Rachel Grindlay

We got the new financial year off to a good start with a fine adventure off Narrowneck. Probably a bit more excitement and bush-bashing than originally expected. Tom had previously attempted Rockpile Pass and failed, so he was hoping to knock it off this time.

Enjoying the views on another wonderful winter’s day

Supposedly the hard bit was after the rockpile but we didn’t manage to locate the rockpile to start with and ended up traversing around into the next gully (with plenty of delightful banksia bashing). Once below that set of cliff lines we were soon back around at the rockpile which we’d missed coming down to – very obvious from the bottom!

The rockpile

Stanley checking out the route

Morning tea in the sun

After morning tea we found the rest of the pass (where Tom had got turned around previously). There were some fixed lines in place which made it pretty obvious where to go. Much to the horror of the rest of as the last person in our party was descending there was a noise you never want to hear. We were round the corner out of site (and out of danger of rockfall) so didn’t know what had happened except it sounded bad. The fixed line had completely severed sending Jon flying. Fortunately asides from some bruising and a heavy landing on his ankle he was ok. We still had a second drop to negotiate but we were much more circumspect about using the rope that was there (and is no longer).

Climbing up a slightly sketchy slab (which we later had to reverse)

A very exposed shale ledge traverse (which we later had to reverse)

After getting through the pass we followed along the upper cliff line, over a series of obstacles, until we got to a drop we could get past. Oops. So we had to reverse everything we’d done for the last half hour or so. Then we had a decent chunk of off track under the cliff lines, broken by lunch, around to Mitchells Creek.

Pretty Mitchells Creek

Mitchells Pass is an interesting pass! There are a series of giant spikes in a tree. The spikes are not in particularly convenient positions and the higher you get the more awkward it gets. We all negotiated it with no issues fortunately.

Scott on Mitchells Pass

Stanley near the top of the tree

From there we had some quite unpleasant bush bashing up Mitchells Creek. Eventually Alex pioneered a route out of the creek which got us on the tops quite nicely.

Climbing out of Mitchells Creek

Almost at the top of the ridge

Once we attained the ridge it was only a couple of hundred metres back to the firetrail. We managed to time our return to the cars right on sunset. An interesting and challenging day out. There was mutterings of needing 10 years for the memory to dull and think of a repeat trip!

While we haven’t been doing a much walking as we usually do we have managed to knock off quick a few shorter walks around the mountains across May and June. A selection of photos from the various adventures below.

Bottleneck Pass – 26 May

Tom above Bottleneck Pass (once we found it!)

Hmm, this wasn’t what you described to me

Closest we’ve come to canyoning in months

Are you sure that’s a good idea?

Well, that was a bit of an adventure

No sign of the Pherosphaera fitzgeraldii?

Perrys Lookdown – Blue Gum Forest – Govetts Leap – 2 June

Moody Mt Banks at the start of the walk

Popes Glen – Evans Lookout – Rodriguez Pass – Perrys Lookdown – 10 June

Could almost be the Kimberley?? If only we added 20°C 🙂

Fog rushed in at the end after what had been a lovely day (if cold)

Ross Cave – 11 June

If you had to live in a cave it wouldn’t be a bad one

Hyde Park Reserve – 11 June

Another almost Kimberley-esque spot

Evening light

Browne’s Path – 23 June

Heading off track

Come on Tom you can get closer to the edge that that!

Browne’s Path

A lovely walk out along Burra Korain Ridge gave us speccy views of the Grose Valley in several directions.

Gross Valley views

Tom at our morning tea spot

After morning tea we retraced some of our steps and the headed west towards Victoria Creek.

Pagodas galore – who knew?

We had lunch on the cliffs above Victoria Creek.

Carl & Tom at our lunch spot

After lunch we left Tom to head back the way we came and the rest of us headed steeply down into the creek.

It wasn’t all views, there was some creek bashing

And some very pretty sections of creek

Victoria Creek

After we got to the creek then it was up the other side. The vegetation was fairly challenging.

Some fairly arduous bush-bashing

Before we made it to the base of the cliff line which we followed round until a break.

Overhang

And I finally got to Odin Head the way I had planned to go a couple of years ago. We met a couple of other bushwalkers there who we had a good chat with.

And then views back to where we came from

And luckily for us when we got to Victoria Falls Road they offered us a life back to our cars (Tom was meant to pick us up but had gone adventuring on his way out so was running a little late).

We needed to back in Sydney for a social engagement in the evening so this walk in Mount Alexandra Reserve near Mittagong was the perfect length. After a fair bit of rain in the preceding weeks the creeks were flowing, the tracks were slippery and the leeches were out in force.

One of the old cuttings

Following an old tramway makes for gentle flat walking!

