Burrum heads - Byfield/ Yepoon - Woodgate Beach

[4wd26]

Well it was that time of year again- Sept school holidays, and as usual the plan was to get away from Brisbane and the crowds.

The objective this year was to reach Byfield NP (North of Yepoon) but seeing as its about 800kms from Brisbane stopped overnight on the way up and back to explore the Burrum Coast NP.

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Day 1.
Left Brisbane on the Sat (day of the big dust storm) and towing into the wind seen the fuel economy up around 17l/100. The van is now towing great- stripped the rear tyre and carrier from the and loaded up the drawbar. Its been a good combo- diesel triton and 16 foot Windsor rapid van (around 2 tonne loaded) easily able to keep up with the traffic (I'm no grey nomad yet )

Arrive at a very full van park on the river and quickly set up - we were only overnighting, as the wind continued to roar, decided it better to get into the car and explore the Burrum River section of the park and surrounds. Went down on the beach to fly a kite, wind quickly destroyed kite. should have learned from the kite graveyard in the nearby trees.
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http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/register/p03006aa.pdf
Burrum Coast National Park - EPA (http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/parks_and_forests/parks/burrum_coast_national_park.html)

Day 2.
The next morning dawned without wind so it was off to the riverfront to enjoy a spot of fishing and walk along the river. Packed up the van by 9am and get on the road to Yepoon.

Trip to Yepoon was without incident, the Big4 park that we based ourselves for 3 nights emptied as we arrived on the sunday afternoon- yay for us. Meet up with some friends who had come down from Moranbah who wanted to do the trip out the Byfield. He bought his work Prado V6 petrol auto GX thinking sand. The afternoon was a good meeting of the kids who had not seen each other in a year or so.
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Day 3.

Byfield National Park and Conservation Park - EPA (http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/parks_and_forests/parks/byfield_national_park_and_conservation_park.html)
http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/register/p02569aa.pdf

Up the next morning eager to get to Byfield, the trip was about 1 hour from where we were staying at Yepoon, you no longer need to get a beach pass as we found out at the local service station.
Wander past Waterpark Creek camping area on a nice gravel road and onto sand dune country.

Took the first opportunity to air down – based on some recent posts on the forum, the place is very dry. I went down to 18 and started up the first incline. Made it to the first “Y” in the track only to discover a 60 series cruiser with bonnet up- overheated on one side and a hilux that had reversed back from the left side (the left is the hard side with plenty of opposing power sapping wheel ruts) Well that effectively stopped any forward progress for me, so engage reverse and head back down to wait for the track to clear.

On the way down, get a call from my mate in the Prado that he is bogged, that makes both tracks in front and rear trapped. Get back down and drag out the prado, think its prudent to let a bit more air out of the tyres, I go down to 12, and really starting to enjoy my day.
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Wait for the track in front to clear, Hilux comes down to our location and off we go again, pass the cruiser who has put himself off the track to wait and tackle the left hand track, the girls in the back are loving it as the truck rocks in the ruts and we get to the top and signal the all clear, everyone up lets go…… But wait get a call on the uhf from someone stuck at the bottom (they had no buddy or recovery gear- lucky they had a uhf on scan).

Head back to help them out, they decide that there day is better spent somewhere else, the pressed shirt did look a bit out of place….. One thing about the first track in- certainly keeps out the fools, interesting to hear stories that it’s do-able in 2wd sedans when conditions are right…

Back to the top and on our way- the wife suggests leaving the radio off as we are here for a holiday not to extract all and sundary. Its fun but that one hill could easily cost you half a day if someone broke down in the wrong spot.
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Follow the track notes and numbers from the National parks guide, head toward stockyard township and 5 Rocks campground. The going from here was just a sand track wide enough not to scratch the duco.
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The 5 rocks beach walking access follows a nice little creek
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People complained about the rubbish on the beach, it certainly did spoil the entry but its not land rubbish, rather debris washed up from ships etc.
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We all enjoyed a stroll along the beach, right up to 5 rocks, and onto 3 rivers beach. Shame you cannot get to the end of this beach anymore, apparently a great little area at the Northern headland (check it out on google earth) but is within the military restricted area, a few stories shared around the campfire from locals about helicopters buzzing 4wds on the beach and advising them to leave.
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not everyone had to walk....
Back up the cars and through Stockyard township and out to the lookout. What a great view.
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Down onto 9 mile beach and look for a spot to have lunch and a swim.
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After lunch it was back onto the beach and see Waterpark Point and Corio Bay.
The highlight of the trip though was a play in the “Orange Bowl” a sand blow that has some very high dunes and along with the rest of the area was very soft.
I’ll let the photos show this area…..
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On the way back down onto the beach we sight a whale breaching, we sit and watch as a mother and calf put on a show for us
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Starting to get late by this stage so hightail it out of the NP and back to Byfield general store to pump up the tyres and get some treats for the kids. Pass another vehicle bogged and someone helping out as we descend, we then discover that one of the vehicles has a trailer at the bottom, good luck.

It was a very full on day and we will go back again, depending on the conditions taking the choice of the various campgrounds, all of which were remarkably empty considering the Sept school holidays- or not considering the access track in.

[4wd26]

Day 4.
Next day it was a goodby to our friends and bum around the park till smoko. Decide to hit the coast for lunch, in and out all the bays and townships on the Yepoon coast. Found a nice little dirt road- ending in a fence, back track a little and find another less used track and that leads us too the beach, score…. Pass a group of locals camped on the beach and proceed to our own lunch time sanctuary, a little climbing over rocks adds to the fun.
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Opspey, A visitor decided to view the lunch, keeping an eye on things.

Onto Emu Park where we visit the singing ship, and have a swim at the Emu Park beach.
All good things must end and that was our last night in Yepoon, next day off the Woodgate Beach.

