Condamine Gorge Day Trip

8th January

Bill Freeman & Rose
Glenn & Kay Taylor
Garry & Betty Chapman
Arthur & Annette Davis
Rob Webster
Ken & Fay Hartley
Fred, Kylie & Xavier le Gonidec
Marty & Sue Cruice
Graham & Sandra Moore
John Lucas & Elaine Wilson
Jim & Phyllis Williams
Gerry & Robyn Broardhead
Kevin & Maralyn Snell
Gary & Jan Christensen
Stewart, Narrelle, Kyle & Joel Bishop
Joe & Carmel Elmore
Gordon Bishop & Lorraine Cummings

I had looked up the internet to see if it had rained at Killarney but they didn’t have it listed. We left Yamanto at about 0800. We had already been rained on that morning, but it was fine but overcast. The plan was for a laid back, easy going, sort of day. As we got closer to Boonah we got closer to the cloud.
Through Boonah heading for Condamine River Gorge we passed Mt Bargalora, Mt Bell then had one of the best views of Teviot Falls I have seen in a long while. We were soon on the Condamine River Road passing between Mt Wilson and Mt Superbus, by the way, it had been raining for the last few kilometres.

At one of the grids we came across one of the locals going the long way to Killarney because they had had 192mm of rain in the last three days, 42mm of which fell in the last 12 hours. The river was “up and running” and the day before they had trouble at one of the creek crossings, a tree had fallen and had dammed the river.

The road had ‘dry weather only’ warnings on it, so in keeping with our club’s environmental policy we did a U-turn and proceeded up to Queen Mary Falls on the black stuff, we think. You see we were driving through cloud by now and in some places could only see a few metres.

We had morning tea at Queen Mary Falls and went to look at the falls, wow what a lot of water was flowing over them. We then cruised into Killarney to have a look, at among other things, a house built over the creek. Marty scored a few “bargains” in the “used and abused shop”. Did I mention the rain. We called into Daggs Falls. It too had a high volume of water running over it.

Because of the rain our initial lunch plans were shot to pieces. Marty suggested we have it at the border gate at The Head. It was a bit of a feat to get 17 vehicles safely off the road.

After lunch and a look around the buildings we continued along Head Gate Road and into White Swamp Road passing between Koreelah National Park and Mt Clunie National Park, through the border gate back into Queensland. Along Carney’s Creek Road. Across numerous flood ways with water still running over them, into Fletcher Road through Bennetts Creek then back onto the bitumen.
While we were doing the recce for this trip we called into a campground on Waterfall Creek Road it had a small trickle running over it, when we returned it was “GUSHING”. We did the short rock hopping walk into the waterfall, where we came across a young couple and their dog enjoying the water hole.

We spent a little while poking around there then headed back along Newmans Road and Bennett Creek Road into Maroon township and continued along Boonah Rathdowney Road turning into Cannon Creek Road. Cannon Creek Road runs past Knapps Peak through some very pretty undulating hills into Bunburra Road where we said our goodbyes and headed our separate ways.

I would like to thank John and Elaine and Marty and Sue for their company and help with the recce, and for their support and advice during what at times was a confusing day. I think everyone who came had a good time.

By Joe Elmore