Tunnel under the rocks

View from the tunnel

Views down the Nattai River Valley

The steep incline down to Box Vale Creek

Crossing the Nattai

Fallen trees made things a bit trickier in places

The Natural Arch obscured by a large amount of flood debris

Tom at the top of Forty Foot Falls

The cave behind Forty Foot Falls

Tom taking a shower

It’s always nice to explore a new area – no one on the trip had been into this area of Morton National Park before. The first challenge was finding the Sassafras entrance and driving along the road.

The gate at the turn-off on Braidwood Road

At the NP entrance

That successfully negotiated we then had a long and fairly boring fire trail bash, though Dee and Alex did manage to have a ‘swim’ in a small creek we passed along the way. Things started getting more interesting when we got nearer to The Vines and the vegetation changed from low heath to rainforest.

Clive in the forest (trying to avoid leeches!)

As usual a plume of smoke follows Alex around

Alex surveying the land at lunch

It was nice to be on a track rather than fire trail as we headed down to the Hidden Valley turnoff.

Hidden Valley turn off

Five of us headed into Hidden Valley, visiting Dark Brothers Cave and scrambling up onto Sturgiss Mountain where we enjoyed wonderful views.

Dark Brothers Cave (I presume?)

Views from Sturgiss Mountain – Pigeon House unmistakeable in the distance

Descending Sturgiss Mountain, views over Styles Plain

Clive on a scrambling section of the descent

Returning to our packs at the Hidden Valley turnoff we headed to Styles Creek where I was hoping we’d find a campsite. Fortunately there was – quite a luxurious one at that! Having been in Eucalypt forest for much of the walk it was great to come out onto the flats where there were great views of the surrounding features.

The team at camp

Sturgiss Mountain at sunset

Quiltys Mountain overlooking Styles Creek

The temperatures indicated we’d tipped into Autumn with most of us slightly under done on the warmth front overnight. There was a lot of dew but my borrowed bivvy bag did a good job of keeping me dry.

Breakfast time

The second day we just had a retrace of our route (minus the Hidden Valley excursion) from Saturday.

Alex crossing a side creek. Is the log an old bridge?

It was a long, hot walk back along the fire trail.

The long, hot fire trail bash back to the cars

We were all very happy to get to the pub in Nowra for a beer and dinner!

A great walk to get a feel for the area and start planning some further walks.

This was Vivien’s third attempt to run this trip with extreme heat and wet thwarting the previous two. I was a johnny-come-lately to the event not having been on the list for either of the earlier trips. Injuries and life brought our starting line-up down to 5, some defectors in a rival party of 5 taking a much easier trip to Box Creek Falls.

Alex started the weekend well by forgetting both his bushwalking clothes and his sleeping bag. Fortunately Tom had brought two sleeping bags up to Kanangra so Alex was able to borrow one. We were away from the Walls carpark just after 8am. Sierra had never been out on the plateau and was soon pointing out landmarks to us… just the completely wrong ones.  We took our time enjoying the views from the plateau lookout before heading off towards Coal Seam Cave.

We had an early first morning tea at Cottage Rock and then we were off track down to Arabanoo Creek.

Jo taking in views below Cottage Rock

We were joking about whether there would be any water in Arabanoo Creek and were pleasantly surprised to arrive at a pool. The going was pretty straight-forward as it was largely dry and we could in the main just march down the middle of the creek. I managed to trip over and land heavily on my right hand so we decided it might be a good time to have morning tea.

Jo on one of the trickier sections

There were a couple of scrambly sections which we had to negotiate fairly early. With my right-hand somewhat out of action this upped the difficulty level for me. When it came to skirting round pools for the sake of keeping my feet dry I, for once, was the first to plunge in. At one stage Alex decided he was going to throw his pack across the pool… after a few swings he realised the pack wasn’t going to make it and tried to stop… next minute both Alex and his pack were in the pool having lost his balance. Fortunately nothing hurt other than pride.

Vivien still laughing over Alex’s fall into this pool (from about where Vivien is standing)

After that pool I decided to take the high route and managed to avoid getting more than knee deep but the others went down the creek getting chest-deep wet. After his unintended ‘jump’ Alex decided it was time to hit the heavy stuff – out came a can of berry cider (never to early to start drinking?!).

Other than the hat you’d think he’d got lost from the streets of Newtown

Vivien admiring one of the more dramatic sections in Arabanoo Creek

Our only mandatory swim

A planned jump this time

After a slightly canyon like section the creek flattened out. Then the snakes began. Red-belly black after red-belly black after red-belly black. Ever pool had a snake. We learnt that if the person in front was taking an odd line down the dry creek it was probably because there was a snake in the obvious line.

Lunchtime!

