Author: Rachel

SA Rogaining (27-28 Jun 2026)

The last bush rogaine Tom did was a mere 12 years ago, back in May 2014. We entered the Gibraltar Rocks Autumn Rogaine – and placed 3rd overall /1st mixed team, in the 6 hour event (the serious people were doing the 12 hour). Since then Tom’s been firmly retired from any remotely serious rogaining – there’s been a spattering of volunteer picnic rogaines, the paddlegaine (in packrafts!), but nothing resembling a proper bush rogaine. I convinced him to do the South Australian State Champs events with me as my birthday present – how could he say no!?

I had no concerns about our navigation coming into the rogaine, but I hadn’t really thought through the planning. As we discussed options Tom looked unconvinced at what I was suggesting. This led to me continuing to suggest new options, hoping that something would convince him. Our three hours rapidly sped away, and yet we still hadn’t firmed up our options. In retrospect, Tom was never going to be convinced by any of my routes, so we should have just gone with the first one. Then we might have actually had time to work out decision points and alternate routes… instead we ended up just throwing the last thing I suggested on the map since we were running out of time.

About to start

And then we were off. Within 5 minutes our feet were saturated. South Australia had been quite wet in the weeks leading up to the rogaine, and Ward’s Weed had sprung up all over the course. It ranged between ankle and knee deep, and with the mist that was swirling it was holding a lot of water. I wanted to call false advertising on the organisers – the event page had lovely photos of red rock with clear blue skies, and a quote “…an arid, weathered land. The air is dry and clear, the silence vast, and every hilltop reveals sweeping views carved by millions of years.” We saw no blue sky, very little red rock, and were in misty fog for most of the weekend.

Ironically it was drier feet walking up the creeks…

…than walking elsewhere in the vegetation

We quickly lost other people as we forged out on a route not chosen by anyone else after our first control. Of course, that could have been genius route-planning, or maybe a representation of the uncertainty in our decision making. Fortunately our navigation was on point even if the route choice might not have been. Things went pretty well for the first 2.5 hours (52-83-63-51-71-30).

Not sure what Tom’s problem was here

So well that we started to discuss what we were going to do after we hit our next control…. instead of concentrating on getting to that control (82). As it turned out we missed the gully we planned to go up, and had to approach it from the top instead of the bottom. A few minutes lost there.

Then one of the highlights of the day – as we were descending the spur from 82 we spotted an emu. It was making lots of not very happy noises and we were trying to get photos of it. Eventually we decided we better move on, only for Tom to discover why the emu had been so unhappy with us – its nest, with 10 eggs! After that we felt guilty so took a quick photo and got out of there. Hopefully not too many other competitors disturbed it through the day. (Another few minutes lost there!)

Emu eggs – find of the day!

We had been unsure what to do after 82, in the end we decided to go with our planned route (possibly the wrong choice in retrospect?) and headed on to 42, then through to 62. I was eating a roll while on our way through a callitris forest (by-the-by callitris is really good at holding water in its branches), with my map tucked under my arm. I was making sure the map was still there regularly…. and then it wasn’t. Oh no. Having been through a rogaine where my partner had lost a map it was not a position I wanted to be in. Fortunately a couple of minutes of searching and Tom found it. Another few minutes lost there.

We could see 62 from a fair way back, and decided to head directly towards it over a couple of spurs. Probably not the best route, but we got it without much drama (other than the lost map). Then on to 81 which we almost missed because it was ‘hung’ around a shrub at ground level in a shallow gully, and another group were standing directly in front of it when we went past. Fortunately I spotted the orange & white peaking out from behind their legs. In my desire to not hang around the control I told Tom we should just head down the gully because wherever we were going to go next we needed to get to the road. Which was true…. except not necessarily that spot on the road. It was only once we made it to the road that we realised our plan had us going back up the gully and hitting the road from the ridge. I’m not sure that one cost us too much time, since we could just march up the road, but it was a silly mistake.

At this point our route options were kind of stuffed, our best options for controls were going to take us a long way out, with poor collection options on the way back. In the end we decided to go to 90-50-20, because at least that put us in the right direction for getting back.

The cloud finally lifted at bit around 4pm

The creek between 90-50 ended up being a marked bush walk, and was quite lovely. It just wasn’t the most efficient rogaining choice. We were relieved when the narrower upper section opened out into flat easier walking.

Marching down the creek

Lovely bushwalk, not the most efficient rogaine route

We took the ridgeline route to 20 and got there just as it was getting hard to read the map. We got 2 of the last 3 pieces of fruit cake, and then we were on our way back to camp with a bit of night nav on the way. We leap-frogged another team on our way to 43. We’d both been at 20, then they’d run past us on the road. We overtook them in the creek. Then they went past us again. Then we passed them as they argued over where they were. Tom was convinced we hadn’t gone far enough so we just kept going. I’m not sure whether they ever found the control as we didn’t see them on our way back down the creek. We were overtaken by the very impressive Kiwi team shortly after this – they were on their way to clearing the entire course in 20 hours.

About to lose the daylight as we descend to 20

We were doing the Roving 12 hour event, which meant we could do any 12 hours within the 24 hour event. I’ve done 12 hour events within a 24 hour before – but they’ve been straight 12 hour events (12pm-12am). Or I’ve done 24 hour events where the intention was just to do 14-15 hours. However, this was a new challenge trying to split our time and routes appropriately. Coming in our plan was to do 7 hours on Saturday (12-7pm) and 5 hours on Sunday (7am-12) to maximise our time rogaining in daylight.

After getting 33, but not overly efficiently, Tom suggested we should just forget about anything else and head back as we were just wasting time in the dark that we needed for the next day. We had intended to grab 22 but missed it on our way past, and got into Hash House at 7:15pm.

We were so happy to pile up our bowls with carbs and bolognaise, and sit down (thanks for the chairs Shanti!) around the fire. We couldn’t get close enough to dry our feet out – and they were going to get saturated first thing so there wasn’t much point. After revisiting our plan for the next day I was off to bed by 9pm. We were up, with many others, around 6am, to drink coffee, pack bags, eat cheese toasties and get out again at 7:15am. We ended up starting about 7:12am which meant we needed to be back about 2 or 3 minutes before midday.

Out and about next morning – another glorious day

The fog was in full attendance just like the previous day and the lack of visibility upped the difficulty of the navigation. We took a bit longer than hoped for to get out across the plains (45-53-24) but decided to push on with our ambitious route. We picked up 66 with no issues, but then missed the narrow ridge leading to 73 in the fog so had to back track across a gully.

Spinifex – also very good at holding water

More great visibility

The navigation to 101 was spot on, but then we got ourselves in a bit of a mess trying to find 84. Up until that point we hadn’t really had any issues with roads. We’d been well warned that there were plenty of unmarked roads, and also that the roads which were marked weren’t necessarily accurate. Subsequently we hadn’t planned around the roads (except the safety roads which were accurate). Closing in on 84, a road appeared which we decided to follow since it might have been the spur we were after. I suspect we wouldn’t have followed it as far had it not been a road, but eventually concluded nothing was matching up. So walked back up it and traversed around – finding ourselves on a different spur but equally confused. We were really running out of time but of course if we didn’t find the control, then we’d have a bigger issue of trying to work out where we were.

