2 Texans Down Under

Getting out of Brisbane on the Friday before Easter was easy since we’re not far from the highway to Ipswich, the first major town on the route Kristi had planned for us.

Soon we were in farming country with rolling hills and trees and grass and clean air. After Ipswich: Warwick. Then, Stanthorpe, a central town in the Granite Belt. On the road again.

Maybe road-trips such as the one we were beginning won’t be possible for much longer, or as common, anyway. We’d been warned that we were heading for popular vacation destinations and that we should expect crowds of people on the national park tours and on wine tours.

Only on one of our several hikes did we see many people. Often we were alone and we could walk for an hour or more without seeing other hikers. Some local folk we talked to complained of slow business and too-few visitors.

No complaints from us. Except that the visitor’s center in Stanthorpe was closed for Good Friday (and lots of businesses were closed right through Monday). The public toilets were open and available, though, and we found a nice, shaded and smooth rock beside a beautiful pond for a picnic lunch.

Then we headed out for the mother of all granite domes, Bald Rock, the largest protrusion of volcanic stone in the southern hemisphere. Years ago, we’d hiked up Enchanted Rock near Fredericksburg, Texas, a “batholith” that rises 450 feet (137 meters) above the woods in the Hill Country, and we thought of that as we stood at the bottom looking up at the smooth slope and two wee figures we could just make out at the top.

Twenty minutes later, we met these two coming down as we moved up. All four of us were proceeding slowly and carefully, because Bald Rock is 200 meters (650 feet) high, measured from the forest-level starting point, and if a person slipped and started rolling down the hard granite, there’d be nothing to stop him until he reached the trees.

Fortunately, the granite is pitted like orange peel, and good hiking boots let you feel fairly secure about your footing if you go slowly and pay attention to balance. We decided we wouldn’t want to be climbing Bald Rock in a rain, though, and we were glad to know about a more gentle, longer path down.

From the top there are great views of trees, hills, Mount Norman, Mount McKenzie, and other granite outcroppings such as The Pyramids and Castle Rock.

Bald Rock itself, however, is the main attraction, with its vertical striping caused by mineral deposits, and the presence of egg-shaped boulders of marble, each one or two stories tall, strewn casually around, seemingly ready to start tumbling downward at any moment. Given that they’ve been there many hundreds of years, we took a chance and sat down on the slope below one to rest in its shade.

How much of our appreciation of Bald Rock came from the effort and risk required to reach its top? We’re not sure, but, coming from a law-suit prone country, we found it a bit amazing that the Aussie park service posted no signs stating the obvious (if you slip and fall, you could die) in language written by attorneys for the protection of the government.

And there were no handrails to mar the bald beauty of the Rock. No handrails. No legal jargon. Could be worse.

We climbed Bald Rock without mishap and then had a pleasant meander down. We liked it all. We recommend Bald Rock National Park for your list of places to visit when you come to Queensland.