Trip Report: Bookookoorara Gorge Hike

Trip Report by Madeleine Smeaton

UQMC Hiking Trip - 6 to 8 March, led by Angus Powell, Brogan Csinger and Maddy Smeaton

Nine UQMC members, including three trip leaders and six European exchange students completed a traverse of Bookookoorara creek and Boonoo Boonoo river from Undercliffe Falls to Boonoo Boonoo Bridge over two days

Bookookoorara State Forrest is far less trafficked than its neighbours, Bald Rock and Girraween National Parks. Should you be willing to look past some lantana and cow dung, you will find a beautiful open granite gorge with many cascades and constricted sections.

We got off to a late start, due to an impromptu Bald Rock visit, a lengthy car shuffle, and daylight savings time- related miscommunication.

Warm up on Bald Rock

After descending Undercliffe falls on the left, we find ourselves in the gorge. Rock-hopping downstream, we soon hit the first of many, many mandatory swims. While you may be able to avoid the majority swimming with some bush-bashing and/or sketchy choss traversing, the majority of us found it much more enjoyable to simply embrace the creek and let it carry us downstream. A good dry bag is essential, otherwise every item in your backpack will become waterlogged and add about 15kg of weight to your back.

Jonas embracing the swim (note the fishing rod)

Most of the cascades can be negotiated by some tricky boulder scrambling, with the exception of a (potentially unnamed) constricted waterfall about 25m tall. We traversed up the side of the gorge to the waterfall’s left, which was particularly engaging for most of the group. With the assistance of a 30m hand-line, a future group may be able to down climb directly next to the falls and drop into the deep blue pool at the bottom.

“Bookookoorara B******”

Overall, the going was much slower than anticipated.

We made camp on a roomy rock slab about 9km in. With overnight temperatures of 20 C, sodden sleeping bags presented little issue. Beware the eels.

Rain, mud, swollen creek,

Swimming where the trail should be—

Cold miles still to go.

A Haiku by Brogan

The next day, we kept swimming downstream. The gorge slowly opened up into a lantana infested swamp and we started seeing evidence of cattle. A fire road to the right of the gorge commences. What a relief! Soon we hit the Boonoo Boono river junction. The river is open and hot, full of large flat granite slabs and sand patches. We made fast time along the river, morale vastly improving as the benightment risk dwindled.

Fast going along the Boonoo Boonoo River

We reached the cars around 8:00pm. I was glad to be back within my climate controlled bubble, en route to a double Angus patty burger medium meal at Warwick McDonald’s

One of the Europeans (Jonas), previously uninducted to Australian bushwalking, gave the following review:

“The Bookookoorara Gorge Hike…what an adventure it ended up being. Though I think not one of the nine brave souls who attempted the hike knew what they were in for. We were in for hiking through rugged terrain, with plenty of mandatory swimming included. With the pack. Fun! But slow going. So finding a large assembly of flat rocks for a campsite as the sun was setting was the highlight of day one the trail. Day two was an epic 12h long hike to make it out of the damned gorge. EPIC! I loved every second of it.

And in case you were wondering, yes, there are fish in the river. None were caught due to time constraints.”

Public track notes:

[1] Wikiloc (Isaac S, 2019): https://www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/bookookoorara-gorge-32435974

[2] Wikiloc (Shatkins, 2012): https://www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/bookookoorara-gorge-3714323

Hit up Brogan Csinger for a copy of our GPX file.