2009-07-09 -19 146

Location

Approximately 700 Meters off Harveys Range Road along a creek, Harveys Range, Queensland, Australia

Participants

Expedition

Jezs, Twistie and Hirod left Annandale at about 11:30am, heading straight onto the motorway. Exiting at Harveys Range Road and continuing to the west Jezs remarked he had "...no idea where we are", this was quickly resolved as we passed the Refuse Disposal Site and he remarked "Now I know where we are". We continued heading west, passing Black River Road, Rangewood and Alice River. As we reached the bottom of the Harveys Range Twistie turned his GPS on and tracked the teams progression to the point with a preset waypoint. The point fell in a small creek that Harveys Range Road just a few kilometers past the Tea House. As we approached the site, they investigated a road that run parallel to the creek to no avail. However, having crossed the bridge we found a convenient place to park and set off on their journey following a wild pig track down the banks of the creek. We followed the creek to the south for a while, past a shed and through some heavier foliage which combined with a fallen tree reminded Twistie freakishly of Jurassic park and inspired fears of a possible Raptor attack. These fears were further verified when we found tracks resembling a raptor's footprint in the soft sand which was followed later by violent rustling in the bushes on the bank of the creek by an unseen creature.

Continuing along the creek bed for a few hundred meters, negotiating the soft sands and leaping across the water course a few times we came to a smaller, dry creek bed that forked to the left (east) that we needed to follow. This creek had quite steep banks but was luckily dry and only in a few areas required crossing onto some of the shallower weed infested banks to traverse large fallen trees. Luckily our wild pig friends had also assisted us here and partially created some tracks through this area though they were not very well worn and the thick, thorny weeds which also had lovely sticky, spiky seeds made for hard travels. We eventually reached the area where the hash point was. It was at the top of the steep bank of the creek. We walked along the creek further looking for an easier way up but we ended up following a pig track that lead almost exactly to the hash point. Again more of the weeds were encountered and the slippery, steep slopes made climbing the side of the creek an absolute nightmare. but we reached a small area at the crest of the bank that Twistie's GPS read as the hash point. We had actually forgotten to bring a sign or anything to mark the site and while we had a paper map we had no writing implements. So we decided to make sign out of sticks which read "404" because the sign could not be found.While the exact co-ordinates were difficult to get on camera (I had about a 2 meter accuracy at best) you can find the photo in the gallery below of the co-ordinates.

Having taken photos we began the return journey the same way we came. Negotiating the same plants and water hazards we returned to the car and returned back to home with a stop by McDonalds along the way where Twistie's wet shoes left a lovely trail and the girl at the counter was positively puzzled by our tales of our adventure. Twistie also sustained a number of injuries on his lower legs because he did not wear long pants including a particularly large cut on his left leg which appeared to be from a raptor attack in the dense scrub.

ZOMG!!!!!!

Gallery

Note: Taken using a 5MP camera phone. Please excuse the horrific over-exposure.

Thick scrub on the banks of the creek (as seen from the pig trail) made us very glad we had a creek bed to follow.
Jezs and Hirod negotiating the waters of the creek bed.
The smaller dry creek and a dead tree blocking the creek bed.
Jez at the bottom of the slope up the the hash point (out of shot)
Us all at the hash point. We got a nearby tree to hold my phone to take this photo.
We forgot to take a sign and didn't have anything to mark the spot with. So we left a 404 message.
Twistie's GPS showing the hashpoint coordinates (on the add way point screen because it seems to be the only way to show current coords)
The bridge of Harveys Range Road seen as we returned to the car.
Twistie's raptor wound.