Cooyinnirra (Mount Mitchell)

Location: Main Range National Park (Cunningham's Gap), SEQ
Date: 12th April, 2014
Distance: 10.2 km
Time: 2 h 30 min

Mount Mitchell has a lot to offer for a short hike - beautiful sections of rainforest, awesome wildlife (if you consider snakes to be awesome, and I do) and a summit commanding spectacular views of mountains throughout the scenic rim. The only downsides are noise from the Cunningham highway, and encountering other bushwalkers with enough good sense to spend their Saturday morning here. Fortunately, this Saturday was mostly devoid of people fitting the latter category, so I was probably the first one on the track (judging by the number of spider webs I walked through).

The first km or so heads up through rainforest, before opening out into dry Eucalyptus-type vegetation. I tried to walk this section pretty quickly to avoid what I perceived to be a noisy bushwalking group coming up behind me (although as it turns out they actually kept to the other side of the highway).

Every time I hike Mount Mitchell snakes seem to come out on parade for me, so I wasn't surprised to encounter one not metres away from where I spotted a snake last time. This guy was cruising along slowly, but I also spotted two smaller snakes (one at the peak and one in the rainforest near the entrance) that were moving too quickly to photograph. One of them was black and shiny, like a snake racecar.

Totally oblivious to the path or any walkers on it, this fella crawled directly across in front of me

Saw heaps of these butterflies too

After negotiating the north side of Mount Mitchell, the track swings around the western peak and climbs through more great rainforest on the southern slopes.

The track leaves foresty areas about 15 minutes before the top, and although there are several short sections of stairs, the mountain makes up for it by delivering thrilling views from the summit.

Looking east past the Cunningham Highway to Mount Edwards and Lake Moogerah, my previous destination

View north to Mount Cordeaux (closest) and Mount`Castle (distant).
The Cunningham Highway runs between Mts Mitchell and Cordeaux.

I saw some folk on the way back to the carpark (it's about 1 h 15 min up, and an hour back down) but mostly had the walk to myself. I was somewhat surprised (but not unhappy) not to see more.

Plants look like they've been bleached with awesome

Rocks and moss make a good combination