Ravensbourne National Park

Three weeks ago my husband and I had a few days off work together. We wanted to go away for a night and my parents very kindly offered us the use of their new retirement house. They haven’t quite retired yet and aren’t living there, so its purpose for now is as a holiday home for the family.

Ravensbourne is a little township on the Toowoomba section of the Great Dividing Range, about 90 minutes from where we live in Brisbane. I describe the directions to people as ‘Drive to Esk and turn left’. The house is peaceful and comfortable, a perfect match for the kind of life my parents want to live in retirement. The exciting aspect of the location is its proximity to a number of state forests and national parks!

On this trip we visited the closest one, Ravensbourne National Park. It’s quite a small park at 4.4 square kilometres, and has about 12 kilometres of tracks.  We linked a couple of circuits together and walked about 5 kilometres. Another visit or two and we can tick off the whole park!

We walked through a variety of landscapes despite it being such a small area. It was a mixture of remnant rainforest, palm trees, and dry bush. This national park boasts almost the last pieces of remnant rainforest that used to cover the entire Great Dividing Range in South-East Queensland. Just beautiful.
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The palm trees follow the creek, Palm Tree Circuit was the name of that track, and the dry bush was on the ridges of the park. That section also had a sandstone overhang that was very pretty and really added to the diversity of the environments we saw. 

The tracks were a meandering down onto the circuits then back up to the park entrance. The park slopes gently so it was a lovely walk without too much huffing and puffing! For the hiking enthusiasts among us, the tracks at Ravensbourne National Park are Grade 3 with one Grade 4 that is also the longest track.
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I would describe Grade 3 as experience beneficial, mostly well-formed track but may have uneven sections, maybe steps as well. Grade 4 is for experienced walkers, a mixture of well-formed and uneven, likely has steps or steepness in sections.

I can report back on the Ravensbourne National Park Grade 4 track after I walk it!