Bush Walk 5 2013: Lower Portals on Mt Barney Creek (Mt Barney NP)

It’s time for another mid-week bush walk. I took a day’s annual leave from work and together with Maree went for another walk in the Mt Barney National Park. Teresa of Horizon Guides was our leader once again.

The description of the walk is:

Lower Portals on Mt Barney Creek (Mt Barney NP) Approx. 5km. 5 hrs (with lunch) Easy – Moderate: The walk begins at the Lower Portals car park and is an easy walk on a track to the Portals. There are short climbs as we cross the ridges that are the foothills of Mt Barney. A fun squeeze through giant river boulders finds us by a beautiful rock pool (where the brave may take a dip!) and the perfect place to rest for lunch. We return via the same track. This walk does require crossing Mt Barney Creek – the level of challenge varying with the creek height.

Route plotted on Google Maps and graph showing elevation along route

We had a group of six people today so it was a pleasant day out. We left Boonah about 8:20 and drove to the carpark at the national park before setting off on the walk. The day was overcast and the surrounding mountains had their heads in the clouds but we had a pleasant cool day. Excellent for walking.

I did this walk last September and it was interesting to see how the grass trees recovered after the fire that went through then.

The car park and information stand

The grass trees were looking spectacular after last years bush fire

Rocky Creek – our first creek crossing

The old fence posts are a reminder of the grazing history of the area

The wattles were all out in flower

There were two slightly challenging experiences on the walk. We had to wade across Barney Creek and it was very cold. The second challenge was climbing up through a gap in some boulders to get to the portals.