The full compliment of 8 people turned out for the walk on a glorious sunny Sunday. After picking up people from the train at Woy Woy we drove up the hill and parked in Brisbane Water National Park. We headed first down a ridge that was capped with flat sheets of sandstone and saw a number of aboriginal engravings, including people, fish, kangaroos, and shields.
Last week’s rain had gone by Friday evening, when 3 cars coming from different directions rendezvoused on the Putty Road beneath clear starry skies and welcome autumnal coolness. We consolidated into 2 cars for the drive out along a fire trail to our camp site, which was a cleared area beside the trail where there was room to park.
We started early on Sunday morning, so I could make it back home early to prepare a Mother’s Day dinner. So we met up with Bruce at Wondabyne station just before 9 am.
Alicia Corbett Ashley Burke Cameron Schmelitschek Daniel Ryan Elva Cha Ãve Vautier Jennifer Burnett Kim Corrans Laura Ashton-Ross Marcelle Gannon Martine Bardy Matthew Noone Meena David Meredith Dodds Nicole St Vincent Welch Pete Harvey Philipp Vorderwuelbecke Silke Walleser Yip Chung (Rita)
The weather wasn’t looking fantastic for this Anzac Day ride along the Oaks trail from Woodford to Glenbrook. We started at Glenbrook, where we squeezed onto the 8:23 am train along with 10-15 other mountain biker. We arrived at Woodford just before 9:00. It was overcast but fortunately it wasn’t raining. After a few hundred metres of bitumen riding we reached the start of the Oaks trail. The recent rain which had soaked the city meant the trail was wet, muddy and slippery.
Alicia Corbett, Megan Higgins and I had planned an adventurous route to take in Hannel’s Spur, The Geehi, Townsend Spur, Lady Northcote’s Creek and Watson’s Crags Spur over five days. We had an amazing trip, especially me, (literally) who tripped near Moira’s Flat and tore a lateral ankle ligament on my left foot. This injury forced us to turn back and overshadowed much of the rest of the trip as we limped slowly home. Thanks to Megan, an almost doctor, and to Alicia for helping me to make the decision to pull out. It was one of the hardest decisions of my bushwalking life. As a result my recovery time will be much shorter than it probably would have been had we have pushed on (regardless).
Deua National Park is a large area of rugged mountain country along the Great Dividing Range southeast of Canberra. Steep quartzite ridges, beautiful stands of eucalypts and pristine creeks and streams are some of its key attractions. The above party of 7 spent the four day Easter long weekend completing a circuit through some of the most spectacular parts of this National Park.
This feels like it was probably one of those walks that was planned enthusiastically after a few jugs at a Canoe Club slide night. I do seem to recall something about us all taking a blood oath to ward away the evil piking spirits, but then Wilmo snapped his arm off at the canyoning weekend (or bruised his hand, or something) so clearly something thicker than blood will be required next time.
From the conservation hut we descended down past empress falls and onto the Vera falls track (no longer officially maintained, and therefore declared closed) until we reached the turnoff to Roberts pass. The track led us through areas of moist undergrowth and occasional unavoidable pools of mud. As one may suspect in these conditions, our group soon came under the attack of blood hungry leeches.
It started out, as these things tend to, at around sunrise on a Saturday morning. Once we had worked out what gear people needed to borrow and had it in their hot little hands it was time to send up an advance party to do Twister and Rocky Creek. With 5 people out of the way it was time to divvy up everyone else into cars. This proved to be a little more challenging that one would have hoped for, so we had to call in the reserve forces (much thanks to Jiri for taking his car up). Now we had this all under control it was time to head out.