, Brisbane Ranges National Park, 2016.

It looks like I'd be racing the rain all the way back to the ute.

I can see the ute through the trees... happy days!

Boots are off...

... now it's time to crank up the heater and head home.