Sunday 30th May 2021
We had a lovely night by the fire at Blue Gum Flat Campground in the Morton National Park, a great sleep on our new Sea to Summit thick mattresses and were quite surprised how quiet our young camp mates were. After a nice breakfast and cup of tea Alice, Ange and I went for a walk down to the Clyde River where we saw the results of the latest floods. The debris was up in the trees at least 4 metres and it is really amazing to see and hard to believe the water can rise this high. We saw an amazing tree and an incredible wombat tunnel and hole.
We took our time getting organised, checking we had everything, making decisions again about which warm gear to take or leave behind, ensuring we were ready to go!. It always amazes me how you think you are ready when you leave home but still spend more time getting ready again before you take off. We weren’t in a rush as we knew we only had a 7km hike in to Cooyoyo camp. Little did we know that it was going to take us 4.5 hours to walk such a short distance.
We finally set out at 12.08pm for what we knew was a good uphill climb. The first 3km only took us an hour so we were thinking that we would only have an hour or two to get to camp, so we had a leisurely lunch, where we found out from some fellow hikers that Monday was a public holiday in Canberra which unfortunately meant there would be more overnight campers at our camp tonight. So much for our special planning to avoid the crowds. We the got started again, little did we know that the terrain was going to get very tough, over rocks, under trees, over trees, squeezing through caverns between rocks and boulders and the track went up and up and up. We did great, just kept soldiering on and on and on. Yay team!
At about 4pm after walking for almost 4 hours we came to the cross intersection to our camp, only 500m to go. Luckily it was all down hill, but as we went down, down, down – all I could think of was that tomorrow that meant we had to start with 500m up, up, up. Oh well, as the saying goes want goes up must go down and vice a versa.
Anyway, we arrived at camp, quickly chose a site in a very crowded campground and went out to the ridge to enjoy the sunset. After enjoying the sunset, we setup camp, started a fire and enjoyed our first night in the remote camp. We met some lovely young hikers from Canberra who were going to Uni through the Navy. They had some really interesting stories and had travelled extensively considering their young ages of 21-23.
We all went off to bed about 9.30ish for a well deserved sleep. It was a very cold night and unfortunately I struggled with this having made a wrong decision on my thermals. Oh well, maybe tomorrow night will be better.
Distance hiked today – 7.2km, 4 hours 42mins, 595m up, 100m down to an altitude of 664m above sea level. What an amazing day!
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The reflections in the Clyde River. If you look closely you can see the debris high up in the trees from the latest floodwaters.
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Trying to find the wombat that burrowed this amazing tunnel below this amazing tree…
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..The girls playing hide and seek..
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..what an amazing tree..
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..on the banks of the Clyde River.
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Here we go, ready to challenge ourselves on this amazing hike..
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..in the Budawang Wilderness.
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Two hundred metres into the walk it was time to remove our shoes and embrace the cold water..
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..then shoes back on as we cross the next little waterway..
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..then we continued through the jungle like bush..
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..to our next but thankfully shallow water crossing, shoes on this time..
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..a little bit of nature along the way.
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Our destination tomorrow – The Castle (altitude 848m), but first..
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..a steep incline with some chained assistance..
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..with many rock wall tracks to negotiate..
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..and the most amazing colour as the trees shed their bark..
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..with some exposed root systems to help us negotiate the steep inclines..
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..as well as some conglomerate rock faces to navigate..
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..in some ever so squeezy places..
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..where we had to remove our heavy packs to get through..
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..with a few descents to keep us on our toes..
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..and a not so little cave which is available for refuge if needed..
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A little rest here as we enjoy the view of the wilderness..
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.. it really was quite spectacular..
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..and we were feeling very privileged to be here.
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After walking for 4 hours and 10 mins, 6.7km up 595m, carrying very heavy packs, the last 30 mins and 500m was down hill to our camp..
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..and with a 4.30ish arrival – X marked the spot..
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..as did our footprint..
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..so we could go and enjoy the sunset overlooking the Budawang Wilderness to Byangee Wall and Pigeon House Mountain.
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We camped the night here at 664m above sea level. We are in for a chilly night.
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Starting at Long Gully Camp we hiked the difficult terrain to Cooyoyo Camp. 664m above sea level. Yay! We made it.