Not sure if this guy was alive or not, certainly wasn’t scuttling away

Eventually we made it to Christys Creek which had perhaps even less water than Arabanoo Creek. Then a few hundred metres to the junction with the Kowmung where Vivien had promised a “decent campsite”. I was less than convinced of the ‘decency’ at the stony spot we initially ended up at, but fortunately Jo discovered the real campsite slightly upstream. The Kowmung was in a pretty sad state – no flow, just large, somewhat unappealing, pools.

Relaxing at camp

Vivien & I did manage to find a pool that was over waist deep for a swim which was fantastic. With a Park Fire Ban in place there was no fire to ward off the mosquitoes that were out in force. The women seemed to receive a lot more attention from the mossies than the guys and ultimately that was what sent us all off too bed. I had a bivvy on loan from Bill which the others were pretty disparaging off. After some initial difficulty sorting out how to best have my pack propped up to keep the bivvy off my face it came good. I had a brilliant night, safe from the mosquitoes and not having to swelter in my sleeping bag.

Given how miniscule Alex’s sleeping mat & pillow are I can see why he doesn’t bother sleeping on them.

The mighty Kowmung. Or where it should be.

The next day was going to a be a long slog back up to the cars so we got an early start. The first bit of uphill was the most unpleasant as we were directly in the sun.

Early steep climb on Stonehag Hill

The most technical section of scrambling we did, on Stonehag hill

Views over the Kanangra-Boyd wilderness

Morning tea and trying to match features to the map. Mt Colong of course is unmistakable through the trees.

More scrambling to get to Arabanoo Peak

Lunch in a cave below Mount Colboyd

Descending into the saddle at the other end of Mount Colboyd

Grass trees on Marrilman Heath

The Box Creek party were waiting for us (well, out at the lookout) at the Walls carpark when we got back. We had dinner in Lawson on the way home – a good weekend had by all.

I think John had been planning a revisit to Deua National Park every since our last trip in 2015. We had 5 returners from the 2015 trip plus Alan to give us 6 which is a good party size. This time John had a 4 day route in mind – to deal with unfinished business with Mother Woila on the first day, then see some new parts of Deua for the rest of the trip.

Most of us drove down the night before and camped. Some took the opportunity on the morning of day 1 to read the email with the details for the first time… and realise that we were meant to be carrying water for the first 2 days! Fortunately between extra water in cars and Currambene Creek everyone was able to load up sufficiently (though there was some disagreement about what the ‘right’ amount of water was). The first challenge of the day was getting cars to Dampier Trig. We all made it, but John’s car was smelling quite unpleasant and issuing smoke by the time we arrived. Oh well! That would be a problem for 4 days time!

And so we were off. We quickly picked up an old fire trail off Dampier Trig which took us out towards Mother Woila.

Following an old firetrail from Dampier Trig

Gladly dumping our heavy packs we set off on a side trip to get onto Mother Woila. A couple of snakes in quick succession (black? & tiger) made us a little jumpy but it wasn’t long before we were having morning tea overlooking our objective.

Sierra at morning tea with views of Mother Woila

We headed down to the saddle where there was some discussion about how to ascend. In the end Alex & Alan headed off to the right-hand side while the rest of us skirted around the left with the intention of heading up the gully between Mother Woila and Little Woila. The siren-call of the cliff face drew us in though and before we knew it, despite having good beta that there was no easy route up this face, I was half way up a cliff with Bill valiantly following me. I was hoping John & Sierra would get to a similar spot by an easier route and we could take their route down…. unfortunately (or fortunately?) they had backed off much earlier and so were at the bottom. I was now at a vertical face I had no chance of getting up and I didn’t really fancy reversing what we’d just done, but that was what needed to happen. Fortunately I had the only handline in my pack. A few pitches with the handline around some marginal trees we were back at the bottom of the cliff. By this point Alan & Alex were already at the top waving at us… guess they were going to be waiting a while!

Bill bravely following me up an ill-advised attempt to get up Mother Woila

We eventually made our way up the gully, after a couple of attempts up minor gullies, and out to the rocky outcrop on Mother Woila. It had been very warm and humid as we’d made our way up and thunder rumbled overhead as a storm brewed. A few photos, an essay in the logbook by Sierra, and then we decided we’d better get off before it started raining. We were pretty happy that Alex & Alan thought they had a suitable route for the whole party to descend rather than reversing our longer approach.

Views of the approach ridge from Mother Woila

Tabletop from Mother Woila

Not many (different) visitors to the log book in the last 2 years!

Chocolate + hot day = winning combination

Bill in the top of the chute descending off Mother Woila

Looking back up the top of the chute

Sierra in the lower chute

The rain largely held off until we were back in the saddle.