Control 101 – description: “The spur (nice view in the daylight)”

Fortunately we did eventually locate 84, but then we had to get back to the Hash House. With no easy option to get back we figured we may as well go via 56 (as planned). We didn’t realise it at the time, but we missed a creek junction and ended up walking up the southern branch of the creek, instead of the western one we’d planned to be in. So unsurprisingly things weren’t really matching the map – somehow we managed to get ourselves on the correct ridge and got 56.

From there we needed to hightail it back home. At 56 we had 1 hour 36 seconds to get back approximately 6km. We hit the road, and figured we could probably just power walk most of the way back. I completely relaxed navigationally at this stage. Compass went in my pocket, I was too busy getting some food in, putting gear into my pack so that I’d be as comfortable as possible if we did need to run etc. Unfortunately we marched 700m before Tom looked at his compass and realised we were going south-east instead of north!!! Foiled by an unmarked road at the last pass.

So at that point we definitely had to start running. Once back at the spot we had hit the unmarked road, we only had to go another 100m to hit the marked road. However, we’d wasted 1.4km/13 minutes. Tom took off and looked back at me expectantly. I’m not sure where his running pace came from, but I informed him I wasn’t going to be able to run any faster than I was going. We eventually we got back to the Hash House 5 minutes late. In the end the 50 point deduction didn’t change our placing, but the road mistake was a really annoying end to an otherwise relatively good outing.

Similar to our 2014 outing we ended up 1st mixed (and also 1st mixed veterans these days) / 2nd overall in the 12 hour event. The serious people were of course doing the 24 hour event, though had we entered that event our score was good enough to put us in the top 20.

Our route in pink. (note the map extends further north & south than what is shown, I just didn’t include it as we didn’t go there)

We had originally planned to camp Sunday night, but with the dampness in the air, and rain forecast for Monday we decided to head out and find a roof over our heads for the night instead.

A Northern Wollemi foray (6-7 Jun 2026)

We were a week out from the June long weekend and had no plans. I can’t remember how I got distracted from the other options we were considering, and started reading about the Yodellers Range.

One of challenges with most of the Northern Wollemi is access – it’s largely surrounded by private property – so working out who to get permission from, and then getting the permission, is a crucial part of of the trip planning process. Given we didn’t do that until two days out from the weekend, I didn’t commit myself much into the details, as I figured it might just all fall over. Possibly that was a good thing as I may have got cold feet if I’d paid more attention…

I had looked up the 2019/20 fires map. Or at least I thought I had. And it told me that the area we were heading to hadn’t burnt. I was so confident in this that I didn’t bother with gaiters. So I was a bit surprised to find evidence of fire, but more on that later. (Spoiler it turned out it definitely did burn in 2019.)

Anyway, back to getting there. Part of the attraction was that Google told me it was ‘only’ a 3.5 hour drive from Sydney (not counting the drive through private property). That’s comparable with some of the other places we regularly walk. Since we hadn’t been there before we were happy not to pack the full three days with walking. As it turned out by the time we stopped for petrol, then had surprisingly good coffee in Denman, and did a couple of laps around a paddock trying to follow the incorrectly marked road route on Google, that it was a lot later than we’d intended when we were ready to start walking.

Immediately our plans went out the window, and we changed up the itinerary. In retrospect this ended up being an excellent decision, as we were only then lugging two days of water for a few hours.

Gaining access to the National Park

Leaving our car at at the entry to the National Park we climbed the locked gate and set off on the Myrtle Trail. We didn’t like the look of the spot we’d intended to go off track, so once again the plan changed and we continued on. There’d been a fair bit of rain in previous two weeks, so there were a few pools in Myrtle Creek, and a lot of damp rock once we left the trail. We managed to get ourselves up a fair way, but we weren’t counting our chickens too early. We were still burnt from our 2020 Bylong trip, it only takes one 2m cliff you can’t get up before all progress to that point becomes irrelevant.

Making our way onto the range

Traversing ledges

Fortunately on this trip we were able to find ledges or slots where we needed to, and were happy to find ourselves near the top of the range, for a not too late lunch.

A very convenient slot

Make the most of your situation!?

Tom assured me we were about 50m from our intended camp. I think it was a bit more than that, but not long after lunch we found ourselves at a great campsite. Very happy to relieve ourselves of the heavy packs and reload with just day packs, we set off to see if we could find a way into the saddle to our north. This proved somewhat challenging, especially when we didn’t go in the direction we really needed to. Instead we found ourselves viewing a very enticing narrow ridge. We tried to get out onto it, but a few too many crevices later, we decided we should refocus back to the original goal.

The pillar in the saddle was our goal for the afternoon

One small drop stymied Tom, who wasn’t going to go down it while I was off looking at other routes. By this point we’d used a fair bit of our allocated exploring time, but I convinced him we should just put the tape down and hope that we could get back up again. And so, a few minutes later we made it to the sun-lit pillar we’d been seeing for much of the afternoon. No time for afternoon tea since we didn’t know whether we’d find a more direct route back to camp, and there’s not much daylight in mid June.

Tom on top of our goal

Fortunately we managed to both get back up the small drop, and find a pretty direct route back to camp, so plenty of time to enjoy the views!

I think the view’s ok

Happy hour views

There was no wind, and no noise. The silence, as they say, was deafening. With a waning moon and no cloud we also had amazing stars. Of course that also meant a saturated tent!

Very comfortable (& warm) sunrise views

The next day our plan was to walk to the southern end of the range. This involved several knolls to work our way through. Our route finding was pretty good – thanks to our skill… I mean LiDAR maps.

Our route for day 2 lies through that maze of pagodas

We’ve made it to a different knoll

Route finding

At one point we were stopped by a tricky cliff. Tom checked out the obvious possible route, but was unconvinced, so I assumed that meant we’d have to detour down and around.

Hmmm. Now where?

Is there a way up there?

Or a way through there?

Tom encouraged me to go have a look at the route. Up close I realised it was a fair bit easier than it appeared from afar – just with severe consequences. We decided to go for it – Tom went up without a pack and put a tape in place. The tape’s value was primarily psychological, as the angles didn’t really lend themselves to using it. But, with the full packs, having just that little bit of extra balance is always helpful. We made it up, across the knoll, then down the other side without any further impediments.

Guess we must have found a way!

Aftermath of bushfire

Brilliant lunch spot

We had a relatively early lunch on the final knoll before the range turns to rolling hills. How far to the trail I asked? About 2km. That doesn’t sound too bad. How far have we come this morning? Oh, probably less than 1.5km as the crow flies. Hmm.

The end of the pagodas – just 2km up and over the right-hand peak to the fire trail

We’d seen plenty of evidence of the fires – though fortunately most of our route was sufficiently rocky that the scrub had never been overly thick. As I looked across to the knoll we would be climbing to, I declared the canopy looked intact and therefore the going wouldn’t be too bad. The saddle itself was fine – though it looked like sometime in the recent past it would have been horrendous. It was now full of smooth young trees, with many dead vines. The vines had died and broken, and it was relatively straight forward to make our way through them.

Unfortunately the canopy was not intact for long sections of our exit route. Normally this wouldn’t have bothered me too much, however we came across a few stands of prickly acacia (Acacia paradoxa). These were a nightmare as the entire plant (stem and branches) is covered in thorns. The dead plants grab onto you, and we were forced into a couple of stops to take our shirts off, to pull out numerous thorns embedded in our clothing.

A welcome open section

As we made our way up to the knoll we encountered more and more prickly pear. I don’t think I’ve seen so much in one place in Australia. The range is a basalt cap so I assume the growing conditions are more favourable than elsewhere.

