Brooyar / Glastonbury Creek May Long Weekend

Yes hello Club members this is Curlie writing this article and who was also the stand in trip leader. I meet Big John Mckenna (the Skipper) at the Gympie log cabin servo, we then made our way to the Glastonbury Creek camp ground just west of Gympie. Big John and myself set our camps up at a leisurely pace. Then we proceeded to explore the local area, which put a great smile on Big John’s face as he put the Rodeo through its paces in keeping up with me in the Lib. We also came across a good steep gully and a very rocky track in this area. That evening, Hervey Bay member Darren Woods (Loose Nuts) in his lifted Impreza wagon arrived.

Much to Daz’s pleasure on the Sunday morning we retraced the gully and the rocky track while Big John got ready for the days trip. Curlie, Darren and John set out Sunday morning heading to Widgee. At Widgee we took a left at the sports ground, then turned right onto upper Thornside road. At its end we started up the 4wd track, it was good going until we turned left at the T intersection, then the track became more enjoyable, we then headed to the chimneys. From there we headed to Kilkivan for smoko and waited for David Martin (Gilligan). David being true to form was a no show after 45 minutes of waiting. He finally rang to say he would see us tonight at the camp site.

So we headed up to Mudlo to start the Mudlo to Tansey run. John did a Greg Bryant, he got bogged in 2 wheel drive, then put the Rodeo into 4wd and had no more trouble. We crossed many creek crossings in the plain lands before entering the thick forested area. In the forested area we came across quite a number of fallen trees, some we could drive over, some we could move aside and then there were those that we had to use bow saws and Daz’s small niffy electric chain saw that worked well until the batteries ran out of puff. We spent approximately an hour on one fallen tree to clear a path through.

Then we struck the hill, it was steep and damp with deep washouts running up it. The hill started out as extremely rocky, then came the grand canyon, which swallowed my Liberty. The Lib took an hour to rescue using my turfor hand winch. Then the canyon showed it had taste, by spitting out the Rodeo when it went in. Daz watched the line of the Lib and Rodeo and then traversed the canyon with little trouble. The rest of the hill was reasonably tame for a steep hill. We proceeded along the track and John expressed joy on the rare occasions that the track was clearly visible. During the trip Darren even dropped a can to see if David would turn up and pick it up like he always does, for the Club’s charity ring pull and can collection.

We proceeded back to camp. During the day the Rodeo was loaded up with some firewood for the camp fire that was shared with some of our nearby campers. Finally David turned up in his Forester as we arrived back for the day. On Monday morning after a cooler night, the plan for the day was to explore more of the nearby area. Big John stayed back at camp and packed up slowly as the sun dried off the heavy over night dew.

First we showed David the gully track and the rocky climb we found on Saturday, at the top of this climb, we all stopped and enjoyed the good views to the east over the Gympie area. David said that was the hardest and steepest climb he had done so far in the Forester. From here we turned off and found a new interesting steep down hill track that had some tight hair pins turns, one was so sharp that it had a turn around area to the side. At the bottom we eventually reached a fence line, with time running out, we could not properly check out where it came out. So we back tracked up to the top and then on to camp for lunch. Daz did a great job of nursing his Impreza up this climb and through out the weekend as the clutch had started to slip a bit.

Back at camp we had lunch and packed up the dried out tents. We then set off for home via the lookout, Big John took the more direct route. The lookout has got a steep vertical rock face that is used for absailing, there are permanent stainless steel eyes screwed into the rock. It turned out to be a great weekend to a new area, with a nice grassy camp ground with some big shady trees. We will have to do some more exploring in the future.

Curlie SC 587