We met David at Claustral car park at 8.00am on Saturday morning. The parking was already full of people getting ready to do Claustral, I think 4 or 5 groups did it that day. We drove to Mt Banks picnic area and left the second car at 8.25am. From there it was a short walk via the firetrail and a ridge that leaded us upstream of the wet section of King George Brook Canyon. The upper…
Having been postponed from the previous weekend because of the wet weather, this Sunday was much kinder, with the forecast only being “a slight chance of showers”. The weather remained overcast and mild – and dry – the whole day. Meanwhile a communications problem caused a potential loss of contact with the walkers, as Telstra internet locally went down on friday night probably related to the extreme heat that day, and then the web-based email system also went off line for the whole weekend. Fortunately none…
Five members and a guest set off from the end of Somme Avenue, Wentworth Falls at 9.45. We followed the firetrail to the end and then headed NW before dropping into Franks Creek with a 14m abseil using an existing anchor at Katoomba 577697. From here we followed the very scrubby and congested creek for some distance before it became worthy of the name of canyon around 582701. Since there…
Leo collected Adrian from Redfern Friday at 3pm ….. and as a harbinger for Leo’s ambitious plans for the weekend, they crawled bumper to bumper on the M4 to Penrith. Leo had evidently not cleared his plans with Huey, and after heavy rain through Katoomba, dinner at the Imperial Hotel http://www.hotelimperial.com.au/ seemed a good compromise. The rain…
With 2 prospective walkers having missed the rain at Central – due to bus delays in the city – 5 of us assembled at Cowan Station for the walk along a section of the Great North Walk (GNW) to Brooklyn. To her dismay, Emily realised when she was on the train that her water bottle was still back in her car, so that required a trip up to the only shop in Cowan to get bottled water. Meanwhile it…
We all met just outside the national parks gate on Bobbin Head Rd in the morning, parking out on the street to avoid the park entrance fee. After a week of rain, it was great to have sunny weather. The walk started at the Sphinx Memorial (that’s right, Sydney has a Sphinx!) and quickly headed into the bush. After a…
October in the Snowy Mountains has daytime temperatures that can still be cool and mild, the blowflies have yet to make an appearance, and the snow still lies in big drifts, giving the area a distinctively alpine feel. Mt Townsend, Australia’s second highest peak, (2209m) has been on my list of unclimbed peaks for a long time. Perhaps because…
The Wolgan Valley runs north east from the Dividing Range into the heart of the Wollemi wilderness. Numerous creeks rise on the Newnes Plateau east of Lithgow and run into the Wolgan River. A steep pass uses a series of switchbacks to bring the road from Lithgow down into the valley. It’s in…
This was an interesting exploratory walk which ended up being a good day despite some initial setbacks due to communication problems. For a start, it had to be postponed for a week due to the hot weather on the previous weekend. Four of us (myself, Bruce Li, Alex and Yang) all assembled at Central Station for the trip to Loftus. Unusually we…
It was the first time that any of us had been to Mt Hay / Butterbox Canyon so we could all share the excitement and anticipation of going to a place we had never been before. We had a last minute drop out so there were 4 of us instead of 5. Weijing and Shannon I’d just met for the first time, they are confident climbers which boosted my confidence. It was…