Prickly pear infestation

Leaving the knoll we still had 1km to go to the firetrail. The first few hundred metres was delightful open walking. But then we got stuck in some of the most dense regrowth we’d had on the trip (and in recent months). Reviewing the GPS log afterwards we probably could have taken a more direct line, and cut down our efforts, but eventually we were spat out onto the trail. Time for another shirt-off and thorn removal session!

Another welcome open section – not the majority of the 2km!

Our tormentor

Now we just had a long walk back to the car.

No more scrub

If we’d done a bit more investigation and realised there was a water tank at Sandy Camp Hut we would have likely brought more food with us. We’d not expected to be able to pick up water anywhere, so figured we would have to get back to the car on night 2. It was a bit of shame as we would’ve been happy to camp at the hut, but without dinner, it wouldn’t have been too enjoyable.

Sandy Camp Hut

Instead we had cheese & biscuits at 4pm at Keiths Lookout, then marched on into the dark. We got back to our car just on complete darkness.

Early happy hour (maybe better described as afternoon tea?) at Keiths Lookout

Setting up camp on the National Park side of the fence, we just had to retrieve water and food for a very pleasant night. The contrast from the previous night’s silence was clear – a yellow-bellied glider frequently pierced the night with its range of shrieks, rattles and gurgling calls.

The next morning we headed back to civilisation (very slowly), well pleased with our first foray on the (easy end?) of the Yodellers Range.

Bullhead – Colboyd Ridges – 23-24 May 2026

This was my third attempt to lead this trip. In 2024 NPWS closed the Kanangra Road a week before it was scheduled to go ahead, so we had a very different trip in Winburndale instead. In 2025 a tree fell across the road delaying Saturday morning arrivals, so we ended up going to 1000 Man Cave instead. This year at 3pm on the Friday afternoon we were due to start, Bill forwarded me an email he’d just received from NPWS advising the aerial shooting program which was supposed to end on Friday was being extended to Saturday and, per the email, the park would be closed. However, the NPWS webpage didn’t reflect this. Some momentary panic, but fortunately I got through to the Oberon NPWS office who assured me that the Saturday shooting would only be in Schedule 1 land so we’d be fine.

So it was understandable that I was excited that the entire party was at the Kanangra Walls car park ready to go at 7:30am! The damp conditions weren’t ideal but the forecast was for 0-2mm of rain on Saturday, and 0-1mm on Sunday, not really bad enough to consider calling it off.

An early damp start at the Kanangra Walls car park

Classic Kanangra view

I managed to stay largely dry for about 20 minutes, but with plenty of rain in the previous 24 hours all the vegetation was saturated. Being at the front I copped the worst of it, and by the time we were on the track heading towards Coal Seam Cave I was completely soaked through. Tom, who was at the back of the line, was far drier!

Views from Cottage Rock down the Gingra Range

Bill had never been on this track, so despite it being far too early for morning tea we had the usual detour onto Cottage Rock for some views. Then it was on to the very distinct junction of the Bullhead/Gingra ridges – complete with a logbook. My hands were too wet to dare touch it much. There had been a fair bit of traffic in the last month – including a mammoth effort from “Mark & Lisa” who apparently left Kanangra Walls at 8:30am and were at the Kowmung at 2pm. Given that timing I gained some comfort that we were likely to get there by mid-afternoon.

Looking across to our intended exit route – Stonehag Hill & Executioner Bluff

In my preparation for the trip, I hadn’t really thought about the ‘track’ along Bullhead Ridge, and had just assumed it was likely to be largely non-existent. So, it was with some delight we found that it was reasonable. By reasonable, I mean that we were able to follow a pad almost the entire way to the Kowmung. It came and went in a few places, and if you’re not used to finding faint pads then at times you would struggle. But the difference between having what was there, versus having to create your own route was immense.

Descending Cambage Spire

Only Tom & I had been down this route previously, and it was twenty years earlier in 2006. At the time we’d gone left off the top of Cambage Spire and have some photos of some interesting pack-passing and scrambling. With much more experience, LIDAR maps, along with a cairned route mentioned by “Mark & Lisa” in their logbook entry, we went right instead. There was still some scrambling but no need for the handline to come out for pack-passing.

Another scramble somewhere between Cambage Spire and Sullen Tor

Exactly two hours from when we left lunch got us to the Kowmung at 3pm (we only took 2 hours more than Mark & Lisa…). Back home comparing to our 2006 times it was a similar length day. In 2018 when Jo & I had been at this spot on Vivien’s Arabanoo trip, the Kowmung wasn’t running – there were just manky pools. At the time it was peak drought and I was worried for the state of nature. Amazing what a few months difference made, as not long after the 2018 trip the drought broke and it feels like it’s barely stopped raining since.

A bit more water in the Kowmung compared to when I was last here!

Unsurprisingly, the Kowmung and Christies Creek were both in good health. And also unsurprisingly the great campsite which used to exist just upstream of the junction, while very grassy, is now also lumpy and not so great a campsite. Fortunately just downstream of the junction there is a wide rocky beach which has a few tent sites cleared amongst the rocks. There is also a mandarin tree growing not far from the campsite if you’re looking to increase your Vitamin C intake while out in the bush.

Nice campsite

We had a good happy hour, including a very gourmet plate from Bill with freeze-dried cheese and biltong.

Gourmet happy hour

Fortunately we had all eaten dinner relatively early as it started raining. Initially not heavy enough to be too worrisome, but by 7:45pm it was enough that we decided it was bed time. Despite the forecast, every time I woke up during the night it was raining, and  checking the Kanangra records afterwards it looked like there was close to 5mm overnight.

Crossing Christies Creek early on Sunday

After all the rain overnight I was inclined to change plans and exit the way we’d come in. I was concerned about the crux scramble on Stonehag Hill as the Kanangra rock is incredibly slippery in the wet. But, while we packed up the skies were clearing, and combined with my desire to get this trip off my back, I changed my mind and decided to exit per the original plan up Stonehag Hill. We were away just after 7:30am.

Picking up water at the junction of Christies and Arabanoo Creeks

The sun appeared for the first time in the weekend, and before we knew it we were at the bottom of the slab which I was worried about. It’s a 5m cliff on the face of Stonehag Hill, with a large crack running down it, and quite a few hand and foot holds. Below you the ridge drops away to nothingness, ramping the exposure rating up pretty high.

Back in 2018, in summer, at the peak of the drought, our group had all climbed this with packs on and nary a handline in site. However, even with my pack off, the rock was greasy, my wet shoes had little traction, and I struggled to get up the first section. So over to Tom – with his increased height hopefully he’d have more options than me. Fortunately Tom was able to get up, handline in his pocket, and secure it to a tree.

Looking up at the crux of Stonehag Hill

Lesson learnt – not a route to do in the damp.

Bill on his way up

Jo looking ridiculously comfortable

From there we had some nice sections of classic Kanangra narrow rocky ridge lines. I had been expecting the narrow ridge line to be ok going until we got to Arabanoo Peak. But, no, a mess of vines slowed our progress to almost non-existent as we inched our way up Executioner Bluffs. A huge time sink, we topped out of that section at 11:10am, after travelling just 200m in over 50 minutes. Time for a well-earnt morning tea – but no time to hang around. We were all saturated (again) from the vegetation, and sitting round too long meant getting cold, plus we still had several kilometres of unknown regrowth to get through.

