Rail Trail Open

The latest must do "thing" in the Boyne Valley is to check out the Boyne Burnett Inland  Rail Trail.  The trail is open to cyclists, hikers, and trail horse rider from Nagoorin in the north,  to Kalpowar in the south.  

After a long wait, many meetings, endless negotiations and over a thousand hours of hard yakka, a local community group, BBIRT,  has opened the first stages of the trail that it is hoped will eventually run from Taragoola (near Gladstone) south through the Boyne Valley, up over the Dawes Range to Monto and on down to Gayndah in the North Burnett Region, Queensland , Australia. 

The original rail line was begun over a hundred years ago and required the construction of 6 tunnels and a huge retaining wall to traverse the Dawes Range.  Amazingly it was all done with pick, shovel, horses,  gelignite and hard yakka.  The trail is a fitting memorial to the hard work and tenacity of the men, and  their wives and children who traveled with them, who worked so hard to open up our "wide brown land".

The weather has not been kind to us.  Drought blankets the area but the trail travels through spectacular country which is at its best when the grass is green and the rivers and creeks full.  

This is a must do "thing" to add to your bucket list. Where can you experience 6 tunnels in such proximity to each other?