Wongai Walkers Camp to Tallowwood Walkers Camp, Conondale Range Great Walk, Conondale National Park - December 2021

Today's walk was all about the rainforest.

With last nights constant rain lingering a little I stayed in the tent until close to 8am this morning. The good news this morning was that my Zpacks Duplex had stayed bone dry on the inside all night despite the wet and humid conditions, actually I doubt that my double skin tents would of kept me this dry. When the rain finally relented a bit I was up and packed up quickly, setting off at around 8:30am. Today looked like a fairly solid walk on paper, I'd be climbing up to the highest section of the Conondale Ranges Great Walk before eventually dropping back down to arrive at the Tallowwood Walkers Camp sometime this afternoon.

Initially I was pushing through a bit of wet grass.

Setting off this morning the track meandered it's way south for a couple of hours through the dripping wet primordial rainforest. As far as walking tracks go then this one was pretty good really, on the rare occasions when I crossed over other tracks my route was signposted, however apart from that there was virtually no track marking. With all the rain the leeches were out in force this morning, sometimes it appeared as though the ground itself was moving towards me. My mornings exertions climaxed as I climbed a series of steep switchbacks to emerge blinking from the forest onto an old fire track beneath the 800 metre Mt Gerald.

The Conondale Range Great Walk - the track itself can be surprisingly rough in spots.

Conondale National Park.

I hadn't been walking long and I was already looking fairly wet and bedraggled. 

It was only a few minutes after I'd emerged onto the fire track when I found a nice fallen tree to sit on and have a bit of a break, thankfully the rain had relented a bit by now and I was even able to give Sam a quick call to let here know that I was going OK. After a quick break I started a section of the walk that stayed fairly high as I passed very close to Mt Gerald, Mt Ramsden, Mt Langley and finally a bit later Mt Cabinet, the CRGW doesn't actually climb over any of these mountains but passes just to the south of the summits, to be honest the forest is that thick through here then there would be no views from the summits anyway.

These old firetracks provided an opportunity to break out of the somewhat claustrophobic rainforest occasionally.

I couldn't escape the leeches though!

I was now walking a mix of old firetracks along with dedicated walking tracks and while the fire tracks could be a little underwhelming in spots they did give me a bit of a break from the dripping wet and claustrophobic rainforest for awhile. The other notable thing about the fire track walking was the amount of snakes around, the serpents obviously appreciating the slightly more open canopy which allowed a bit more sun through, well in the short periods when it wasn't pissing down anyway!

Even accounting for the rain, the humidity, the leeches and the snakes I still really enjoy walking in the rainforest.

He was keeping a close eye on this Feral interloper!

I'm guessing somewhere between 2 and 3 metres... although I didn't measure him!

While this little bloke was much smaller he was much more dangerous.

After passing the three highest mountains where the CRGW hovered around the 800 metres mark for quite a few kilometres I started to lose a bit of height as I dropped down towards the Tallowwood Walkers Camp. I was now generally heading north and the CRGW once again utilised a variety of tracks, the forest itself becoming a little dryer as I dropped down in elevation to around 700 metres at the Tallowwood Walkers Camp, although in retrospect the dryer forest might have more to do with the aspect on the ridge than the elevation I'm thinking. Tallowwood Walkers Camp had the same great facilities as I'd enjoyed over at Wongai Walkers Camp the night before although I think there was a little more flat ground to pitch my tent on here. I'd arrived at camp at around 3:30pm this afternoon which was a good thing as it allowed me a couple of hours to set up camp, enjoy dinner, and dry some clothes before the rain arrived again - by 5:30pm it was tent o'clock again though as the rain once again set in.

Another feeble attempt at an Arty Blogger Wanker shot.

Approaching Tallowwood Walkers Camp the forest started to open up a bit.

An easy section of the CRGW approaching Tallowwood Walkers Camp.

The CRGW.

The Dirt.

Today was a fairly solid days walking, according to my GPS I walked around 19.1 kilometres and climbed about 690 metres on what I call a medium days walking. Over the two days of the CRGW so far I've walked 34.8 kilometres and climbed about 1380 metres. The tracks today were a real mixture however they were all clear enough and fairly easy to follow. The Leeches were ferocious today, the situation getting ridiculous at Tallowwood Camp when I found myself sitting on the camp table to stop them climbing up my legs - I was using Bushmans repellent on my boots and gaiters and at times today I must of had 20 leeches writhing around in their death throes on my boots, yes it was effective but not pretty. I used the QLD Government Conondale Range Great Walk 1:25,000 topo along with my Alltrails App and my GPS topos today. The camp needs to be pre booked with the QLD Parks people.

Relevant Posts.

Day 1 of this walk, 2021.

Tallowwood Walker Camp facilities.

There was a little more flat ground at Tallowwood than there had been over at Wongai I thought.

I enjoyed a long but comfortable night in the Duplex.