Tom & Bill on the narrow ridgeline

Cairn marking the entrance to vine hell on Executioner Bluff

Some easier walking – but plenty of native holly

We made it up to Arabanoo Peak relatively easily, but the south-east side of Mt Tonsure delivered us another date with vines. It seems scrub in this section is not a new thing – the Gundungura Guide specifically mentions the slope behind Mt (Le) Tonsure as having “an interwoven mesh of dead scrub and saplings”. Having fought our way through those we were relieved to have some much lighter sections of vegetation as we headed towards Mount Colboyd. We were helped by finding wombat tracks along most of the ridge lines, which eased our way somewhat (other than when the wombats inconveniently walked under all those fallen trees).

Conglomerate at the base of Mount Colboyd

Skirting Mount Colboyd

I had been most concerned about the regrowth in the broad ridges between Mount Colboyd and Mount Bungin and Pindari Top, but as it turned out these were pretty easy walking. This was just as well, given how much time had been sucked up in the two sections of vine hell earlier in the day!

Delightful open walking!

We picked up the Dione Dell Canyon exit track at Pindari Gap and followed that all the way back to the road. The cloud came down as we were climbing up the pass to Pindari Top, so the views were limited, but it was still atmospheric.

On Pindari Top as the cloud comes in

Contemplating the rapidly vanishing view

Sunset as we cross Marrilman Heath

Hitting the road it was then just a bit over a kilometre back to the deserted car park dead on 5pm.

We made it to the road!

A satisfying, hard weekend of walking in Kanangra country. The Stonehag-Colboyd Ridge route is probably one for the off-track connoisseur, but I would recommend Bullhead Ridge for those who are comfortable following faint pads. The more people who walk it, the better it will become!

Won Wron Forest Frolic Rogaine (16 May 2026)

My last rogaine with Mel in Victoria had been back in 2022 at the NO IDeA Rogaine. I was still scarred from that event, with its 20m contours on an unaltered topo map in very subtle country. I was hoping Victoria’s maps resources had been improved since then! I’d had pretty good preparation for this rogaine, with effectively 3 rogaines in the previous 2 weekends (the NSW Nightgaine, and then 2 days out vetting the NSW Paddy Pallin course).

Mel & I drove down from Melbourne on Saturday morning, with the rogaine starting at 11am, even with the 2.5 hour drive, we didn’t have to get up too early. The main disaster was the kettle dying, thanks to a leaking water bladder, and so we were unable to make a second coffee for the day while we were planning.

Victorian Rogaining

I was greatly relieved to see that the map had been made in QGIS. However, I perhaps put too much stock into the reliability of the map (more on that later). For example, Open Street Map data hadn’t been used to fix up tracks that were incorrectly marked. [NB. There is a picture of the map at the bottom of this post]

We had probably the best planning session I’ve done before a rogaine and had an optimistic but doable route sorted without running out of time.

At 11am the 125 teams (99 in the 6 hour, 26 in the 12 hour) were off! We hadn’t really worked out the tracks leaving the Hash House so unfortunately found ourselves at the back of the crowd and spent the first few minutes trying to overtake teams on the track. Once we hit 34 we took off cross country to hit the track not far to the east. The vegetation was quite challenging and left us wondering if our route needed to be slashed already!

Control #34 – a swift introduction to the vegetation

Fortunately the next couple of controls (60, 61) passed with no issues, and it was good to get a bit of nav done. I was somewhat surprised to find we were the first teams at these controls – I knew as the Navlight punch was still wound up and stuck inside the control. The next couple of hours went well, despite the vagaries (or non-existence) of some of the tracks.

Mel in the grass trees & banksia

I think this was control #92. Gorgeous.

We bumped into a couple of teams multiple times as we moved between 53-92-75-65. An older pair of men continued to be very impressed every time they saw us, and congratulate us on how well we we were doing. It was kind of nice… but also a little condescending!

By the time we got into far north west corner we were a bit over the grass trees. They were stunning, but I don’t think I’ve ever walked through so many. Certainly, not at that height so consistently. My face and Mel’s neck were both starting to protest over the thousands of little pricks we must have had by that point. So, with that in mind at 65 we elected to return to the road and take the longer route around to 80 (via 21).

The vegetation had varied between fairly open, not so open but not scratchy, through to fairly unpleasant – but generally only for short stretches.

Once more unto the grass trees

Our plan had us at 80 at 3 hours, and we punched at 3 hours 2 minutes so we were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves. Unfortunately that was when the wheels fell off for an hour. Clearly we had no issues going back past 21, and then we headed out towards 49. Looking at the time as we headed in I wondered whether we should bother, and so was lacking conviction from the outset. We started hitting some less pleasant scrub and I was becoming more concerned about the time, we scouted around briefly, but ended up heading back to the road without finding it. A look at our trace versus the control circle shows we were very close (especially since I went further down the spur than Mel who had the tracking)… but no points for us.

Somewhat disheartened we tried to regroup for 71. I’d come into the day with a bubble in my compass, and I was alarmed early on when I saw more bubbles going in as I set a bearing. The bubble had continued to grow through the day, and was now at the stage where the needle wouldn’t settle unless I stopped moving completely. In retrospect I should have started using Mel’s spare compass, but I didn’t. That meant my ability to walk on a bearing without stopping frequently was compromised, and those who have rogained with me would realise that meant I just kept walking regardless. 🙂

I would like to blame what happened at 71 on the compass but given the direction we walked it seems we took the completely wrong bearing to start with. So many things should have tipped us off that we weren’t going in the right direction, but didn’t. Some refuelling earlier might have helped. We were both quite confused when we popped up on the knoll, that we’d convinced ourselves we were aiming for, to find a road and no control. Fortunately we quickly realised what we’d done and had to decide what to do. We’d used up a lot of time and didn’t think we had enough time to recover our plan of 71-93-70 given how much off track was involved. Instead we headed down the road to 47 and 32.

Not sure which control this was

At 32 we elected to go cross country towards 70. In retrospect despite being twice as long it may have been better go via the road/track. Our intention had been to ensure we hit the track well west of the ‘overgrown’ track that 70 was on. However, we had no idea where we hit it, except we found a lot of other confused teams who were looking for the overgrown track. At this point things were getting a bit panic-y since we were relying on getting to 70 to be able to continue anchoring our navigation. Fortunately we stumbled across the overgrown track (we thought… ) and a few minutes later were overjoyed when we arrived at 70.

We made quick work to knock off 73-82. Our pre-starting plan had wanted us at 82 with 1h 40 to go. We got there with 55 minutes to go. Aaah. We didn’t really have a lot of options for varying our course – either we headed back to the HH with no further points, or else we tried to finish off as we’d planned and probably be late. Mel having recently run a PB in a marathon was in far better running shape than me (having run all of about 1 hour in the last year). As soon as we hit the road south of 82 we started running. I quickly abandoned any pretence of concentrating on the nav, just trying to keep up with Mel. We got 46 and the got to an intersection with ribbons on it. We weren’t expecting an intersection until 55, and we hadn’t done the curve shown on the map so we just continued on without much thought.

I realised that the terrain was falling away on our right (it shouldn’t have been) and figured that intersection must have been 55 and we’d missed it, and soon we’d pop out at W23. And sure enough we hit the road not long after that, but to both our confusion no sign of W23. Another team came wandering past not looking at all confused, and I concluded we must have come down an unmarked track. Time was a-ticking so we headed towards home, and almost immediately went past the plantation – confirming our suspicions on what had happened. I suspect it was a blessing in disguise as it meant we no longer needed to keep running (thank goodness) and were able to grab 40-36 as we walked back with just over 2 minutes in the bank.

