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Mount Tibrogargan

by nike, July 11, 2011

Took an afternoon yesterday, in the crisp, clear winter air, to walk the Trachyte Circuit at Mount Tibrogargan. A warming two-hours strolling through eucalypt and melaleuca forest, casuarina groves, woodland and heathland. The path is flat and largely flat, compacted clay and sandy soil. A pleasure to walk. Unfortunately, the calls of the birds and – one of my favourite sounds – the hush of the wind fingering its way through the she-oaks was occasionally drowned out by the sounds of four-wheel drives, and bogans, particularly on the early part of the Trachyte circuit, which crosses over four-wheel drive access roads several times, and passes through managed pine forests before finally, easefully, meandering into the conservation area.

We clambered up to the Jack Ferris lookout, where the view across Mounts Tibberoowuccum, Beerwah, Coonowrin and Ngungan as well as the glorious hulk of Mount Tibro himself is glorious, only to find it occupied by a group of smokers. Eight folk in black sucking back cigarettes and taking in the view while discussing how drunk they’d been the night before, what they drank, etc. It didn’t spoil the view – what could? – but it did drive us off the peak, down into the forest, sooner than the cool breeze would have.

The Trachyte circuit is named for the Trachyte Ridge, a low-lying ridge composed largely of porphyritic trachyte: a volcanic rock that forms the basis of most of the peaks in the Glasshouse Mountains, including Tibrogargan and his wife, Beerwah.

Half an hour later, after wandering through bushland studded with grass trees and stunning, low-growing banksia in full, golden bloom – like a field of thick, day-bright candles –  we crossed the low, cool Tibrogargan Creek. A thin slip of completely different flora and fauna: here, hop bushes (Dodonaea triquetra) and the insect-eating sundews (Drosera Spatulata) flourish in the cool shade.

While the area was well-known to local Indigenous people for centuries before invasion and settlement, and the story of Tibrogargan and his wives is one of the first local stories I heard, one of the first whitefellas to explore the area was Matthew Flinders, who climbed Mount Beerburrum in July 1799. Captain Cook had sighted the Glasshouse Mountains in May, 1770, and named them.He wrote:

These hills lie but a little way inland, and not far from each other: they are remarkable for the singular form of their elevation, which very much resembles a glass house, and for this reason I called them the Glass Houses …

Matthew Flinders was travelling north to Glasshouse (now Moreton) Bay and Hervey Bay on the good ship Norfolk. He wrote in his journal:

On the 16th, whilst beating up amongst the shoals, an opening was perceived round the point; and being much in want of a place to lay the sloop on shore, on account of the leak, I tried to enter it; but not finding it accessible from the south, was obliged to make the examination with the boat, whilst the sloop lay at anchor five miles off. There was a party of natives on the point, and our communication was at first friendly; but after receiving presents they made an attack, and one of them was wounded by our fire. Proceeding up the opening, I found it to be more than a mile in width; and from the quantities of pumice stone on the borders, it was named Pumice-stone River. It led towards the remarkable peaks called the Glass Houses, which were now suspected to be volcanic, and excited my curiosity

July 25. The leaky plank being secured, and the sloop restowed and completed with water, we proceeded two miles further up the river,
amongst mangrove islets and muddy flats. Next morning I landed on the west side, as far above the sloop as the boat could advance; and with my friend Bongaree and two sailors, steered north-westward for the Glasshouse peaks. After nine miles of laborious walking, mostly through swamps or over a rocky country, we reached the top of a stony mount, from whence the highest peak was four miles distant to the north-west. Three or four leagues beyond it was a ridge of mountain, from which various small streams descend into Pumice-stone River; the principal place of their junction seeming to be at a considerable extent of water which bore N. 80 deg. E., and was about six miles above the sloop. Early on the 27th, we reached the foot of the nearest Glass House, a flat-topped peak, one mile and a half north of the stony mount. It was impossible to ascend this almost perpendicular rock; and finding no marks of volcanic eruption, we returned to the boat, and to the sloop the same evening.

Our own journey was far less dramatic: no one was injured, let alone killed, thought there was one fellow who – though he never knew it – was at great risk of being attached by us! On the whole, however, the walk was peaceful and inspiring. As our walk drew to a close, we were already contemplating which local walk to undertake next, and when we might take on Mount Tibrogargan’s summit.

Tibrogargan Creek

3 Comments


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    • July 14, 2011

    How wonderful you could take the time off and spend it in such splendid beauty but how terrible to have such disregard for nature so invading upon an otherwise lovely sounding adventure :-) Neen

    • Nike
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    • July 15, 2011

    Hey Neen :) Oh well, that's the thing with the world: it's out there for everyone to enjoy. Those people had just as much right to be there, and probably took just as much pleasure from the environment, as we did. Not their fault I'm turning into an old misanthrope!

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    • August 8, 2011

    Hey Nike, A very diplomatic way to look at it, and I can see your point ... but I still don't think it's such a nice thing when the way one enjoys something makes it harder for another to enjoy it :-)

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