Thorsborne Trail, QLD
Distance: 32km one way Time: 3–5 days Difficulty: Hard
Thorsborne Trail on Hinchinbrook Island is one of Australia’s great multi-day walks, providing walkers with a real wilderness experience. Only 40 people are permitted on the track at a time so you can enjoy the solitude of a relatively untouched landscape. There are few traces of human interference here. Apart from track markers, fixed to trees at eye height in the scrubland and rainforest sections, there is very little signage. Walkers must camp and be entirely self-sufficient.
Hinchinbrook Island, 53km long and 10km wide, located about 6km off the northern Queensland coast, is part of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. Water is a defining feature of the landscape on the island – its rugged 400sq.km landmass has been shaped by the seasonal rains and tidal swells of the Wet Tropics. An intricate network of creeks and waterways threads across the island; swollen with monsoon rainwater during the humid summer months, they give birth to falls that thunder through the island’s rock country. During winter the waterways gradually drain and evaporate, leaving many creeks dry.
The Thorsborne stretches 32km along the eastern coast of the island, from Ramsay Bay in the north to George Point on the south-eastern tip and can be walked in either direction. The trail passes through incredibly diverse landscapes, traversing mangrove swamps, sweeping beaches and rocky headlands on the Coral Sea, heath-covered mountains, melaleuca and palm wetlands, eucalypt and casuarina woodlands, and lush, tropical rainforests. Although daily distances are short, it’s a challenging walk thanks to the humidity, the need to carry your own gear and water, tidal creek crossings and the danger of saltwater crocodiles and marine stingers. Nevertheless, the island’s wild and pristine beauty is hard to resist, and you’ll soon see why people come from all