Mel was justifiably disappointed with our various errors through the day and proclaimed there was no need to hang around for the presentations. I wasn’t so sure our mistakes were catastrophic, and quietly held out hopes for, at minimum, a placing.

We got our scorecard – 1,000 points, instead of the 1,270 we’d planned for. Then all our focus was on food & coffee. We thoroughly enjoyed the vegetable soup, and the AeroPress got its belated workout.

Scorecard. Note the 52 minutes between controls in our fourth hour 🙁

The first categories (Mens U23 & Novice?) were won by a team on 950 points. Who the announcer said were 7th overall. That made us a sit-up! That meant we’d come in the top 6. So it was with less surprise we found ourselves winners of the Veteran Women & Open Women categories. The top 3 teams all got 1,100 and something, so if we’d nailed our plan…. (though I’m sure they probably had their mistakes too).

Women’s Div (Open & Veteran) Winners

It was a pretty happy car load that headed back to Melbourne.

Once home I geo-referenced the map and overlaid Mel’s track. Interesting things to observe:

  • The road leading to 61 bends much earlier than the track as shown on the map
  • The track between Watson & Sandridge Tracks was barely visible, and in the end we just walked cross country. Surprisingly it seemed we were almost on it. (near 44)
  • The track shown leading over the spur below 53 didn’t exist.
  • The track shown leading over the knoll below W21 didn’t exist.
  • See how close (yet so far) we got to 49
  • What the hell was the bearing we took to go to 71!??
  • The dangers of going cross country when trying to hit a track in a particular position… on our way to 70
  • The unmarked track that took us down to near 40 (missing 55 & W23)
  • A few controls that were not in the centre of the circle i.e. the map didn’t match the terrain e.g. 40 – the control was in the watercourse, but watercourse must be incorrectly located on the map.

Controls we’d planned to get but didn’t: 49-71-93, 55-W23, 77 (ran out of time)
Controls we got that we hadn’t planned to: 47-32

Our actual route (blue) overlaid on the map (our intended route in yellow – not to be confused with the safety road also in yellow).

In conclusion an enjoyable rogaine, and as always plenty of things to learn from.

It’s interesting doing a rogaine in a state that you’re not used to. There’s small differences between the way rogaines run in NSW and Victoria (based on my experience of 2 rogaines in Vic!).

Victoria NSW
Mandatory Gear Checks Done Not done
Wristbands Put on for us Given in a paper bag
Intention Sheets Given in as you enter the starting area Given in at registration
Start punch Punches as you enter the starting area Not needed
Scores Print out provided when you finish (& eventually put online) Not revealed until the presentation. Online within a few hours of the finish
Prizes Small chocolate bars Rogaining mugs

Martins Creek & Grant Head (25-27 Apr 2026)

Grant Head had been on the to-do list for a while. We regretted not getting out there in the aftermath of the 2019 fires, and knew we’d be in for a scrub-fest to go there now, with 6 years of regrowth.

In 2025 I had a Grant Head trip on the club program for ANZAC weekend, but 50mm of rain forecast on the latter part of that weekend nixed the plan. This year though! The forecast was ideal – well maybe a tad warm – but warm, still days with no rain in sight.

We oscillated between 3 and 4 starters in the days leading up to the trip, but in the end it was 3 of us: me, Tom & Jo. Given the paucity of campsites nowadays I wasn’t unhappy about the small team. We ironically all ended up at the same petrol station the same 15 minutes late on the way in. There was one other car at the Wattle Ridge car park when we arrived, and another group arrived while we were getting ready (and were off before us!).

Then it was into the unknown. We picked up the “horse track” pretty easily not far from the car park, and were very happy to be walking an actual bush track for the first few kilometres. We made it across Martins Creek without getting wet feet, then picked up another track to lead us up to the Long Nose Ridge Fire Trail (seems the trail bikers have been busy). The hour or so on the fire trail was more than enough – none of us fans of fire trail walking. We found a rock with filtered views for morning tea, and then it was time to see what the vegetation was going to serve up.

We had a relatively straight-forward descent back into Martins Creek (much further down obviously). Fortunately we found a scramble through the cliffline immediately above the creek.

Finding a way down through the cliffline at Martins Creek

We were immediately pleased with what we saw – Martins Creek at the moment is quite attractive. Rock platforms, ferns, and flowing nicely. However, we soon discovered the rocks were incredibly greasy and it was with great care we picked our way along the banks hoping not to come a cropper. I had a trip report from 1983 where that party reported the “creek turned into wall to wall thick jungle of sword grass, tea tree etc…. lacerations from sword grass”. Fortunately for us the floods of recent years, along with regular animal tracks, meant the vegetation wasn’t too difficult.

Tom finding the rocks a bit slippery!

We crossed the creek numerous times, as it wiggled frequently, and we tried to keep to the inside banks.

Lovely cliffs on Martins Creek

Avoiding wet feet

We stopped for lunch just before the “canyon” section started.

Lunch spot

Finding the way off our lunch boulder

The canyon was full of immense boulders and was fun… at first. Then it was interesting, and then we just were ready for it to be over. There was plenty of problem solving, a lot of squatting and scrambling. And on the odd occasion some serious route finding. We passed several attractive waterfalls, and the water in the creek was stunning. I kept thinking the creek was flattening out and then we’d hit another section of house sized boulders. Eventually it did give way to smaller boulders and less drops.

Interesting rock strata at a small waterfall

The waterfall from below

Feeling small!

Another beautiful pool and waterfall

Waterfall

Jo finding a way around the waterfall

Still working our way through the large boulders

Tom negotiating a bulging boulder

Remains of a rockfall

Not long after the creek flattened we came to a nice spot to camp. It was a tad earlier than we’d planned to camp (both time and distance wise), but given how physical the day had been, and low expectations for frequent campsites, we decided to take it. It was a lovely spot, and we enjoyed the ambience and chance to sit down! Jo’s dinner was not quite so enjoyable – a spicy ramen that almost blew her head off. Restraint was shown in not drinking all the port on the first night – even if it meant we had to carry it up the hill the next day.

Camp night 1

Our second day wasn’t particularly long so we didn’t get going particularly early. We woke to fog covering the valley, which Tom hoped meant he would get valley cloud the next morning when we had our high camp. Away from camp by 9am, we rock-hopped along the now quite flat creek. Tom occasionally stuck his head up onto the bank to look for the old road – it was evident but not great walking. Our decision to camp where we did was justified as we didn’t see any other real options for at least an hour downstream.

An interesting section of Martins Creek (very easy walking!)

At the base of our intended spur we had morning tea and drank copious amounts of water.

The spur was a delight – either it didn’t see much fire in 2019, or the soil was so rubbish, or both, that it felt like we were back in pre-bushfire walking days. The main (only?) challenge was that it was 500m ascent and we were carrying water for the next two days.

As we got close to the top, the nose narrowed and we scrambled a lot more. We were initially foiled by one cliffline, only about 4m, that didn’t have an obvious break. There were many options, depending on your climbing/risk appetite. Eventually I convinced Tom we should head up to the immediate right of the point. Of course, with him going first. It looked easy from below, with plenty of footholds…. turned out the top was loose conglomerate, but Tom made it up despite the lack of handholds. Hauling the heavy packs was hard work… and since the tape was set up for the packhauling, Jo & I decided why eschew it!

