Carnarvon Great Walk Trip Report

In early June I hiked the Carnarvon Great Walk for a second time. The first time I went with a friend in 2018 and we didn't speak to another human being for 6 days. This time I went with my brother and we had another group of 3 people on the same timetable as us and we had a great time chatting in camp each night.

It was a totally different experience this time, and just as challenging and beautiful as the first.

The Carnarvon Great Walk is a 6-day hike starting at and returning to Carnarvon Gorge. Over that time, you climb out of the gorge, visit the Mount Moffat section of the National Park, climb to the 'Roof of Queensland', and climb back down into the gorge. Other than the first section, which is classed as Grade 3 and 4 tracks, the rest of the walk is Grade 5. 

The walk has a great variety of landscapes, plants, and animals. The early June days were warm, and the nights were either cool or cold. It was great to see what had changed both in the National Park and at the campsites between 2018 and 2024. 

Day 1: Carnarvon Gorge visitor area to Big Bend walkers' camp
The main track to the walkers' camp is 9.7 kilometres (kms). The trail crosses Carnarvon Creek 17 times! Me and my brother hiked 11kms with the Moss Garden side-track included. We hiked for just under 5 hours and this was the only day we had any rain while walking. 

The gorge and side-tracks can be done as a day hike so we saw plenty of people throughout the day. The highlight of the day for me was seeing glossy black cockatoos for the first time. My brother is a horticulturalist and he was rapt with the number and variety of wildflowers he spotted. 

The landscape on this day, and Big Bend walkers' camp, were much the same as I remembered from my first visit. 

Day 2: Big Bend walkers' camp to Gadd's walkers' camp
This day was my redemption from my previous trip! The main track is 14.8kms, and we hiked 15.3kms including Battleship Spur lookout. It took us just over 8 hours - much better than my previous time of 10 hours!  
Back in 2018 we didn't know what to expect, and me and my friend missed a couple of markers so added time and kilometres to this day. This time though, I knew to get started early and watched closely for markers the entire day. 

The scramble out of the gorge is hard work, but also super fun, and you keep climbing over the next few kilometres until you get to the lookout. We ascended about 600 metres over a distance of 4.5kms. It doesn't sound too bad, but the terrain is difficult and our packs hadn't gotten any lighter yet from only eating a couple of our meals. As much as this was a very challenging day, it was the one I felt most proud of, and the landscape changes were some of the best we saw all week. 

Some of the highlights of this day was the amount of wildlife we saw, meeting our travelling companions, and looking at the Milky Way and stars at Gadd's walkers' camp that night.

​Day 3: Gadd's walkers' camp to West Branch walkers' camp
The trail is 15.8kms and it took us just over 6 hours to hike. We celebrated my brother's birthday on this day, enjoying a lovely campfire and an alcoholic beverage in the evening. 

I remembered from 2018 this being my favourite day with a beautiful section of gums late in the day when you're in a sandy valley coming into camp. It was still beautiful, but it wasn't my favourite day from this trip. 
This was the most bush fire damage we'd seen, Carnarvon had fires go through during the  summer of 2023/2024, and the landscape was the most different from 2018 so far. 

The highlight of this day was seeing the gumtree section again, and we followed some dingo tracks for a while on the trail!

Day 4: West Branch walkers' camp to Consuelo camping zone
We woke up to icy tents this morning. The night we spent in West Branch was the coldest one we had the whole trip.

The day 4 trail is 17.3kms, which we hiked in just under 7 hours. Even though it's the longest day for distance, day 2 was the longest day for time. My brother was injured on this day (not seriously, it was the distance playing up with his ankles) so we took it pretty slow towards the end of the day. We still got into camp with plenty of light though, and Consuelo was the best camp during the hike.

This was my favourite day of this trip. The variety of landscape was great, and I was feeling good even with the distance. I remembered a lot of the sections we walked through from 2018 and the scenery changed regularly enough to keep the whole day interesting. This is the day you arrive at the highest point of the hike, the Consuelo Tableland or 'Roof of Queensland'. 

Overnight in Consuelo camp we could hear dingoes very close to us. They make eerie, howling music which thankfully didn't keep us awake for too much of the night. We were also thankful that it was a warm, dry night. It was also windy, with an ocean of leaves blowing on the tides of the wind.
​
Day 5: Consuelo camping zone to Cabbage Tree camping zone
The trail on this day is 13.8kms, the shortest day after the main Carnarvon Gorge section. We smashed this day in under 4 hours! We were still hiking through bush fire damaged landscape, and I was sad that there were no mature grass trees with their long flower spikes like there was last time.

We pushed through to Cabbage Tree walkers' camp before lunch time, and this was the only day we didn't eat lunch on trail. What a luxury! There were lots of sketches and names written in charcoal on the shelter posts here, including a landscape sketch that was there back in 2018.
We had seen a few stickers along the trail, at campsites and on markers, with the name Antonio Lazarus. Cabbage Tree had a full sketch by this person, and since arriving home I've discovered he's a local Brisbane artist that does graffiti and cartoon style art. It's very cool!

The biggest campsite change from 2018 to 2024 is that they all have a table and chairs now, which makes camp a bit more comfortable. All 5 sites have water available, 3 have toilets, and all of them are in beautiful settings.
​
Day 6: Cabbage Tree camping zone to Carnarvon Gorge visitor area
The trail for the last day of this amazing hike is 15.3kms, which took us just under 6 hours to hike. There was lots of landscape change in this day, including some great views back towards the mouth of Carnarvon Gorge. The last day of a hike is always a mixture of bitter that it's coming to an end and sweet that we'll get fresh food and a hot shower soon!

We'd done a huge west - north - east circuit over the last few days and eventually descended back into Carnarvon Gorge and overlapped  our first couple of kilometres with our final couple of kilometres. In total we walked 88.5 kilometres over the 6 days. 

Carnarvon National Park in the Central Queensland Highlands is a breathtaking area, and I recommend everyone visit whether it's for the full 6-day hike or the shorter day hikes in the main Carnarvon Gorge section. 

My next visit I hope to be with my husband, and we can explore all the day hikes at our leisure, without carrying all our gear and food with us!​