Mount Nebo Walks - Egernia Circuit, Thylogale Track & Rainforest Pitta Circuit

Post

Subscribe

Posted 2017-11-02 by Roz Glazebrook ⇒ follow

Years ago, a friend in Townsville gave me some old photos of tree felling, showing men on planks cutting trees down by hand. I think the photos were taken on the Atherton Tablelands. I've walked in the bush many times since then, but until recently I'd never seen any sign of this in the bush. In those days, trees were hauled out of the forests by teams of oxen.

On a recent walk at Mt Nebo, I finally saw the cuts in trees that had been logged by hand. Mount Nebo is located 45 minutes out of Brisbane's city centre and is a lovely place for a day trip. It is 550 metres above sea level.

A small group of nine of us from the Brisbane bushwalking club met at the Gap Park and Ride and drove up to Mt Nebo. It was a bit scary trying not to hit any motorbike or pushbike riders on the narrow winding road. One bike rider abused our driver as he tried to avoid hitting some motorbike riders.

We did three small walks with a break in between. The first walk started at the Mt Nebo lower car park. We did the short 1.5-kilometre Egernia Circuit track. After this, we walked on the 4-kilometre Thylogale track to Boombana, where we had morning tea at the Café in the Mountains with a lovely view over the dam and Jacaranda trees. One of our group had the full English breakfast with bacon, eggs, tomatoes and sausages. I had a delicious blueberry muffin with coffee. The tracks are part of the D'Aguilar National Park. The Egernia track was through open eucalypt forest.

We walked back through subtropical rainforest to Jolly's lookout. On the return walk, we walked via the 1.1-kilometre Rainforest Pitta Circuit and then back on the Thylogale Track to the lookout for lunch. Jolly's lookout was named after Lord Mayor of Brisbane, William Alfred Jolly in the 1920s. There were great views from the lookout north over the D'Aguilar Range to the Glass House Mountains and east across Samford Valley to Moreton Bay and the bay islands.

The walk through the forest was relaxing and interesting. We passed a money tree along the track. Barbara, our leader told us people had hammered coins into the tree to try and stop it being cut down. It didn't work because the tree is now horizontal on the ground. Some people have prized some coins from the tree, but there are still some bent old pennies and halfpennies embedded deep in the tree trunk.

The walk was very dry as it was before all the recent rain. After lunch, we returned to our cars at the Park and Ride. I was extremely lucky because my camera was sitting on the roof or my car where it had been all day. I realised I hadn't had it when I got to the mountain but thought I had left it on the back seat of my car. I took some photos with my phone camera. Brisbane must have very honest people as the car park was pretty full and people must have been coming and going all day.

Mt Nebo has some great easy walks close to Brisbane suitable for families. We even saw a group of young people pushing a baby in a pram along one of the tracks.

The area was settled after World War 1. Soldier Settlements were established. The smallest pieces of land were 80 acres. People farmed the land. They had to first chop down trees and put in a crop or get stock animals. Their lease could be forfeited if they did not cut down a set number of trees. A Lands Department inspector used to visit regularly to check. Some high-quality timber such as Red Cedar and White Beech was later logged from the area.