Alex in the saddle as the weather closes in

Moody Tabletop

With my unsuccessful climbing foray, and the heat taking its toll, we didn’t get back to our packs until 4pm. As it was raining we figured it was best to get to Horseshoe Point rather than have lunch. Finally at Horseshoe Point at 5pm we had lunch – has food ever tasted so good? The storm had cleared by then so we enjoyed drying out in the sun.

After the storm clears Sierra at Horseshoe Point

Mother Woila through the trees from Horseshoe Point

We had a pleasant time around the fire before turning in fairly early. The rain came back not long after we went to bed.

Camp at Horseshoe Point (yes, Bill is available for fashion advice any time)

The weather comes in again

We had a long day ahead so we got away from camp at 7am. The ridge between Horseshoe Point and Tabletop gave excellent views in the early morning light.

Looking out to Scouts Hat

Sierra scrambling with Mother Woila in the morning sun

The ridge to Tabletop

Even with the early start it was oppressively humid and it was soon clear our original objective was out of the question. A new plan was hatched which eliminated several kilometres of ridge walking and took us to Jillaga Creek sooner than expected.

Looking back on our route: Tabletop (left) and the ridge to Horseshoe Point (right)

Something didn’t like this tree!

First view of Jillaga Creek, and what a sweet view it was

We hoped that Jillaga Creek would be running and it was music to the ears when we heard the flow before we could even see it. The easiest walking was in the creek so that’s where we walked. It was a beautiful section of creek surrounded by ferns and easy walking on the rocky bed.

Easy walking in the upper reaches of Jillaga Creek

Another storm came through as we walked down the creek. We kept going keeping an eye out for campsites. There were a number of single sites but not much for 6 people. With the rain still teeming down we settled on a site about 4pm.

Another storm comes in

After standing around waiting for the storm to blow through for quite some time we eventually decided to set up. Teamwork made for a relatively dry set up and it was amazing how good it felt to be under the fly (even if it was in the mud) and out of the rain.

Bill setting up the biv in ‘dry’ conditions

Eventually the rain did stop but everything was soaked through. Bill did a grand job getting a fire going and drying out wood. I was a little surprised to pull out my silk inner liner from my pack and find I could squeeze a considerable amount of water out of it. Note to self: pack liner is useless! Fortunately with the heat from the fire I was able to dry it and my Thermarest out quickly. In the end we had a pleasant evening and there was some damage inflicted on the 2 litres of port which Alex had brought.

Drying out after the storm

Camp night 2

Delicious dehy meal Nicole made me as a thank you for lending her our dehydrator

It was interesting to see how much the creek had risen from when we arrived to the next morning. After the fact reviews of the weather data showed Snowball had 13mm and Bendethera had 21mm so I guess we got somewhere in between those numbers. (and our first day Snowball had 9mm, and Bendethera had 2.4mm)

Jillaga Creek early on day 3

Love a party where everyone brings a map!

We kept walking downstream on Jillaga Creek until we reached a junction with a major side creek. This junction was our original planned night 3 camp, but we were here for morning tea on day 3 instead. At this point we split the group. John & Bill headed down Jillaga Creek towards Bendethera with the hope of getting a lift back to Dampier Trig. The rest of us set off on the planned day 4 exit.

Parting of the group

The first part of the exit was walking up the side creek. It was beautiful with lots of little cascades, a few deep plunge pools and a lot of extremely slippery rocks.

Alex enjoying our side creek

Sussing out exit options at another lovely cascade

Sierra and I take a high route to avoid getting out packs wet

Cascades

We expected to hit an impassable waterfall which would be our cue to head on to the ridge, and sure enough we did.

Don’t think we’re getting up that…

Shower time

We backtracked downstream and had some lunch before filling up water and scrambling up a steep loose slope to attain the ridge proper.

Heading back downstream to an exit

Just before we exited on to the ridge

The rest of the day was all about going up. We were at about 400m in the creek and we needed to get to Dampier Trig at 1239m. And there was a fair bit of undulating on the ridges as we went. We were fortunate it was overcast and somewhat cooler than the previous 2 days, even so I was constantly dripping with sweat as we made our way up.

Spectacular country

Very smooth (& colourful when wet) eucalyptus

Nice ridge walking

700m of climbing done, only a couple of hundred metres of vertical to go (thank goodness!)

Conglomerate outcrop

I was running on empty by the time we made it back to the old fire trail leading up to Dampier Trig. It was great news to find that John was already there. They had made good time down Jillaga Creek and then John had got a lift back to the car while Bill had walked most of the fire trail from the Bendethera Ford and was only a couple of kilometres away. Soon we were all reunited just in time for yet more rain. With the dirt roads successfully navigated back to the main road most of us headed to the Braidwood Pub for dinner and a very late, yet a day early, arrival back to Sydney. An excellent few days in magnificent country with a great group.