Barakula State Forest – Long Excursion, Sat 20 Sept to Tue 30 Sept

Registration: Registration is preferred via the QNC website. If reading this on the QNC website, then complete the fields in the form below and submit. Once you have successfully registered you will receive an automatic email confirming your registration, along with the contact details of the excursion leader.  Alternatively, register by email to excursion @qnc.org.au with ‘Barakula State Forest’ in the subject line.

Please note: to join our overnight excursions, participants need to be financial members of QNC Inc. You can join the club here: Membership

At the moment registration is an expression of interest. There are no fees involved with this excursion. Hence, late cancellations and latecomers are not a problem. It is a long camp so if you are not intending to stay for the full 10 days it would be helpful to know the period for which you will attend, as we may be able to arrange particular activities to suit you better. Use the comments field in on online registration to let us know your period of attendance at the camp.

Camping: We will be camping on private property as guests of Col Seiler and family on a block a couple of kilometres from the homestead. This support means we do not have to carry all our own water as we then replenish from the house supply. There will be no need for us to bring firewood. While on the subject of fire, campers are reminded to check their gas lines and connections and bring a small extinguisher in case of accidents. I have checked and confirmed that there is good phone/internet coverage of the campsite with Telstra (but not Optus or anyone else). The camping area was covered with quite long grass at the March recce so I might mention to Col the possibility of leaving a few head of cattle around there in the meantime. We all know what to wear on these excursions but I’ll be bringing gumboots as I hate getting cold and wet feet from dewy grass, others might do likewise. The full moon in September will be on the 7 the so the camp will begin on the new moon which, like most natural phenomena, will please some but not all. I’m not sure if I mentioned it previously, but on the recce I noticed no sign of ticks, scrub itch or mosquitoes. Although it’s a cattle area, ticks are pretty well controlled so I’m optimistic that September might be similarly pest free. As usual, everybody will make their own judgement and take appropriate precautions.

Travelling in the area: We will be camped just a few metres outside the boundary of Barakula State Forest but mobile coverage disappears quickly upon entering the forest. Travel will be unavoidable but I intend to keep this to a minimum. The best accessible vegetation area in the park is some 15 km from the camp where a stony ridge crosses the Boondoomba Durah Road. Low clearance FWD’s with good paint would stop at this point but would make it that far if the roads are dry. We will visit this ridge more than once as it would be too much to fit into one day. If there’s been any significant rain travel becomes very problematic. Most of the forest is relatively flat and whilst travel might be possible on some of the sandy areas, the clay areas are definitely off-limits. If you have a hand-held 2 way radio please bring it. We are notorious for scattering on our excursions and Barakula is no place to be lost in. The club will consider purchase of a couple of radios to help us muster our troops. Col is planning to accompany us on excursions as often as possible; his intimate knowledge of the country will be invaluable. He comes with his own vehicle(s) and spare seats, which will be handy as well. I will be carrying out a further recce to settle the program and provide final details, maps and information