Rachel Grindlay

There have been nineteen weekends since the travel restrictions were lifted at the start of June. I have been on overnight trips fifteen of those weekends with no (full) day walks at all in that time. It was a bit odd to have 5 months between day walks! But with overnight trips planned for five of the next six weekends we decided perhaps a “weekend off” wouldn’t hurt.

Particularly since the forecast for Sunday looked a bit dicey. Another Friday night decision on what to do and a very late attempt to see if anyone wanted to come, but with most likely candidates doing the Lake Macquarie Rogaine, we were just a party of two.

Driving through the mountains since the bushfires in summer it had been interesting to get much better visibility of the cliffs and we had earmarked Mt Haystack as a future trip some months earlier.

I wasn’t sure how we were going to do it as a loop without walking along Bells Line of Road (not recommended!), but when I suggested the option of walking up Mill Creek, Tom seemed to think it would work. I was prepared for a long day given the length of creek we were biting off!

It was a foggy, overcast morning as we started, and the vegetation was wet. My shoes and socks soon went the same way, despite us following an old fire trail for the initial section.

The saddle between Mt Haystack and Haystack Ridge was dramatic and required a little bit of route-finding to get across.

Tom had brought a rope & harness just in case we had any issues getting down into the creek. They stayed in his bag the whole trip – I was glad he was contrasting the weight of his pack with what it would have been with overnight gear, rather than with mine – otherwise I may have found myself with some more ballast.

Mill Creek was typical of creeks in the area, some sections we had to work hard through river gums, boulders etc. Other sections were relatively easy walking along the banks. We’d budgeted for 1km/hour type terrain and our expectations were met.

When we finally popped up at the power lines, I had been expecting us to be at the spot where we’d crossed under the power lines in morning. It was clearly not the same spot and I had no idea where we were! For a moment we thought we’d come up the wrong spur, but after some map consultation Tom assured me this was exactly where we were meant to be.

It was a 9am – 5:30pm day, one of our longer ones of late, so we were thrilled to find Pie in the Sky was still open. A serving of their excellent apple pies & ice cream, always with a smile, was a great way to end the day.