The Warrie curcuit.

The Warrie Circuit is the walk we wanted to do.

It is 17ks of the most rugged terrain & they say a 5~6 hour walk. I reckon closer to 8 for us but we didn't get to do it.

Firstly we had forgotten it was *schoolies* & our first night the nearby band let rip at full blast until about 3am so no~one slept. I figure they wrecked at least one set of amps.

Secondly because we hadn't slept we didn't get to the starting point until about 11am, which was a bit late really.

Thirdly, we got there & I chronically read all the info posted on the signboards; can't help it; it's a disease I have & what the information said was we should have a map, a first aid kit, food & water, stout shoes & be pretty fit as the level of difficulty was *hard*. Hm. We had the food & water. I never wear shoes except for soccer & as we were all woggy we could hardly be described as fit. We opted to just do the Twin Falls circuit which is part of the larger Warrie Circuit & we did an extra loop which is the start of the Warrie Circuit proper. It is stunningly beautiful but we were wise not to go this time & are planning it properly for February as even the shorter walk took us much longer than suggested (like 2 hours longer!)

The 2nd pic is just to show the sort of country & waterfalls generally. This is up in the mountains of the Great Divide & its no wonder so many of our early explorers went into this sort of country & were never seen again. This is part of the Gondwana rainforests, from back when Oz was still hooked up to Tazzie & Asia & formed when Mt Warning was still an active volcano.

The first picture is along the circuit so you can see the sort of country we were walking through. The big grassy looking thing on the right hand boulder is a flax lily & it was flowering! We also saw one poor, sad little cray in a rock pool. The temperature plummets in the rainforest & even though I wore a jacket in & we were walking steadily I froze all the way round. Warnings posted about the tracks & keeping kids under control because the edges are unsafe even though they are mostly fenced. There are 11 waterfalls along this track; some of them you have to walk under & the water is freezing! Some of it is virgin rainforest too & how it escaped the axe I do not know. Our forebears were not environmentalists!