Day 5.

What a nice part of the world, camp in the caravan park on the beach, with the intention to explore tomorrow.
Drive around the Woodgate section of the Burrum coast National park
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lucky for us the natives are in flower and produce an amazing display.
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It was then onto the Kinkuna section.
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The trip through the bush was not a hard drive but some of the turns (especially around Theodolite Creek) through the trees would have made it a bit narrow to take the van in via this access, but that was what this trip was for us, check out areas worth revisiting and check out what would be viable in the new accommodation.

I was a bit apprehensive about driving onto the beach, as we were by ourselves and I had checked out some local advice (thanks Chopper) but lowering the pressures at the fore dune before the beach access and checking ahead for the condition of the beach reassured me. The beach access has sand ladders, the sand was firm and again our luck was in as it was a run out tide.

The wife loves driving on the beach so at this stage she took over. It was at this stage I decided to “train her up” by getting her to drive into some camp sites, the beach was easy it’s getting off that’s the difficult part so training/ experience is never waisted.
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We discovered some star fish on the beach, and after a couple of hours decided it was time to leave, having driven the extents of the beach getting stopped at each end by tidal creeks. The worst thing for the kids on this drive was what I assumed was corral spawn coating the entire ocean, very disappointing, so we decided to head out the Northern access (Palm Beach road) and head into Bundy.

I will point out at this stage how happy I was of the on board navigation, there are so many tracks in the dunes it was reassuring that we could find the right exit point.

Had lunch and a swim at Elliot Heads as the river was clear of spoors due to the run out tide. Did the Bundy thing (as you do) and checked out the factory- just to purchase this time, will do the tour etc some time else.

Back to camp, and get ready for dinner at the local bowls club that was organised around the campsite the night before over a few drinks. Its amazing the people you meet this way with a few of the other campsites extending there stay so the kids could enjoy each others company for a little while longer. They had a bush poets night and the feed was worthy of a restaurant but surprisingly at club prices. The poets weren’t half bad either.

Day 6.
Its a shame when it all has to end but it was time to think of heading back to the city, we decided to stop at Bribie on the way home to ease back into the city life and endless washing that you face after holidays. Oh well , already thinking up the next trip destination.

All up around 2000kms of travel.
If you would like to view some additional photos (and at higher resolution) check out this link
Public Gallery for other Peoples Photos :: Byfield Sept 2009 (http://publicgallery.stevenbowden.com/album33)
http://www.stevenbowden.com/~fourwd26/sept_2009_holiday.kml

google earth route file of the trip.

Enjoy

[havok011101]

Looks like a great trip guys, love to check out that area sometime...

[Foo]

And to think that 70% of 4bys don,t get off the black stuff.:crazy:But hey,more fun for those of us that do!!Good that your kids enjoy it to.:thumb:

[Muckinhell]

right on FOO!. im not a fan of cricket or footy that much but i love it cause it keeps so many people at home watching it all, that could be out where we all love to be as often as possible. ill be checking out that yeppon area a little more now iv seen this sensational pics thats for sure.

[4wd26]

Thanks guys,
A real nice part of the world, and the best bit- you need a 4wd to get there. :D

[Terry j]

Great trip report & pics mate.My wife & I got up that way a few years ago,with a good 4by set up but mised all of that due to lack of local knolage, would love to go back again. Thanks.

[hazza]

Now that is how a trip report is supposed to be. Descriptions and some great photos making us want to go there ourselves.

One question, the red tracks, what did you use to record them?

[4wd26]

Now that is how a trip report is supposed to be. Descriptions and some great photos making us want to go there ourselves.

One question, the red tracks, what did you use to record them?

Thanks Hazza, comments like that make the effort worthwhile. Had to break the post into 2 due to word limit. Who would have thought??? :D

Anyway I run a VMS (carputer) running oziexplorer software. Just store the track log as you drive along.

Most gps's have this ability (store the track log) in some format. I exported it into google earth so you guys could get a feel for where I was talking about. (used a free transformation plt to kml) available on the net.

[hazza]

Anyway I run a VMS (carputer) running oziexplorer software. Just store the track log as you drive along.

Most gps's have this ability (store the track log) in some format. I exported it into google earth so you guys could get a feel for where I was talking about. (used a free transformation plt to kml) available on the net.
I myself have a GT-200 GPS logger (http://global.mobileaction.com/product/product_i-gotU_GT-200.jsp), it just records the GPS position as your travel. I have not used it for 4WDing as yet but I recorded every single day on my 5 week overseas trip to France. I configured it so that it would record every 5 seconds but if I was traveling at more than 20km/h it would record every 2 seconds.

The software has the ability to export the track as a GPX file, any decent mapping software has the ability to read GPX files. I use GPX Editor (http://www.knackes.com/blog/index.php?post/2008/11/20/193-gpx-editor-1070) to clean up / merge / edit the tracks and waypoints in GPX files I create.

I then use GPX file in Geosetter (http://www.geosetter.de/en/) to tag all my photos with the GPS postion, the country, the state, the location and the sub-location.

[sr06]

i live in rockhampton and go up to "the rocks" atleast once a month it's great up there but on the weekends most of the local clowns go up and can get packed heard of lots of fighting going on up there so now i go through the week (witch the boss don't like) but realy worth going and as far as i know u can go up the northen end of 3 rivers beach but not past the high tide mark shame but because that where the best camp spot is.

[disco_nex]

Nice thread. Was up at Burrum Heads NP in July after the people were camping couldnt hack Fraser Island..........

Stayed at Burrum Heads and Woodgate Beach, didnt get to camp there. There is another national park just north of Woodgate Beach that we explored. Was amazing. Its worth a look!