This trip was going to be tough but we didn’t know just how tough… Of course Nick was chief planner and navigator, Ben was sick (of health and of overwhelming uni work) and Jack needed to work more than he did go camping so the party was down to two. The plan was to camp at the Wog Wog carpark, then set off bright and early to Yurnga Lookout the next day. Day two was going to be Yurnga to The Castle return. Because we were doing a return walk, day three was the same as the first.
Lets just say that we got 2/3 days right, and as Meatloaf said: “Don’t be sad, two out of three ain’t bad”
(The perfect accompaniment for this post)
Heading down to Bungendore.
Caravaners enjoying all the luxuries of home life, their generator was noisy a gift from the devil for the rest of us. What’s the point?
The list is always a work in progress.
Endless #summerofgingerbeer.
Campfire enthusiast.
Daybreak.
A common morning scene, Muesli with Peaches & Coffee.
My friends Karla & Jake turned up at the same carpark, to do a similar walk! Crazy timing to meet up in the middle of nowhere.
Mr. Agility.
The first of many good views.
Rock formations that were once riverbeds.
Nice enough day for it.
Arches.
Pensive Wilson at our camp, day one was a success.
The view from dinner with long shadows.
Chick Peas & Zucchini (Cous cous not pictured).
Male Model enjoying dinner.
Daybreak on the big day, we needed to get cracking.
From the tent door, peeking into Nick’s, wondering where my coffee is.
The kitchen hung out to dry.
The peak on the left of the saddle is where our tents were, not a bad spot.
Back into the forest.
Caves!
At this point we missed a turn that we needed to take. The plan was to go on a known path between Mt Owen and Mt Cole but instead we missed this path and ended up finding ourselves on one of the four pillars of Donjon Mountain. They weren’t as tall as the other mountains, and were easy enough to summit, the trick was getting down.
The view was good but we soon realized that this was not the pass that we were looking for. We scouted out the area for a way around to find the trail that we were after, which led between those two cliffs in this picture. We had climbed the mountain on the westward side but wanted to descend on the east, to meet the trail again.
What we found however was an abandoned set of packs and a torn shelter, we were pretty spooked but we decided to rummage through the belongings. They had been out in the elements for 15 months, the pack on the right went from green to white. These were absolutely RIDDLED with spiders and ants and other stuff that isn’t your mate.
I found this note saying that they had been rescued by chopper, crazy! I got in contact with Malcolm when I got home, he had been with a mate and his mate’s son and a friend of the son. These guys also got lost, but similarly to us figured out pretty quickly where they were, however the friend of the son couldn’t handle the heat and they had to pull the plug and use their emergency beacon. Humbling stuff. He had even tried to return to the spot to find his bags and recover his camera (which we didn’t find) but said he failed due to the weather, but is going again soon!
On the way down from the (wrong) mountain, Nick and I found this nest of eggs, Happy Easter indeed! We found the path after about 4 or 5 hours of extreme struggle in the dense bush. All of the area that we were navigating had no tracks and we wouldn’t have covered more than a kilometer in those hours. A lot of the time we thought we had found a way, but it was a dead end and we had to retrace our steps and find another route. Eventually we reached the trail and were elated but decided to call it quits and head back to camp. We didn’t get to see The Castle in the end, but there’s always next time, at this point we were just happy to be safe.
Daybreak on the final day and it was a bit gloomy. Time to head home.
Just like last time, we drove back to Braidwood for the bakery, and then cruised home to Canberra. This trip was an eye opener for us, we were almost in deep water but we pulled through, full credit to Nick for his awesome navigation skills. Both of us agreed that this would have been way worse if we had another hiker with us who was any less experienced. Photos were taken with my iPhone 4s and click through to Flickr!
