Nice easy walking this morning.
Once I'd freed myself of leeches and got all the mozzies out of the tent I enjoyed a good nights sleep up at Blackwood Camp, although the sound of the rain and the wind howling through the tree tops did interrupted my dreams a couple of times. Thankfully the rain had pretty well stopped by the time I emerged from the tent, although looking around it was clear that the clouds ceiling was down pretty low as things were pretty misty up at Blackwood Camp this morning. I was pretty keen to get down to Airlie Beach and enjoy a late breakfast with Sam this morning so I didn't muck around breaking camp and I was heading off before 8am this morning.
I was packed up ad on my way fairly early this morning.
It's a long walk to get water if you need it at Blackwood Camp...
... although there are a couple of long drops.
The Great Walk continued on along the undulating ridge, occasionally dropping and climbing very steeply although for the most part the walking was pretty good, although very muddy. Around ten minutes after leaving camp I arrived at some more water tanks, although I still had around a litre on board so I decided to give it a miss this time. While I had mostly been walking in cloud this morning I did start to get a few patches of blue sky that would fleetingly appear through the canopy, although for the most part grey was the predominant colour of the sky.
I had a little cloud swirling through first up today.
Whitsundays Great Walk.
Occasionally I'd get some glimpses through the canopy.
I was keeping a very close eye out for stinging trees when I walked across these openings.
Conway National Park.
I was happy to be able to re-fill my water bottle as I hadn't topped up at the last tanks back near Mt Haywood last night.
With one last steep climb looming ahead of me I arrived at some more water tanks, this time I decided to top up a little as even under the grey skies I was still sweating bullets in the humidity this morning. I've started using a Katadyn Be Free filter and it is certainly more convenient than my old purification pill method, not only don't I have to wait thirty minutes to drink the water but I can also drink it straight from the filter which is handy. After a quick drink I grabbed my pack and sweated my way up and over the last steep climb of the walk and after dropping down a bit and meeting the Honeyeater Lookout Track I knew that it would be all down hill from here.
Dropping down the very slippery track towards the Honeyeater Lookout Track.
I'll leave the Honeyeater Track until I'm visiting on a nicer day.
The track improved after I passed by the Honeyeater Lookout Track although it was incredibly slippery.
I started to get a few views as I dropped down towards Airlie Beach.
Once I'd joined the Honeyeater Lookout Track the underfoot conditions improved a fair bit as I had a wide, smooth and clear track to descend. Now that doesn't mean it was all good though, with all the recent rain it meant that this descent was slick as ice in spots - there is no way that I would of got down here without going arse up if I didn't have my trekking poles. There is a fair bit of height to lose going down here, so the descent was a long one although as I lost height and approached the houses on the outskirts of town I did start to get some good views both down towards Cannonvale and then a bit later Airlie Beach. Arriving at the top of a long series of stairs I took my last photo out over the water and dropped down into the outskirts of Airlie Beach. From here on I was walking sealed streets as I descended down to the CBD, once down in town I wandered down to the Lagoon and finished off my walk.
Apart from a couple of climbs todays walk was mostly downhill.
Finishing the walk in Airlie Beach was slightly surreal.
The Whitsundays Great Walk is about to spit me out of the bush and into the suburbs.
The Dirt.
According to my GPS I walked around 8.6 kilometres and climbed about 322 metres on this medium grade walk. While today was mostly downhill it still had a couple of climbs that stung. There is no parking at the spot where the track spits you out into Airlie Beach so I figured that the Airlie Beach Lagoon would be a reasonable landmark to finish the walk at. The descent down off the range was incredibly slippery this morning and trekking poles were a definite asset for me. I used my Alltrails App and my GPS topos on this stroll.
Over the two days of the Whitsundays Great Walk I walked around 31.2 kilometres and climbed 969 metres on what I'd call a medium - hard grade walk (mostly due to the second half of day 1). You need to organise a camping permit with the QLD Parks people to camp on this stroll which you can do online. This is a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde of a walk, the first ten kilometres are about as easy as you could get however from then on it gets reasonably hard. The Whitsundays Great Walk is really a rainforest walk, there are a couple of rainforest creeks on day one that should make for good swimming and there are a few ocean views however for the most part it's all green tunnel type of walking.
Relevant Posts.
I finished my two day stroll of at the lagoon in Airley Beach as there doesn't appear to be an official 'trail head' at this end of the track.
I managed to get back to the apartment, drop my pack, have a shower and still make it back to town for breakfast!
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