Australia

Mount Bartle Frere, Wooroonooran National Park, Miriwinni, North Queensland

Character: A big walk to the summit of Queensland's highest peak. A big day out in any conditions; probably too much if conditions are less than ideal . Best attempted in the dry* winter months, Aug - Oct

*relative term. "Dry" here means non-monsoonal. Rain is a regularity even in the "dry". Well, this is The Wet Tropics, what do you expect!

*Remember to take plenty of water and to tell someone of your plans!*

Ascent: ~5500 feet (add 2000 feet for Broken Nose - impossible to do both in one day)

(Broken Nose alone: Ascent ~3300 feet)

Time: 12 hours

Accomodation: The Miriwinni Hotel is comfortable, clean and friendly, only 5 minutes from the start point, and costs only $25 for a twin room. Call 07 40676208

Map: No good ones found - the National Park leaflet (Josephine Falls Section) is probably all you need, although the Bartle Frere summit section leaflet has a better rough topographical map of the mountain so take this too if you can. Take a compass so that if you do loose the track you can follow any one of the south easterly heading creeks to find your way off the mountain.

Mt Bartle Frere (5325 feet) - view towards the summit from

the boulder field

As you drive up The Bruce Highway from Townsville to Cairns, look to your left as you pass Miriwinni, 15 minutes north of Innisfail. You'll probably see a mass of clouds clustered around a huge lump of a mountain, its summit and top 2000 feet shrouded in them. In fact, I'd estimate that only around 5 - 10 % of the time does Bartle Frere have its summit visible. And of course this has its problems for when you want to climb the beast. Firstly you're unlikely to stay dry all day (or even much of the day). Secondly, your views, where the dense rainforest canopy allows, are going to be of, yes, you guessed it, clouds. Thirdly, the going is likely to be very hard and slippery, and you could easily end up with a 10 hour day in perfect conditions (thats the time we took), becoming an 18 hour day in terrible conditions, with torches a necessity for the later parts of the descent. And forthly and lastly, the LEECHES LOVE THIS PLACE! On our first trip in September 1998, it rained constantly. We planned to camp at Big Rock campsite for the first night, and did so, but became a gourmet feast for thousands of leeches! Our tents were covered in blood from splatting them, and despite the constant horrors of having them on your heels, legs, arms, chest etc, one of our group got one in her eye! Karen deserves a medal for the 45 minutes of hell she put up with when we tried to flush it out with saline, and then tried a myriad of other devices to dislodge it. What can you do to prevent them? Be lucky like us on our second trip (the one most of this page comes from) and get dry weather, or use a strong DEET repellant (eg Bushman) as the Australian armed forces do, or even try tipping salt on your socks and boots to prevent them getting off the ground (although then they'll probably just lauch themselves Tarzan-like on to you from the trees!

Anyway, enough of leeches, on with the walk. Leave early if you want to do the walk in a day (first light). It is impossible to do both the main summit and Broken Nose in one day, so plan on one or the other, or camp at Big Rock after one and do the other the next day, or, if heading for the main peak and conditions get nasty, you could satisfy yourself with Broken Nose alone, although this is still a big walk. If conditions are bad, even the fittest and most determined walker will probably need to give up on the ascent before summitting.

Park opposite the rangers house at The Josephine Falls entrance to the National Park, just before the main carpark. Tell the rangers before you go of your plans, and they'll check your car has gone come nightfall. They can be called on (07) 40676304. Don't take the Josephine Falls track, but the one at the top end of the car park, for Mt Bartle Frere. Now, navigation should not be a problem. You are basically going to follow this track right to the summit. There are to my knowledge, only two branches. One, to the top of Broken Nose, a subsidiary peak, which comes off at The Big Rock campsite, and the second about 20 minutes from the main summit, this one being a marked side track for water, if you need it at that point. I also found on the descent that in a couple of places the orange tapes that mark the route were not so easy to spot, and in fact on two occassions, probably as we were being too blase, we stumbled off the track, only to realise in seconds what we had done. Not a problem.

