Cania Gorge National Park QLD

About Cania Gorge

Cania Gorge preserves a valuable remnant of the Brigalow Belt natural region. More than 150 different types of plant community are found in this region, including brigalow forest, eucalypt woodland, cypress pine woodland, dry rainforest and grassland.
The park is home to more than 90 species of bird. Brush-tailed rock-wallabies and common bent-wing bats are also seen.
Aboriginal people have lived in Cania Gorge for at least 19,000 years. Freehand art on the sandstone walls is a reminder of their special way of life. (sourced from QLD Govt’s Parks & Forests website – click for more).

Getting there

It was a pretty hairy trip from Bargara to Cania Gorge as we had heard several good/bad stories about the various routes you could take with the safest one being over 100kms longer than the one the Tagalong group had selected. So, with several phone calls and a new map created for our Tagalongers to follow the (now) 16 caravans headed off in groups of 2 along the route shown below…

Everyone arrived safely and the chosen route was actually pretty good but a bumpy one.

Accommodation

Arriving at Cania Gorge Tourist Park we discovered a beautiful bush setting (maplink) with lots of grass and trees run by the wonderful and cheerful Marie. There’s plenty of birdlife, including chooks and heaps of VERY friendly king parrots who may cheekily even venture right into your caravan.

As mentioned above; this is how friendly the king parrots are, looking for food of course (which was not given)…

Bird feeding

Every afternoon at 4:00pm Marie comes over to feed the birds. They all flock in to get their share of the seeds on offer providing plenty of special photo opportunities to those present.

Here’s a quick video of the bird feeding…

 

Cania Gorge Walks

There are multiple walks which are easily accessed from the caravan park or just up the road at the main picnic ground. Click here for a map of Cania Gorge Walks (PDF). All of the tracks are rated at moderate (Class 3).

These are the walks that we took…

Dragon Cave

A moderately steep track leads to the cliff face, where a sidetrack branches north to Dragon Cave. Here, the natural black mural of a ‘dragon’ can be seen highlighted against the white sandstone wall.

Bloodwood Cave

The Dragon Cave track continues to Bloodwood Cave, so called because the roots of a bloodwood tree can be seen at the left hand side of the cave. There were large moths in the roof of the cave that had large eyes on their wings which look so human like.

Dripping Rock

This track winds through eucalypt woodland and dry rainforest. At Dripping Rock, cool water that seeps from the sandstone creates a haven for ferns and mosses.

The Overhang

From Dripping Rock, the track continues on past the most beautifully weathered caves of vivid yellow and red ochres, ending at The Overhang, where water has eroded the base of the sandstone cliff.

Cania Dam

Following our walks we ventured out to view Cania Dam. It’s a beautiful spot, but you really need a kayak or boat to appreciate the place. We then ventured off to check out the Shamrock Mine Site, which was fairly underwhelming to say the least.

Some music around the camp fire

We all gathered around a couple of fire bits after dinner to have a singalong with our mate Paul. It was another great night shared by all under a cloudy full moon sky. Jan also made some damper in the camp oven to share around & it was soooo yummy too.

Summing up…

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