Past: Camping out at Cania Gorge
Published
This article is a 6 min read.
The first new post since relaunching the blog is the first in a small series where I document past trips that I've been a part of. This one takes place during August 2023, when me and my sibling Rin decided to stay at Cania Gorge National Park in the North Burnett Region of Queensland.
Along the way, we stopped in through Boolboonda Tunnel near Mount Perry, which used to be a railway tunnel until 31 October 1960, with the tracks removed the following year allowing vehicle traffic through. The tunnel is special for being unlined and unsupported, it almost felt like I was driving through a bit of rock that had been drilled out.
Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of the tunnel itself, although I got this vanity shot of my car just outside it, mirroring an image that my father took in the same place with his Range Rover back in the 1990s.
We continued onwards through the town of Monto before finally arriving at the Cania Gorge Tourist Retreat, one of two competing campgrounds in the immediate vicinity of the gorge. Once we had our camping gear set up and a fire going, we roasted some marshmallows and cooked some dinner.
This was only our second time camping before, so while I rested well throughout the night, around 4am Rin woke up and was shivering cold; thus I got the car started and the heater running so she could warm up in that while I got the fire started for us.
Thus, we don't have too many morning images as neither of us had a full sleep. However, I did find that some crows were seeing what scraps they could get from last night's meal once the sun was up.
Just before packing up our campsite for our trip into Cania Gorge itself, I snapped these couple of photos beforehand.
From this point onwards, I had to conserve the battery of my main phone (at the time, a Google Pixel 4a) as I didn't have a power bank. My old phone that was only brought along for music (an Apple iPhone 4s) would be my primary shooter for the rest of this trip, but I think you'll have a hard time noticing that the images were taken on a phone from 2011.
We first went up towards Cania Dam and along the way, found ourselves in the middle of a field surrounded by nothing but cliffs, which just felt a little surreal.
Once we got to the Cania Dam lookout, it was remarkable how quiet and calm it was up there; we came at a time where no one else was up here yet.
Down at the dam level itself, the dry landscape contrasting with the calm waters was really something to take in.
The surrounding area was quite lovely in its own right, the most apt way I can describe it is calm.
Eventually, it was time to climb
We now had the main course to enjoy. Something to note with Cania Gorge N.P. is that there's no one line you can take, there are many tracks and places you can check out. Early on into our summit, we came across an Asian family that planned to take similar routes to us, so for the most part we stuck with them throughout our adventure.
Everyone was extremely friendly that we bumped into or otherwise were sharing the same spaces with; we were all here for the same thing and had a common interest. At no point did we feel like the amount of tourists were ruining the attraction because of this.
Below is an annotated list of images for you to take in.
And those were all the photos that I felt were usable for this post. Me and Rin thoroughly enjoyed our time there, but it was cut short by Rin's tiredness from her poor sleep. At some point, I'd like to return to Cania Gorge and take the Castle Mountain lookout, a 10.5km hike that I feel would be quite amazing to document.
Thanks for reading my blog post!
Last updated