Airlie’s number one – Honeyeater Lookout!
363m elevation – 7.4km return – allow 2 hours
Honeyeater Lookout is moderate to hard hike, probably more on the hard side. It’s a 7.4km out and back track with incline of 363m and it definitely gets the heart rate up.
Access and Parking
We entered the track from Kara Crescent, we parked on Orana Street but a lot of people park in the main strip of Airlie. It was free parking where we were but there were a lot of signs in the surrounding streets that said no parking. From Orana Street we walked up to the top point of Kara Crescent and walked left onto another road (unsure of its name) but you can see the start of the walk from there and its all signed.
We left just before 7am and it took us roughly 50 minutes to get to the lookout. The track is very well maintained, it starts at some man made stairs with good signage so you know you are on the right track. There are a few different tracks that you can walk that are outlined on the sign. This is also the start/finish of the Whitsunday Great Walk or Conway Circuit, its a 28km walk through the Conway Forest into Airlie Beach. It’s on the list for us, but were waiting for some cooler weather to commit and I think we might camp along the way just for fun.
The track itself is so well maintained with enough signage to know you are on the right track. There were a couple of logs we had to jump over but that was just a bit of fun. It was so lush and nice, and when we got to the top, all we could see was fog! Haha we had terrible timing, but we stayed up top for about half an hour while the fog moved around giving us glimpses of the view. I wanted to fly my drone so badly but I was only able to get it up for a couple of minutes cause I was concerned about the fog causing damage to the drone. But the shots still turned out really awesome!
As you can see I wasn’t joking about the fog, that was our view when we made it to the top – was a little bit of a laugh. Lucky for us the clouds were moving fast and we got to see all the lookout has to offer, even if it was only short glimpses.
Expect it to be a very sweaty hike, Airlie is always very humid and it doesn’t matter how early you start the hike, you will be a sweaty mess by the time you reach the top!
The wildlife was very abundant, there were lots of butterflies when we went up, lizards and birds and creatures of the bush! There was fruit on trees and some cool mushrooms and things to look at, so keep your eyes peeled for something different. The trek back down was easy, just a bit rough on the knees if you didn’t take it easy. We were pretty shattered after the walk and I would recommend you jump in the lagoon to cool off and freshen up, however, depending on time of year, the water may be the temperature of bath water. Still nice but!
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