Karawatha Forest - trek 1

I have been inspired recently by the myriad of posts by Tara Moss (who I follow on FB/blog) with the bush walking and hiking adventures she and her family have undertaken. One of my New Years resolutions was to get out of the house more, to be a little less of a hermit. I found myself getting rather frustrated that the majority of my limited free time last year was spent at home on my own just chilling out on the couch. South East Queensland has such an abundance of national parks and forests with established bush walking tracks on them that I thought, even if the majority of these treks are done on my own, that was a much better and healthier use of my free time than simply sitting on my ass watching TV.

Hopefully some of the walks I do will be done with friends, but even if they aren't I am determined to work through the list of national parks I have compiled. Karawatha Forest is a bushland reserve area not even 10 minutes from my house so I thought, why not start there? Its somewhat embarassing to think I have lived in my home for 8 years now and this is the first time I have gone walking through this forest/park. Admittedly, when I first set off and even throughout my walk, I found myself checking over my shoulder etc but I think thats just a product of my life experiences, my work and common sense as a young woman walking on her own. But eventually I was able to settle into the walk and enjoy myself. It wasn't a stroll by any means - I had resistance bands on my legs to make the work out even more worthwhile and I hiked through the forest at a brisk steady pace.

I am not entirely sure how far I walked though I walked for a good 3 hours - I forgot to take my print out of the forest with me to know where the tracks were and whilst some of the tracks are very clearly marked out, others were not so much. I found myself walking along and then veering off on tracks that seemed to be established, only to stop after some time and wonder "where the hell am I?" I did make sure to keep an idea of my bearings so that I could back track as needed, and to be sure to turn around and head back to where I parked before I lost the light for the day.

It was a nice walk - I ended up all over the place and eventually came across some other walkers, some mountain bike riders and a few natural residents of the Forest. I have scribbled a rough idea of where I walked on my print out, which just shows how much of the forest I am still yet to see. The blue shaded area is because I know I veered in and around on what I thought were the walking tracks only to stumble across the true tracks accidentally - so who knows how far I walked through this region.

Eventually I came across some really nice sights - I found the picnic area along the Rocks Track which had a great view. Here are a few photos from my trek. As you can see from the above map still plenty of area in the park for me to explore. I might set off next time from the other car park area so that I can see the lower/opposite side of the park.