09. Scenic Rim
Deep in the Queensland bush, this soon-to-open walking trail unlocks the secrets of an ancient landscape – in luxury.
On a clear day you can see all the way to Brisbane from the Scenic Rim. But chances are you’ll be too engrossed in the wonders concealed among these ancient peaks – the agile brush-tailed rock wallabies or the towering, cathedral-like root formations of the strangler fig – to worry about spying that citadel in the distance.
“The thing I love about this trail is how it’s always changing,” says guide Scott Roberts, pointing out the mossy hiding spot of a trapdoor spider. “You pass through such a varied landscape.”
This ring of volcanic mountains vexed the early explorers as they repeatedly tried and epically failed to find a way through the rugged range separating the Moreton Bay colony from the Darling Downs in south-eastern Queensland. The bush remains thick to the point of claustrophobia in parts but times have certainly changed. The thought occurs early in the guided walk through this region – right around the time I open my daypack to find a lunch of poached chicken with pesto and brie – that disappearing into the wild no longer has to be synonymous with roughing it.
Due to launch in March, the five-day trail operated by Spicers Retreats packs all the rich wilderness heritage you could hope for into Queensland’s entry to the Great Walks of Australia canon. Its sinuous 47 kilometres traverse Gondwana rainforest, eucalypt forests and mountain heathlands, winding past waterfalls and arresting rock formations, along narrow ridges and giddy escarpments, through creeks and forested glades. Thanks to a group maximum of 10 walkers led by two guides, it feels like a personal introduction to a time-honoured landscape.
Yet, at the risk of uttering heresy, the best thing of all (at least for those who last used a sleeping bag on Grade Five school camp) is that the trail is a deprivation-free zone. Luxury on legs, it requires you to carry no more than a light pack between a network of chic bush camps, while your suitcases are moved by road. Days are consumed by the endless natural attractions of this UNESCO World Heritage area and Spicers’ own conservation reserves; nights are all about the casual ease mandated by the state’s premier eco-luxe brand.
The retreats and camps, which are the exclusive domain of hiking guests, leave you wanting for nothing. A Spicers lodge has been reimagined as a contemporary Australian farmhouse with plush lounges encircling an alpine-stone fireplace, while the all-new Spicers Amphitheatre and Timber Getters eco cabins – both camps nestled deep in Main Range National Park – are mini architectural gems made from sustainable timbers, with tilt-panel walls that open onto the serene beauty outside.
Stretching from Mount Mistake in the north to Spicers Peak Nature Refuge in the south, the trail is the culmination of a 20-year vision of Spicers Retreats founders Jude and Graham Turner – keen walkers, conservationists and lovers of luxury whose sustainability mission is knitted into the trail. It all begins with a night at Spicers Hidden Vale, home to lauded restaurant Homage, where chefs toil over a fiery openair hearth, and a $5 million wildlife research centre that aims to boost the numbers of endangered species such as the eastern bristlebird and spotted-tailed quoll.
And the trail, you ask? Yes, it’s a walk in Main Range National Park but let’s be honest: parts of it are no walk in the park. Day one of my preview tour begins with a gruelling 650-metre ascent over seven kilometres to Mount Mistake, a name I start to believe contains a hidden message after countless switchbacks up a gradient my four-wheel drive would grumble over.
Arresting though it is, the wilderness doesn’t yield its secrets easily. To the untrained eye and ear it’s a series of fleeting sensory perceptions. But Roberts is a bush
translator who can tell the machine-gun call of the Lewin’s honeyeater from the metallic cry of the grey fantail. He knows bush foods – there are wild raspberries along the trail, as well as native mint and cherry – and points out the kurrajong tree, a natural water store. In short, he’s the kind of guy you want to have around should you ever get lost (or when the poached chicken and brie runs out).
All sorts of strange wonders are found in these parts, including the mini macropod known as the pademelon (pronounced paddy-melon), which I begin to suspect is Queensland’s tourist-baiting answer to the fictitious drop bear until one bounds out of the undergrowth. There are pale-yellow king orchids clinging to cliff faces and giant spear lilies flaunting their gaudy red flowers. Cue, too, the lace monitor with its elegant, eviscerating claws; the comically plump Albert’s lyrebird (“They look like little velociraptors,” says Roberts); and the Gympie-Gympie, the absolutely-underno-circumstances-should-you-touch-this tree with stinging nettles so fierce it has been known to send pain-crazed horses leaping off cliffs.
If walking is man’s best medicine, as that old trail-thumper Hippocrates wrote, sitting still in the silence of the forest is its Ayurvedic twin. After lunch and a cup of tea taken in a cool, palm-shaded gully on day three (this time it’s pulled pork and slaw), Roberts suggests we all head off to find our own patch and listen to the forest breathe.
“Some of our walkers like to chat and others are real forest bathers,” says fellow guide Chris Loxley, referring to the Japanese practice shinrin-yoku, spending mindful time in the woods for spiritual wellbeing.
The Japanese also need to invent a word for ending a day’s trek with a glass of champagne and a cold towel, dispensed by ebullient camp hostess Sue Estment almost before we’ve had a chance to remove our packs and sink into comfortable camp chairs (this ritual is repeated each day, ruining ordinary homecoming forever).
Hiking is about the journey but the destinations aren’t too shabby, either. Spicers’ notion of a “bush camp” is bedded in the 21st-century bonuses of throw rugs and wicker chairs for lounging Out of Africa-style. It’s about finding a hot-water bottle tucked between the sheets of your cloud-like bed after returning from a soul-affirming dinner shared among the table (there’s no culinary stinting in this wilderness, with slow-cooked lamb shoulder, a tumble of roasted vegetables, gravy and mint sauce followed by chocolate mousse and raspberry ice-cream).
One of the trail’s many beauties is that it’s about 90 minutes drive from Brisbane Airport but simultaneously a million miles from modernity. From the first sweaty climb up Mount Mistake to the final descent, these five days are spent without passing a road or seeing a car, often secluded under the thick canopy. It’s complete immersion in the bush, with added riesling.
The trail ends at Cunninghams Gap, where cars and trucks now follow the route marked by that early explorer. The traffic assault on trail-lulled senses is startling but Spicers knows how to soften the blow, whisking guests off to its Hidden Peaks Cabins for another evening of the things we’ve come to expect: champagne, a lavish meal and shared stories around the firepit before heading under a blanket of stars to a private rustic-chic cabin. For one more indulgent night, it’s back into the wild.