Most of the way up – views down to the Nattai River

From there it was more scrambling, and squeezing through/past trees on the narrow nose, and eventually we popped out on top. To my delight there was a nice rock with views for a very late lunch. Less fortunately (though arguably somewhat fortunate) Jo’s pack strap decided to snap on the final balancey scramble to the lunch spot. Fortunately Tom was on hand to grab hold of the pack and stop her tumbling backwards. Some maintenance was applied over lunch and it survived the rest of the trip.

Great lunch spot at the end of Grant Head

As it was 2:45pm by the time we finished lunch we didn’t have as much time as expected to explore Grant Head. We did go looking for some caves (didn’t find any worth noting), and checked out views from different spots, but then it was back to our chosen spot to set up camp.

Great views

Living dangerously!?

Making our way out from the point

Exploring the tops

Surveying other crags

Evening light

Happy hour & sunset

Last light

It was a delightful evening with no wind. Happy hour on the cliffs was great, then we retreated closer to the tents for the rest of the evening. It was a warm night, and with no wind the tent was saturated in the morning.

Tom was up for pre-sunrise Golden Hour, though disappointingly for him there was no valley cloud.

Early morning light

What more could you want in a breakfast spot

That meant we could get away on time though! By 8:30am we were fortifying our minds for the scrub-fest that awaited us. The first kilometre was interspersed with frequent rock platforms and relatively easy going. On one of the ridge twists we ended up on the wrong side of the knoll and in scrub hell, but fortunately sections like that were infrequent, and we generally made about 2km/hour. It certainly made the bashing easier as we’d come prepared with full body protection (trousers, gaiters, long sleeved shirts, gloves). Even though it wasn’t dreadful going, it was still fairly warm (low 20s), and after 4 hours of ridge-bashing we were ready for a change of scenery.

Token photo to represent 5 hours of scrub bashing – Tom emerges from the scrub

Rather than continue on the ridge back to the road, we opted to drop down into the creek which runs alongside the Nattai Road above the switchbacks. Getting down to the creek involved a completely different type of scrub (so we got our change of scenery!?). Eventually we made it into the creek and then out the other side for a very well deserved lunch above a waterfall.

From there, we made our way up the Nattai “Road” to the fire trail, and then, the always painful, 1.5 hour fire trail bash back to the car park. Jo & I got back just after 4pm and waited for Tom to arrive (he’d been distracted by photographing plants). It was only after Tom got back that he noticed there was note attached to our windscreen & written in the dust on the back window. Fortunately not police tape this time! The writers of the note appeared about 30 seconds after we’d read it. We were very pleased to see Paul, Alex & Rob and exchange stories about the weekend, and walking the Nattai in general.

This was a wonderful long weekend in the bush. It was particularly satisfying knocking off two things from the bucket list (Martins Creek & Grant Head) in one weekend.

“Dry” Canyoning in the Wet (14 Feb 2026)

We had some grand plans for the weekend but once we got close enough to rely on the forecast they were quickly downgraded. There was some talk of cancelling altogether but we the forecast didn’t seem too bad, so we figured some dry-ish canyons would work. Unfortunately 0-2mm of rain can come in a different forms and Saturday ended up being drizzle for most of the day, rather than a couple of squally showers. Fortunately it cleared a bit in the late afternoon and evening so our not-so-watertight tarp kept us largely dry as we enjoyed an evening camping out.

I knew it had been some time since I’d been out here – I kept saying it was more than 10 years, but when I checked after I got home – it was 14 and 19 years respectively since I’d done these canyons! It was good to get out, but on Sunday morning when heavier drizzle started up again we wussed out and headed home rather than spend a second day out in the rain.

Abseiling into the ferns

High stemming

Tom & Jo

Jo on the skinny abseil

More squeezing

Tom abseiling

A glorious day

Jo carefully negotiating a slippery ledge

Tom & Jo

Jo & Tom

Look, no hand!

Tom about to sink into the dark depths

Lower reaches – one of the less dark sections!

Blue Mountains canyoning (14 Jan 2026)

After a bit of not entirely successful exploring we decide to head to a known canyon that only Tom has done before. It’s amazing what a couple of hours of bushbashing can do for making you appreciate a ‘real’ canyon!

Tom in his natural environment

Looking downstream

How many combined years of canyon experience does it take to make this mess? 🙂

Tom above the pool

Easy to avoid for tall people 🙁

Squeezy slot

Sue concentrating hard

Through the hole

Below the hole

Georgia disappearing into the ferns

Below the final abseil

South America Sep – Dec 2025

Tom & I visited South America for four months in late 2025. It was the first time in that continent for both of us, and we hit quite a few ‘bucket list’ locations, as well, as a few (not many) places off the beaten track.

I’ll add posts incrementally as I have time:

Peru

Ecuador

Back to Peru

Bolivia

Chile

Argentina

Iguazu Falls – December 2025

We were meant to be in Antarctica for Christmas so when we realised that wasn’t going to happen it was a bit of concern about where to go. In the end we figured going to one of the biggest tourist towns in Argentina was probably the safest option, since surely things would be open!? We flew in to Puerto Iguazú on Christmas Eve, and despite our B&B host assuring us things would be open, we found somewhat sparse pickings for a late lunch (Christmas Eve is when many South Americans meet with family). We eventually ended up with some fairly average Mexican, but better than nothing!

Fortunately we’d just planned to have snacks and a bottle of wine we’d bought in Cafayate for Christmas Eve dinner, which turned out to be a good decision. Our driver picked us up bright and early (but not as early as we’d asked for…) on Christmas morning. We’d intended to get to Iguazú National Park when it opened at 7am, as it turned out the first train out to the Devil’s Throat didn’t run till 7:30am so despite arriving a bit later than planned, it didn’t really matter. We were the first park visitors out to the Devil’s Throat, which was great. The handful of other people from our train soon joined us, that meant there were about 10 of us, so plenty of room for everyone to get all the pictures they wanted. The volume of water was pretty intense, and we were fairly wet by the time the next trainload of people started trickling in (our cue to move on!).

First to Garganta del Diablo (“Devil’s Throat”) on Christmas morning

No fighting for views

A lot of water

We’d just missed a train, but there was a family of coatis, including a bunch of babies, looking for food in the forest around the station, so plenty of entertainment while we waited.

Coati destroying a tree

We basically planned our day to try and do what we thought would be the most popular things first, to avoid crowds as much as possible. It was a successful strategy. Our next stops were the Upper Circuit, and then the Lower Circuit.

A section of the falls from the Upper Circuit

Birds perched on a vertical wall next to a fall

Back at Central Station we tried to have lunch, but a coati got wind of it and come over to investigate so we moved abruptly! The photos around the grounds of the damage the coatis can inflict on humans were a bit sobering, and clearly why they had picnic ‘cages’ for you to eat in. After lunch we did the longest trail, the Macuco Track (8km return).

Butterfly & Salto Arrechea

By then we’d “done” the Argentinian side so Maxi, our driver, came back to get us and we spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the pool at our accommodation. For Christmas dinner I’d booked us in the “Argentine Experience” which was a great night.

The empanada I “made” – well, wrapped

Christmas dinner at The Argentine Experience

Boxing Day we had a day off – sort of! We hadn’t booked in our driver for the anything so we didn’t have transport. Rather than try and get a taxi or a bus, we decided walking to the animal wildlife rescue centre was the best option… I mean it was only 4km. In the fricking’ humid, hot, Iguazú summer… We were drenched by the time we got there, but fortunately arrived just as a tour was starting. It was all in Spanish but since we were looking at animals  that wasn’t critical. It was good to see a bunch of animals that had eluded us in other parts of the trip, including tapir, puma, sloth, pudu, amongst other creatures. Unsurprisingly we decided to take a taxi back to the accommodation!

