Tenison Woods Mountain, Mount Mumdjin and Bithongabel

This and the next few blogs will be about my recent trip to Australia and experiences with, largely, ascents in rainforest conditions.  This first blog covers the first three mountains – Tenison Woods Mountain (770m), Mount Mumdjin (1021m) and Bithongabel (1195m).

Tenison Woods Mountain

To call an ascent of this top a “climb” is somewhat of a misnomer.  This “peak” is located around 45km north west of Brisbane’s CBD, just off Mount Glorious Road and a little further on than the settlement of the same name.

As Mount Glorious Road passes over the watershed, there is a sign indicating that you have arrived.  It is set back from the road, so would easily be missed if travelling at speed.  There is space there for a couple of cars. Here is the location on Google Maps.

Once parked up, there is a little used vehicle track that will take you to the top in around 10 minutes.  It requires no further description.

There is a telecoms mast at the top together with a plaque about Julian Tenison Woods after whom the ‘peak’ is named. 

There was also a carpet python nearby.  We did not disturb it and it remained curled up.

So, there is no view and the peak is fairly unremarkable, save that it is the highest point for around 60km and has a significant prominence of 630m.

Mount Mumdjin

As I have written about elsewhere, Australia has had significant volcanic activity.  This is no more true than in connection with the Tweed volcano.

The Tweed volcano is the second largest volcano ever to have existed on Earth (at least so far discovered).  It is located in the north-eastern part of NSW and the south-eastern part of Queensland. It formed as a shield volcano around 23 million years ago and was originally around 100kms in diameter.  The volcano is now heavily eroded. It has an erosion caldera of around 30kms in diameter. Wollumbin (Mount Warning) is its centrepiece and likely once the location of the summit.  The volcano was originally around 2300m high.

The Queensland/New South Wales border here forms the Scenic Rim and includes a challenging 47km track along the ocean end of the border that takes 4 days to walk.

The best thing about Mumdjin is not so much the summit (which, typically, hides itself amongst the vegetation of the rainforest) but the amazing view from the nearby modestly named Best of All Lookout.  From the Lookout a wide-ranging vista around the southern arc from the crater rim appears.  Wollumbin is the centre of attraction, but a large part of north-western NSW is visible, including to Byron Bay on the coast.  Whilst not the highest point of the eroded volcano, Wollumbin is the most prominent one.  And it shows.  Unfortunately the authorities currently prohibit the public from climbing Wollumbin.

Mumdjin lies about 90 minutes south of Brisbane by car.  You can drive to a car park at the end of a long dead end road from Advancetown Lake.  From there it is a 400m walk on a path to the Lookout.  It is worth spending some time there taking in that view.

The summit of Mumdjin isn’t that far off the path.  On the return you pick the spot that you want to dive into the forest and battle with vines, roots, and various prickly plants etc.  There is no path; but it is not far and there is little height gain either.  A GPS and topo map are helpful.  The summit seems to be either at the + as marked on the topo or by some rocks near the beginning of the trail to the Lookout.  It is difficult to see which on the ground because of the trees.  We visited both locations.

Bithongabel

Like Mount Mumdjin, Bithongabel lies on the Queensland/NSW border.  It is a somewhat more challenging proposition than both Tenison Woods Mountain and Mount Mumdjin.

We tackled this one the day after we had visited Mount Mumdjin.  We treated ourselves to a stay at O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat.  This establishment has been operating in one form or another since 1915.  It is surrounded by the Lamington National Park.  We glamped so that we could walk straight from our accommodation to the Border Track.  But there is a public car park available near the start of the walk.

The adventure starts, however, in the drive up to O’Reilly’s.  It’s 35km south of Canungra, the last 25km of which is on a narrow, often single track, road with many switch-backs – best to plan for when the road is likely to be quiet.

The path starts opposite the reception to the hotel section of O’Reilly’s.  It is straightforward to follow and gradient is not steep.  There was plenty of wildlife to see – mainly birds.  We started at around 7.45am to avoid both the heat of the day and the risk of thunderstorms forecast for later in the day.  Various paths split from the main track, but we ignored these until we were relatively close to the top.

Here there was a left fork that we followed to a feature known as the Naturalists’ Cairn .

The Cairn commemorates the establishment of a camp in 1918 by a group whose aim was to record the ecological diversity of the area before possible logging was commenced.  Their findings ensured that the area became protected from any logging and Lamington National Park was formed.

Although it is a relatively short distance from the Cairn to the Bithongabel summit in a direct line, we did not fancy the bushwhacking necessary, so returned to the main track and followed this further up to the ridge where the track turns sharply north and goes along the edge of the crater rim.  Views, however, are very limited.

The path does not lead to the top.  So, again, it is necessary to pick your spot to commence the battle with the forest.  I understand that the National Park authorities do not encourage leaving the path.  A GPS and topo are essential to locate the top.  There is no summit marker, at least so far as we could ascertain.  We bashed our way to where the topo marks the summit and, as best we could, a 20-30m radius of this spot, though fallen trunks limited some of our exploration.  There is a GPS track on my Peakbagger trip report which may be useful if you are looking to climb Bithongabel. This just marks the route of return (threrefore misses out the diversion to the Cairn), but should be OK to use for any ascent.

We returned to the main track roughly the same way as we had approached the summit.  Once we hit it we spent 10 minutes de-leeching ourselves.  Summer is not necessarily the best time of year to undertake rainforest adventures as leeches are very prevalent.

We then made a short detour to the Boolamoola Lookout marked on the map, but there was no view.  However, I assume that there once must have been a view because there is a Queensland Survey marker embedded in the ground there.

We went back to O’Reilly’s the same way.  Eventually we started to meet other people on the track.  None had any ambitions to ascend Bithongabel.  But it is fascinating just walking through the rainforest, listening to the noises and looking out for the wildlife.

We got back to the start point for a late lunch for a return trip of just under 6 hours. Oh, and a bird landed on my head!

The next day, it was then on to Mount Superbus, the highest point in south-east Queensland.  And a day later, it was on to Mount Maroon.

The Australia trip then concluded with an ascent of Mount Exmouth and an “ascent” of Mount Canobolas.