Sunshine Coast Hinterland Great Walk (Day 1 of 3)

This morning we drove up to Mapleton, where we have left our car at a friend's house.  Another friend then kindly drove us to Baroon Pocket Dam to start the Sunshine Coast Hinterland Great Walk.

https://parks.des.qld.gov.au/parks/great-walks-sunshine-coast

After a quick look at Baroon Pocket Dam, we set off.

https://www.queensland.com/au/en/things-to-do/attractions/p-5859d94f2370c38b53aa5337-baroon-pocket-dam

Into the rainforest of Kondalilla National Park we headed for our adventure - so green, so much water, so luxuriant. 

https://parks.des.qld.gov.au/parks/kondalilla/about

Our first stop was The Narrows Lookout, followed by Baroon Lookout.

https://www.aussiebushwalking.com/qld/se-qld/kondalilla-np/baroon-lookout

The walk continued through the rainforest, which is looking the most green I have seen it thanks to all the recent rain.  Due to the recent rain, we were very quickly covered in leeches, twenty plus per leg in the first few hours.  After reading the can of Tropical Strength Aerogard we tried spraying our pants and boots with good effect at deterring leeches - we had very few on the remainder of the trip despite the wet foliage we were rubbing against while walking.

While we have both covered all of this route before, we have mainly done it as trail runs; covering it at a slower pace allowed us to see things we had not noticed before including some of the smaller flowers.  The recent and current rain also showed off the colours of bark, provided much more lush foliage and a softer light to appreciate it by.  The down side was we got quite wet.

At the bridge leading to Kondalilla Falls a recent tree fall was blocking access to the bridge.  We managed to scramble through this with our packs on and continued onto the falls.

https://parks.des.qld.gov.au/parks/kondalilla/things-to-do

 At the top of the main fall we had a beautiful refreshing swim.  We were already soaked through from a combination of sweat from the high humidity and rain, so simply swam in our clothes.

http://www.wildswimmingaustralia.com/locations/kondalilla-falls-upper-pool-queensland-australia/

A picnic lunch at the day use area was next with an extended break, before heading on toward Flaxton Walker's Camp for the night.  We were the only walkers in camp tonight.  A solid downpour just before dark alerted us to very poor drainage on the site we had selected, so we picked up our tent and moved spots.

https://parks.des.qld.gov.au/parks/great-walks-sunshine-coast/camping/flaxton-walkers

For those interested in the stats, we walked 17.7km in 6h17m (including all stops except swim and lunch), with a total ascent of 767m and total descent of 564m.