The next day we’d decided to head to Brazil for the day and see the falls from Iguaçu National Park. Maxi, maybe feeling guilty about his late arrival on Christmas day, arrived early and we didn’t take long to exit Argentina. We skipped arriving in Brazil altogether (which I think is quite normal on day trips, though it did look like they were building quite a big new border post so maybe this will change?). We were on the bus into the park before 9am, but so were lots of other people. We got off the bus one stop before the end (along with most others) and walked the 1.5km track for views of the falls. I preferred the Brazilian side as you were able to get a much better sense of scale.

Rainbow below the falls

Views towards Devil’s Throat on the Brazilian side

The hordes

It seemed pretty busy, but based on the size of the bus queues when we left, this may not have been too bad!? We easily got the bus back to the Macuco Safari stop (all the buses stop at all stops regardless of direction they are heading). We put our stuff in a locker (to stop it getting saturated) and then got in the queue for the funicular railway down to the river. It was pretty hot and the queue was in the sun. I started feeling unwell, but then we got to the front of the queue and so we got on the funicular. Part way down I fainted which caused a bit of alarm, when we got to the bottom a medic was summoned, but of course he only spoke Portuguese. One of the other tourists translated for a bit, but then we went back up, and we lost our translator. The medic managed to find a staff member who could speak a bit of English, after I’d downed a couple of bottles of water, he said I could give it another go I wanted.

Hilariously while we were in the queue the second time (and I judiciously stayed in the shade the whole time) a lady said to us “this weather doesn’t suit English people”. To which we had to admit we were from Australia and should be able to handle it! Anyway, we made it down and piled into our 20-seater boat for the trip up to the base of the falls. This was exactly what I needed as we got absolutely drenched going under various falls.

With the delay at the boat ride we were running a little later than planned so headed straight to the bird park over the road. The park was great, and there was no queue to get in (there’d been a very long one in the morning when we’d driven past). The Scarlet Ibis was a highlight – we’re used to seeing Bin Chickens (Australian White Ibis) in Sydney all the time, but the colours on the Scarlet ones were pretty outstanding.

Scarlet Ibis

Bird Park in Brazil

Unfortunately the rest of the day didn’t go quite as well to plan. Despite messaging Maxi to say we were going to be ready to be picked up at 4pm, it didn’t seem like it picked up the message until close to 4pm, and so he didn’t get to us until 5:20pm. We then took 3 hours in gridlock to get back across the border. Maxi said it was the worst he’d ever seen it. By the time we got back to our accommodation I couldn’t be bothered with dinner and made do with the last of our Bolivian snack bag and a cup of tea.

The next morning Maxi picked us up for the last time and we were on our way to Buenos Aires without too much drama, and an unexpected final view of the falls from the plane.

View of the Falls from the plane

The traffic when we arrived in Buenos Aires was very light, and we were at our AirBnB in Recoleta in no time. We went to a Tango Show in Buenos Aires that night, and walked around many of the main attractions the next day. That was more than enough city time for us!

Our last stop was back in Chile. We flew back into Santiago (for the third time?) and picked up a hire car. It was a beast of an old-ish SUV, and of course I was stuck doing the driving due to Tom’s lack of physical license. It wasn’t the most enjoyable drive, especially when the engine malfunction light came on, but we did make it to Santa Cruz. The power in our house went out part way through the evening, which wasn’t great given it was hot, but it wasn’t off for long. The following day we were driven around a few wineries in the Colchagua Valley – our guide was great. The tastings were quite different to what we’d expect in Australia – very formal and drawn-out. We had a fabulous lunch before a couple of more tastings. A great day out – just unfortunate it was New Years Eve and everything was closed the next day. I don’t think we even bothered leaving our accommodation! We’d been told to ignore the malfunction light by the car hire company, so fortunately we made it back to Santiago airport in one piece. And with the final flight back to Sydney that was the end of a grand trip.

Salta – Dec 2025

From the deep southern reaches of the Patagonia we were headed to one of the northernmost provinces of Argentina; Salta. It wasn’t really the right time of year to be heading here, but we were having to last minute fill 12 days that were meant to have been in Antarctica. Given we’d already included all the things we really wanted to do in our 4 month itinerary, it was challenging to find things – particularly given the time of year, and that it was leading into Christmas. We knew December was the start of the rainy season in northern Argentina, and could prove problematic for the roads. And we knew it was going to be hot. But we rolled the dice. So from sub 15°C in Ushuaia we landed at 8:30pm with mid-20°Cs in Salta (via Buenos Aires).

[As a side point for anyone travelling via AEP in Buenos Aires – there is a currency exchange available for foreigners which has reasonable exchange rates. Given the difficulties of finding places to exchange in some parts of the country it is worth changing money there. We were lucky to have a bit of time between our flights as we were in the queue for 45 minutes. Once we got to the front we found we needed to provide proof of our arrival in to Argentina to get the advertised rate. For most people that would be easy as they likely have just flown in, but in our case we had to dig up our bus tickets from a month earlier. Of course there is no signage telling you what documentation you need to provide in advance. I’m sure the queue could have moved twice as fast if everyone was aware of what they needed to show!]

Similar to our hire vehicle in Chile, we ended up with an almost brand new 2WD SUV. We could only hope it had a bit more guts than the earlier vehicle. With some short flight delays, and a bit of difficulty finding our AirBnB it was 9:30pm by the time we arrived. Our host was lovely and helped us get a pizza delivered (Spanish definitely not up for phone ordering of pizza!) so that we could actually get some dinner that night.

The next morning we left Salta city on our 7 day road trip around Salta province.

Our route – we went clockwise

Our first day we took Route 68 South to Cafayate. If you just drove straight through it would be a bit over three hours (185km), but the last 50km (Quebrada de las Conchas / Gorge of the Shells) has many road side attractions to stop at, so we took about six hours. The landscape really reminded us of South-West USA – all red rock.

Garganta del Diablo (‘Devil’s Throat’)

El Anfiteatro (‘The Amphitheatre’)

El Sapo (‘The Toad’)

Green & red landscape (Tres Cruces lookout)

We gave a local a lift from Tres Cruces lookout a short way to Santa Barbara and used more Spanish talking to him for 10 minutes than we had in weeks! The drive was spectacular as we were rising from 1,200m in Salta through to 1,700m in Cafayate – we went through many different rock strata layers.

Despite the heat we did a couple of short hikes – Yesero to Los Estratos (~4km round trip?), and we went rogue near El Obelisco and wandered out to the rocks behind it. We found a couple of small canyons which was fun.

Los Estratos hike

Los Estratos hike

I was pretty happy I’d prioritised getting accommodation with a swimming pool, and we were quick to get in once we arrived in Cafayate. (NB. Just when you think you’ve got your head around Spanish you arrive in Argentina and have to adjust for their pronunciation differences – kah-fah-SHAH-teh being the way to pronounce Cafayate)

The next day we decided to get our exercise by walking to the vineyards, and had a sweaty 5.5km walk to Finca Las Nubes. We did a tour and tasting – that was conducted in Spanish (we knew this when we signed up). Given we’ve done so many other winery tours we could kind of follow along since you know the topics that are likely going to be covered. The main reason we were there was the winery got props for being the one of the most scenic in the area – we had lunch with expansive views looking across the vineyards to town.

