Nature and nurture

A GUIDED bushwalk is the perfect complement to a stay at southeast Queensland's best lodge.

The Hidden Peaks Walk campsite rests gently in Main Range National Park the Granite Belt area of southeast Queensland, only 90 minutes from the state capital. The tented camp, and its associated walk, is an extension of the nearby Peppers Spicers Peak Lodge. Picture: Susan Kurosawa

SIX canvas tents are strung in a line, luxuriously kitted out with king-sized beds, khaki blankets and soft pillows and sheets. It could be an African safari set-up were it not for the distinctive calls of the bush.

No roar of lion or growl of leopard disturbs our slumber. We wake to the calls of kookaburras and butcher birds; black Angus cows peer at me from behind a fence as I open the tent's flaps for an early-morning weather check. This is the "canopy" base camp for the new Hidden Peaks Walk, a hosted experience on a 5500ha nature refuge of stunning beauty and diversity.

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We are in the Granite Belt area of southeast Queensland, about 90 minutes southwest of Brisbane on a private cattle property within the Main Range National Park. The tented camp, and its associated walk, is an extension to the award-winning 10-suite Peppers Spicers Peak Lodge, which sits atop a nearby plateau in near-baronial splendour. On a clear night, campers can see the lights of the property's two new freestanding guest lodges on the edge of the tabletop mountain's wooded rim.

The walk can be taken as a three or four-day guided outing; trampers return to the camp at night and gather in a convivial chalet-style homestead where solar-heated showers, an open fire and a hearty meal await.

Co-host David Stent cooks up a three-course dinner that could include pumpkin soup with Thai spices, chicken risotto with salad and a lemon delicious pudding. Everyone sits at a long table and compares the day's sightings, shows off digital pictures of birds and creatures encountered that day and, inevitably, discusses the state of their stretched calf muscles and weary soles.

But you don't need to be fabulously fit and fearless. "We adjust to the pace of the slowest walker," co-host Graham Hickson says. "Heat and dehydration are the biggest dangers, which is why we suspend the walks during summer." Light backpacks, wet-weather coat and, if required, walking staffs are provided and the timetable is very agreeable: set off after breakfast for a circular walk on graded paths, break for lunch and a siesta at camp, then resume explorations, in a different direction, at about 3pm. "That way we walk into the dark," says Stent. "Kangaroos come out at dusk and there's a chance of sighting, say, a platypus in one of the clear creeks."

On one recent trip, walkers saw calves being born in a paddock near the homestead amid an electrical storm. Our thrills are less dramatic but we are especially enthralled by a honey-coloured sunset, tall trees silhouetted against the horizon in black like the stark lines of a child's drawing.

And those kangaroos do indeed emerge after lights-out. On the last night of our trip, while staying up at the lodge proper, we see two huge males boxing with such force that the grass ripples and there is a tremendous racket of grunting and thwacking. Heads tilted back at an awkward angle, they deliver punches worthy of a Mike Tyson bout; the headlights of our four-wheel-drive shine on a female kangaroo in the background and she looks so bored with it all she may as well be yawning and filing her nails. We don't stick around for the outcome but next morning there's blood and sorry tufts of fur on the battered grass.

Less dramatic encounters on the Hidden Peaks Walks typically include good sightings of red-necked wallabies, eastern grey kangaroos, bandicoots, bellbirds and satin bowerbirds. Such checklist ticks aside, I find the real wonder of this bush experience is the opportunity to rest my city-dulled eyes; there's palapable nourishment in the wide views and a silence that isn't really quiet (cue the kookaburras) but devoid of urgent traffic and urban buzz.

The landscape changes as you walk out and up from tussocky flats hemmed by hard blue-hazed hills to eucalypt forest, high shrubland, vine thickets and exposed rocky inclines studded with giant spear lilies and grass trees. As they say in Texas, there's miles and miles of miles and miles, but it's middle-of-nowhere isolation with a direct line to comfort: hot-water bottles, Granite Belt wines, Stent toiling at the stove and those snug-as-a-bug tents. This is what operators mean by that much-touted tag of soft adventure: outdoorsy exercise with a sense of achievement and a reward (a safety net, if you like) at day's end.

The ultimate inducement in this case is the final night at Peppers Spicers Peak Lodge, perched high and grand 1130m above sea level. Here the suites come with flat-screen televisions and five-star frills galore, and food by talented young chefs John Paul Fiechtner and Ben Thompson. It's the highest altitude accommodation in Queensland and, while not of an alpine prospect, the lodge seems to nudge the clouds.

Two private freestanding guest lodges opened this year to augment accommodation at the main lodge. These are in one or two-bedroom configurations and set a brisk walk down from the main property, well apart from each other on the edge of the escarpment. The lodges feature polished floors and wood-fuelled fire, decks furnished with all manner of lounging furniture, and a muted colour palette that doesn't attempt to compete with the glorious wide-angle views.

Add a heated dipping pool on the deck, a window wall in the shower that gives plunging valley vistas and all the new-fangled electronic doings one could imagine and you have the equivalent of a superior holiday house, albeit one in which you don't have to cook.

Food is included in the tariff and daily-changing menus at the main lodge offer a hearty breakfast (make mine a smoked salmon and avocado omelet), light lunch and a degustation dinner, with standout dishes during my stay including coconut-braised beef with bok choy and pineapple salsa (with a side of yellow zucchini finished with thyme and capers) and a ginger and kaffir lime brulee.

Fiechtner and Thompson make good use of produce from the surrounding Darling Downs - stone and citrus fruit, Angus and wagyu beef -- and, in season, Tasmanian soft-shell crabs (cooked in tempura batter and partnered with corn relish and coriander salad) and Sunshine Coast king prawns.

It's clever fare with an Asian twist that tastes light and healthy, but even if it were loaded with fat and kilojoules, across-the-line achievers of the Hidden Peaks Walk should feel that they have earned it.

Checklist
Four-day walks depart Mondays; from $1800 a person. Three-day walks depart Saturdays; from $1550 a person. For the final night, participants must walk up to Peppers Spicers Peak Lodge (bags are transported by vehicles). Cost includes alll meals and drinks and return coach from Brisbane. Packages for the one-bedroom private lodge from $1590 for two.
spicerspeaklodge.com
queenslandholidays.com.au

Susan Kurosawa was a guest of Tourism Queensland.