O'reilly's to Lost World

Date: 20 - 21 March 2010

Walkers: Myself, Tom, Kurt, Craig

Photo Album

Walk Description:
Day 1
After meeting early on Saturday morning at Beaudesert we travelled in convoy to the Lost World Crossing along Kerry Rd. Having sketchy details about where to leave the car it was good to find a fairly obvious spot just before the crossing in a grassy patch. We then took the other car up to O'reilly's via Duck Creek Rd. and were ready to start walking at around 9am.

The first section of the trail was a familiar one following the border track for roughly 5km before turning off on the Albert River circuit to Echo Point. After taking a short break and taking a compass bearing at the Echo Point camp site we headed off the maintained track system on the Stinson Track. The track instantly heads up hill and becomes a lot narrower and overgrown. This makes for much slower progress.




After walking for roughly an hour the track passes near the peak of Mt. Worrendo. We weren't exactly sure where to turn off the Stinson track so in the end headed for the peak of Mt. Worrendo. From here we picked up a track marked with occasional pink ribbons. This track mainly followed the ridge down toward the Lost World Saddle becoming harder to follow and steeper. Eventually we relied mainly on following the terrain and compass bearings.




We arrived at the Lost World Saddle camp site at roughly 4pm. As we are getting used to, the GPS coordinates given by EPA were off by about 100m. The site easily had enough room for our 3 tents and was fairly flat and sheltered by trees all around. Only dramas were the discovery of some fairly giant ants that came out after dark and the rain that fell for most of the night.

First view of the Lost World Plateau through the trees on the way to the saddle

Lost World Saddle Campsite

Giant ants came out to play just as we were preparing for bed

 Day 2

We packed up camp and managed to set off by around 7:45am. Having not found any creeks so far we divided up the remaining water. We were hoping to find water on the plateau near the camp site. The track heading out of the camp was easy to follow and started up hill immediately. The ridge quickly became very narrow and exposed with large sheer drops on both sides. The way up involved a lot of very steep rock scrambling. Definitely tested your stomach for heights.

Very narrow ridge leading up to the Lost World

Progress was very slow all morning and once we had reached the plateau the track was virtually non-existant. We eventually reached what looked like the highest point of The Lost World at about 11am. This was marked by a pile of rocks and there was a big enough clearing to set up a few tents here if need be.
We set our sites on the opposite side of the plateau where we hoped would be the way down. The route we took was fairly direct and was very overgrown and involved alot of bush bashing. Eventually we decided to head for the Northern cliff face to see if this was more open. Indeed it was and we eventually found some sort of track through the long grass. This eventually led to the other camp site and the small creek. There wasn't much water in it but it was flowing. Everyone filled up using a filter and steri pen just in case.

Western Spur

After a short up hill section we ended up at the western spur of The Lost World. Not being able to find much information about how to descend this side meant we walked out to the tip of the spur and began investigating how to get down this very rocky section. Eventually deciding this wasn't the way down we started heading back off the very narrow spur.

Track we found down the Western side

On the way back we spotted what looked like a track on the northern, not quite as cliff like, side. After further investigation we found a definite track and some pink ribbons. This track skirted around the tops of cliffs and zigg-zagged down the steep slope until it ended up at the bottom of the spur.

From this point we mainly followed the top of the ridge down until we hit a fence line. There were a few more rocky outcrops along the way which required detouring off the ridgeline slightly to get around them. Mostly on the northern side. Once reaching the fence line we followed this until we got to the remains of a road and followed this down to the paddocks below.

Razorback ridge leading back down to the farmland below

Posing where we left the car. Lost World in the background