Granite Belt

Last weekend Rachael had the weekend off work, so we went for a drive down to see the Stanthorpe and Granite Belt Region. We stayed at Sommerville Valley Tourist Park which is on Storm King Dam. They had kayak’s you could take out and we are keen to go back in Summer when the water is less freezing.

On the way we did the fruit run tourist drive and had a look at some of the wineries. Since we were taking it in turns driving we couldn’t actually do any wine tasting, but we have been meaning to do a bus tour for a while now, so definitely keen to do it again coming into spring.

That afternoon we went to Girraween National Park, which was by far the highlight for me. We walked up to the Pyramids, which were like an Uluru style rock mountain. Rachael didn’t come up all the way to the top with me, because the track was super steep and difficult, but the view from the top was phenomenal.

Another cool sight was the Ballandean Pyramid, which was nearby The Pyramids, but was an actual pyramid that was on a wine property. You could see it from the road, but couldn’t get too close.

That night we went to Anna’s Restaurant, and had the buffet. The main meals were delicious. The desert’s looked awesome, but didn’t taste as good as they looked.

The next day, we back-tracked through Girraween and across the border to Tenterfield which had huge Autumn trees as you drove in and looked awesome. We then drove back up through to get to the NSW side of the national park and check out Bald Rock. In NSW you have to pay $7 to park in the national park which is a bit lame. We didn’t climb all the way up to the top, but it had similar views to the Pyramids and was also pretty cool.

From here we drove along the border through back roads to Killarney, which is an amazing area. Everything is incredibly green. I showed Rachael a place I had been to for work called Acacia Plateau, which has crazy picturesque rolling green hills. Queen Mary Falls was our last stop, and pretty good, although nothing compared to some of the waterfalls we saw the other week at Lamington Park.