Finca Las Nubes

The slight downhill back to town made the return walk feel far easier. Tom decided we needed another tasting so we managed to sneak in just before closing at Domingo Hermanos. We were glad to get a English speaker running our, very enjoyable, matched cheese and wine tasting.

Domingo Hermanos tasting

The other big thing on the ‘to do’ list for Cafayate was to have wine ice cream – so we hunted down the ice cream parlour which supposedly started the flavour. Then it was time for a well earned swim back at our accommodation.

Wine ice cream in Cafayate – Torrontés on the left, Malbec on the right

Cats of South America – at our B&B in Cafayate

Our exercise the next day was another walk to a winery – but at least this one was only 4km and there was a slight breeze! We got a biligual tour this time, then a tasting. Disappointingly a few of the wines in the tasting had been open a bit too long, and the person leading the tasting didn’t really seem to understand the issue. Fortunately lunch was much better and the service was excellent.

Piattelli Winery entrance

Lunch at Piattelli

We had to be a bit creative in getting food supplies for the next few days. We wanted to have some lunch items with us – but with the 30°C+ temperatures we could only get things which were going to survive the heat. The next morning we headed out of Cafayate, with 20km of sealed road, before hitting the dirt for the rest of the day. The estimate was 4 hours driving for the 130km we were planning to cover. The road was better than I was expecting – there were no particularly bad corrugations (it may have been recently graded), it was very slow as it was constantly winding in and out of many dry washes. It was a bit disturbing watching the google map showing us driving into rivers – they were dry but could easily change if the rains arrived.

The Quebrada de la Flecha section was stunning. We enjoyed the chance to get out of the car and stretch our legs walking up to a lookout.

Quebrada de la Flecha (‘Ravine of the Arrows’)

Quebrada de la Flecha (‘Ravine of the Arrows’)

It took us about 2h 15 to get to Molinos, where the car was claiming it was 38°C. Sitting in the shade in the tree filled plaza it didn’t feel much over 30°C (cause we’re such good judges of temperature!). The road from Molinos to Colomé Estate was a bit more interesting – a lot more pot-holes, blind corners, sandy sections etc, it probably took us around 50 minutes for 18km.

Christmas is in the air – in the park in Molinos

Our two nights at Colomé Estate were a treat to somewhat compensate for the disappointment of our Antarctic trip being cancelled. Colomé is the oldest winery in Argentina, founded in 1831, and also one of the highest altitude wineries in the world. The original estate is at 2,300m (they also have plantings at higher altitudes).

It’s a tough life

The original 1831 winery at Bodega Colomé

The James Turrell Art Museum is on site, which we visited on our first evening. No photos allowed in the installations so only one of Tom in his funny shoe covers. Given neither of us are particularly arty, we enjoyed our visit. The only downside was that the tour needs to coincide with sunset (for reasons which will become obvious if you do it) and given how close we were to the summer solstice this was quite late in the day. So we were pretty hungry by the time we got to dinner after 9pm.

Tom after our tour of the James Turrell Art Museum. Had to wear the shoe covers so as to not damage the art installations.

Tom had unfortunately picked up some blisters with all our vineyard walking in Cafayate so he decided to have a chill day. I decided to do one of the walks on the property. I lost the directional arrows part way through, but figured since I was supposed to be walking to some cascades (in incredibly dry country) I could just keep walking up the creek that the route had been following. I found an entire cliff full of nesting parrots. We’d seen a similar site on Ruta 68 but, the parrots had largely been out and about, whereas these ones were all home.

Parrots living in the side of the cliffs

I was feeling pretty intrepid as I kept rock hopping my way up the creek, which was now flowing slightly. Then I got to some infrastructure in the creek and realised there was a road that ran the whole way there – which I was probably meant to have been on. I found some cascades just above the infrastructure so figured that was likely the goal, but then I spotted some locals winding there way up the hill. I scrambled up to where I’d seen them and found a foot track which I followed. This took me further up the gorge through some gorgeous granite sections – reminiscent of Morong Deep.

By this point I thought I better head back since I’d told Tom I’d probably be a couple of hours, and I’d already been going over 1.25 hours. As it turned out I took the road on my return and was back much quicker. I still have no idea where I went wrong – but I daresay I had a far more enjoyable time taking my own route.

Cascades

Sadly we couldn’t enjoy a second leisurely breakfast on the terrace as we needed to be in Seclantás by 8:30am to meet our guide for a trip to Cuevas de Acsibi. That said, it was a far more pleasant temperature to be driving in when we left Colomé at 7am! It took us about 1.5 hours to get to Seclantás (not the 1h per google) – probably in part because there was a road diversion as they were sealing a section.

We met Tony our guide, and got into his 4WD and headed out of town for about an hour onto Tony’s property. The 4WD had its work cut out for it driving in and out of dry washes. We stopped about half way for photos, in the midst of many cacti, with views of the mountains – stunning.

Cacti and mountains

We parked the 4WD about 9:30am and then had 1.5 hour walk up the watercourse – through a canyon initially, then a wider valley. The rock was constantly changing – some sections very much reminded us of Goblin Valley in Utah.

Rock formations

The caves themselves were probably a little underwhelming (if that was all you were going for) but combined with the rest of the walk it was a well worthwhile trip.

Cuevas de Acsibi

Cuevas de Acsibi

Returning from Cuevas de Acsibi

Short canyon section

We were dropped off back in Seclantás at 1:30pm, so we had lunch in the plaza (the remains of our packed breakfast), before hitting the road again for Cachi.

Even though it was only another hour of driving it was twisty and hot, and I was very glad to stop when we got to Cachi. Once we’d checked in we wandered around the village trying to find an open ice cream shop – we were eventually successful.

Art made from old tyres

Open air drying – of Tom’s nemesis red capsicum – for making paprika

Dogs of South America – keen on ice cream!

There was one winery within easy walking distance from town, though from the reviews we weren’t sure if it was going to be open. It was quite the revelation – going from a dusty street front, to walk through to a lovely terrace with stunning views of the surrounding mountains. We had a lovely relaxing time here.

The beautiful Bodega Isasmendi

The next day we had another scenic drive – this time Ruta 33 through Parque Nacional Los Cardones (‘The Giant Cactus National Park’). It was spectacular – we did four very short walks, and stopped at a few lookouts.

Recta Tin Tin – 19km of completely straight highway

Views over Parque Nacional Los Cardones

We’d been climbing as we drove and made it up to 3,400m before needing to descend back to Salta at 1,200m. The road down was full of switchbacks, though fortunately quite wide so not the same nervousness as some other roads we’d driven!

The very windy Ruta 33 – all of those sections of road are connected!

We got into Salta (city) mid-afternoon. We only had that afternoon/evening so walked across town (~3.5km) to the cable car. We were close to closing time so didn’t spend too much time at the top.

View over Salta (city)

While Salta hadn’t been on our original itinerary we enjoyed our last minute trip here. It would have been better to have come in the dry (& cooler) season, so that we weren’t constantly watching the forecast nervously for any rain. It felt a fair bit cheaper travelling here compared to the other parts of Argentina we visited. It did feel somewhat ironic that we were only a day’s bus travel away from San Pedro de Atacama where we had been 2 months earlier – if this had been part of the original plan there would have been better ways to incorporate it!

With Christmas almost upon us it was time to head to one of the biggest tourist towns in Argentina – Puerto Iguazu.

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