Booloumba Creek, near Kenilworth Part 2

With half the day gone, we thought that we should continue our adventure. On the way into town we passed the Booloumba Creek sign and decided that this is where we travel onto. The turn off from the Maleny-Kenilworth Road to Booloumba Creek is well signed and not too far south of Kenilworth township. Booloumba Creek is primarily a camping area, with four designated areas within the State Forest. The entrance to the Kenilworth State Forest is signed that access is restricted to 4WD high clearance vehicles. However, the number of two wheel drive cars we saw entering the area and traversing the creek crossings was amazing. Guess they were taking adventure of the well graded dirt road (with a few creek crossings) and the summer weather.

Our adventure to this location was primarily aimed at sitting by the creek enjoying an afternoon of glorious south-east Queensland summer weather as well as lazing in the clear waters of the creek. The easiest access for us without going into the campgrounds was the second creek crossing after entering the State Forest. Here we parked the car right by the creek, raised our beach umbrella and lazed around. The creek offers clear to slightly murky freshwater, limited algal growth, pebbled base and well vegetated creek banks. We had a bodyboard with us and this was useful to swim upstream and visit some of the more isolated pools and search out interesting parts of the otherwise difficult-to-access stretches of the creek. We have walked up the creek a little way, but certainly the body board makes the adventure a little easier on the feet.

After a dip, we continued along the road through the Kenilworth State Forest and Conondale National Park. This is an easy drive (for 4WDs), although parts are signed as 'steep and narrow'. The drive passes through dry and wet eucalypt forests, as well as a nice rainforested area approximately two-thirds of the way through the drive, which still had some muddy strecthes despite no rain for the last week. There were a couple of lookout vantage points along the way, one overlooking cleared State Forest lands which gives you some perspective of the topography of the land you had just driven through. The end of this drive emerged near the Kenilworth State Forest office, with another campground area available nearby here.

Emerging back onto the Maleny-Kenilworth Road we headed home via Maleny and Landsborough (the more traditional route to the back of the Range), arriving not too far short of 5pm.

Great day out with excellent weather.