Fill in the form at the info post if you are going to camp and pay your fee ($3.50 per person) (no charge or need to fill in the form if this is a one-day attempt), and head on up the track. The start is a nice warm up. Not too steep, and a few dry and not so dry creek beds to cross. After about 1 hour 15 mins you should reach Big Rock campsite. This is a great spot and is signed. You're right on Majuba Creek (the photo below is of the same creek a bit lower down), and this is your last guaranteed spot for year round safe water. If you get to the summit and need it, as mentioned above there is a side track (about 30 mins return?) about 20 mins this side of the summit. If you're going to camp at Big Rock, the marsupial rats will be waiting for you! Don't leave any food or even food scraps in packs or tents (even if occupied, as we found to our cost!), as they'll nibble their way in.

From Big Rock the path splits. The path to Broken Nose is described below. By the way, whats with all the Native American sounding names? Broken Nose, Big Rock, even Majuba Creek could have featured in a John Wayne movie!

For the main summit, cross the creek where marked and steel your legs for the punishment about to be unleashed! This is definitely the bulk of the climb. You're at not much over 1000 feet at Big Rock, and in the next 2 kilometres horizontally you're going to ascend around 1 km vertically. Thats a big gradient! This seems to come in two major pulls. The first is almost as soon as you leave Big Rock to a point where a huge rock sits by the right hand side of the path, and from the tree carving and orange peel it seems many walkers have stopped! If you climb this monster rock, there is a glimpse of a view, but don't worry if you can't be bothered. Otherwise you won't see out (much) until near the summit, at the boulder field.

After this there is another big pull up large earthy paths, fortunately held in some kind of shape by the myriad roots that cross them. In one or two places, the gradient is such that a bad slip would see you rolling some distance down the path!

At last you breast the main summit ridge. Still no views, but at least the gradient relents considerably. If you've been a good boy (or girl) and have brought a compass, you should notice that the path has moved round from a generally NW bearing to more northerly. The forest is thinner here, but , as mentioned still no views!

At last, you break out of the trees, and if you're very lucky with the weather, the views down to the coast, Innisfail, and parts of The Tablelands are fantastic. There is, if memory serves, a height marker, just before you leave these trees. Around 1350 m I think. In front of you now is the boulder field.

The boulder field was my favourite bit of the walk. No more slogging up near vertical paths, loads of great views, and the added interest of leaping from one large boulder to the next. This isn't difficult, but is a bit of a stretch in places. There is a false summit half way up the boulder field (see right hand picture above), and the boulders continue for a while above here.

Above the boulders there's one more 10 minute tree covered section, with a short steep section that leaves you actually on the summit! A sign tells you that you've arrived (see photo below), and a dead tree provides you with a way of climbing up and looking over the low scrub to the views all around. This tree may be dangerously aged by the time you get up here so please don't go up if it looks dodgy! Alternatively, a rock lookout 10 metres to the left of the summit provides some views out the way you've just come up.

Summit of Mt Bartle Frere - highest point in Queensland

The return

There's only the one way down, if you have left your car at Josephine Falls, and thats the way you've just come up! If you've planned well, you may have left a car on the Atherton Tablelands side of the mountain (Gourka Road), not far from Malanda. However, the walk out this way is still a big one - around 5 - 7 hours, although as you only descend to around 2000 feet its probably not quite so ankle grinding. I've never done this walk.

Maybe one day man will push a path right along Bartle Frere's southern ridge, connecting the main summit with Broken Nose, so that you can do a circuit including both peaks. At the moment this is not a viable option, and I guess environmentaly people may have some concerns, so the only option is to go up from Big rock

From the Big Rock campsite, do not cross the creek, instead following the well signed path for Broken Nose. Just like the trail from here climbing the main summit, the pull out of the Majuba Creek gulley is a long and hard one, with similar steep sections and greasy paths. There are no views on this either. Eventually, as you hit the summit ridge, the path turns to the south / south west, and you get to the small col underneath Broken Nose. From here it is a ten minute walk up to the summit. When we did this there were no views of the Russell River valley far below (you're at around 3200 feet on this top), but the swirling clouds and strong updraft with occassional views of the tops of the rainforest canopy some distance below had their own eery charm. The flat rock that overhangs at this point would be a great lookout in good conditions, and in fact its for the views that most people climb Broken Nose. Still, the exercise did us good!

To return, retrace your steps!