Wollangambe Crater

A group of us spent last weekend on a trip to Wollangambe Crater in the Blue Mountains National Park near Bell, on the way to Lithgow. Fabulous weather, great company, and magnificent scenery.

It's very much the saucer-shaped crater, and there's been some suggestion it might be a meteorite crater, though the weight of serious opinion seems to be against that.

It's a few hours of trekking across 'pagoda country' - with its twisted and contorted weathered rocky sandstone outcrops. And down near the crater there's the Wollangambe River to explore, with twists and turns, canyons and rock overhangs.

Quite a place. We'll be back.

N

Shangri La, Mount Kailash, and the Kowmung River

I dipped my toes in the Kowmung the other day. That's been a mystical, mythical name to me for many years. I haven't yet made it to the other places, or to Lhasa or Timbuktu, but with the Kowmung River now ticked off, I'm well on my way.

I spent three days with bushwalking friend Bob in the Kanangra Boyd National Park, about 200km west of Sydney. I'd been to the park once before, 11 years ago on a bushwalking club expedition, but we'd headed out quickly on the three day wilderness hike to Katoomba.

On this trip we camped for a couple of nights at the pleasant and well appointed Boyd River camping area, and did day walks to see various bits of the remote park. 

The day we went down to the beautiful Kowmung River was one of the biggest bushwalking days of my life. We covered 28km, with ascents and descents of over 1000m, and much time stumbling around looking for seemingly vanished tracks. It was quite exhausting, and we put the navigational problems down to the National Parks Service's policy of deliberately not signposting some tracks, and having them removed from the maps, so as to have fewer tracks to maintain. (They'd say it was actually to reduce environmental impacts too, I guess.) Anyway we eventually made it down there, along the (still marked) Roots Ridge track, and made it back up before dark, in time for a nice evening in front of the campfire, eating freeze-dried cardboard and watching the stars come out.

It was a nice break, and I plan to get back there again a bit sooner next time.

N

(2nd photo taken by Bob Seibright)

Wild man returns alive from wilderness

Not just alive, but alive and kicking! I survived a somewhat more gruelling than expected Club expedition along the Yuraygir Coastal Walk, from Angourie to Red Rock, on the north coast of NSW. 

It's a 4 day trek involving 65km of beaches, rocky platforms, headland walkways, and river crossings. There are stunning views of deserted beaches. There are idyllic spots to camp and swim. There are exciting challenges such as how to cross the three significant rivers encountered along the way, how to find and carry sufficient drinking water to get you through the day, and of course how to pick up and then carry your 18-20kg backpack for up to 23km a day. There was also one rather wet night and day to get through.

Answers to the river crossing conundrums, by the way, turned out to be: (1) bludge a lucky lift from the only boatie passing by, (2) phone the relevant operator and pay the $10 per head taxi fare, (3) beg assistance from a group of kayakers, to thus become one beach's star entertainment offering for the afternoon, and make us celebrities around the town.

Food consisted mainly of noodles, Cup-a-Soups, and weird stuff in packets claiming to be Moroccan lamb or egg and bacon breakfast, to which you add hot water, and which then turned into wet and soupy weird stuff in packets. One of us (guess who) got through the whole trip like this. The others all defected at some stage to the shops that occasionally and miraculously turned up in the handful of holiday townships we passed through, and bought evil things like chips and ice creams.

The plusses generally outnumber the minuses on these sorts of expeditions, and among the other plusses were the expert leadership of Liam, and the fine companionship of Jacqui, John, Sarah, Tom, and Fernando. Probably the highlight was the idyllic and little known Freshwater Beach camping spot, many kilometres from anywhere the car campers could have got to.

New Year's Eve celebrations were held at 9pm in a delightful bushwalkers only area near the Lake Arragon Camp Ground, in keeping with our practice of early nights and then failure to sleep much anyway (noisy seas, hard ground, and in my case repeated failed attempts at comet spotting).

For the post expedition recovery session we ended up at the Red Rock Bowling Club, where we overindulged in food and drink, as you do. Great trip, great company. Thanks all of you.

N

Photo credit (last picture): Unknown fellow Bowling Club patron

This is the life!

It's been quite a while since I did a full pack walk. Quite a while since I dusted off my faithful old 80 litre backpack and my Sierra Designs two person tent with its comfortable sit up inside capability. Or the Trangia stove, on which I cooked three course gourmet meals. These treasured possessions used to accompany me on extended explorations of Tasmania's Central Plateau or south west wilderness.

The other day I headed off for the weekend with two bushwalking companions, to renew my acquaintance with the glorious pastime of full pack, overnight bushwalking and camping. We chose Acacia Flats, alongside the fabled Bluegum Forest in the Grose Valley in the Blue Mountains. We entered via the Mount Hay road and Lockleys Pylon, and then descended, and on Sunday ascended the 700 metres or so with our 17kg packs. As a side trip on Saturday morning we checked out the scary Cliffs of Mordor and the Cave of Doom (actually the Grose Valley gorge and Dr Darke's Cave), and were as ever impressed by the spectacular scenery.
 

The weather was not too hot, not too cold, with no rain despite the ambivalent forecasts. The campsite was dry, spacious, and beautiful, and the company was excellent. I can't wait to get back to this pursuit on a more regular basis!

N

Photo credit (first picture): Suseela