Monday 31st May 2021
So today we are planning to climb to the Castle Summit and hopefully hike through Monolith Valley. After enjoying the early morning sunrise across to Pigeon House Mountain, having a spectacular outlook on the cliff edge for breakfast we made a few decisions about today’s walk.  We decided to go with minimal packs to the first difficult section and then let David carry one small pack up the crazy part. We headed off about 9.45 knowing it was going to be a very physically challenging day. So up we went the first 500m of stairs back up to the crossroad, this definitely got the heart pumping but it was lovely to have left our big packs behind. Once we got to the crossroads we headed towards the Castle, it was incredibly difficult terrain again, made ever so slightly more pleasant to not have our big packs. We came to the first chasm which was a rock climb as well as a squeeze through, ending at a rope climb down the other side. So the adventure begins, with a little stress for David who felt a little responsible for ensuring everyone’s safety. He was very particular with checking all the ropes and always went first. We all made it safely down. It was a great adventure climbing up another 7 ropes, some more sheer and arduous than others, but all checked and double checked by DB before we negotiated them. It took 2 hours, all our strength, agility and strong minds to complete and was very exhilarating to make it to the CASTLE SUMMIT. Yay team, with encouragement by all at every stage we made it.

Now a little time (1.5hrs) to explore the top, enjoy the view, rest and snack before the next stage – going back down which we all believed would be a little bit more difficult. And we were right, but yet again we rose to the challenge and all successfully negotiated the seven rope descents. It was an amazing achievement and we all were very happy with ourselves. It had taken us two hours to climb up the 2km. And then 1 hour 40 mins to get back down again. We enjoyed a lunch break once we got back to our small packs and then headed down to the Monolith Valley which was very different terrain wit another rock climb with chain assistance. We walked until about 3.30pm when we decided it was time to head back before dark.

What a great day hiking 10.5km over 6 hours to The Castle Summit, then through the Monolith Valley and back to Cooyoyo camp for another night under the stars.

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!

The Castle Adventure 2021
Well this adventure has been in David’s to do list for a very long time and having done some research on it I can understand why.There were many stories of how difficult the ascent and descents were along with climbing through small gaps, up ropes over sheer cliffs with a very long drop below. I was a little concerned I may not be up to the challenge so spent a little time watching a couple of people do the walk. Having done this I felt more comfortable with the adventure but a little disappointed that I had already seen the view.

Quoting from alltrails.com blog “The Castle Walking track is one of the most challenging yet rewarding days hikes along eastern Australia. The trail is technical and diverse across varied terrain, with some open woodland walking, tight crawls through vegetation and steep climbs toward the summit, not for the faint-hearted or inexperienced.”

Whilst planning the adventure we realised besides the physical challenges that the time of year was going to add its own concerns weather wise. The week ahead was looming with clear skies but very cold temperatures ranging between -3°C and 11°C. Very chilly. We haven’t hiked in this low a temperature since the NT Larapinta Trail in June 2018.

Saturday 28th May 2021
Davistown to Blue Gum Flat Camp via Pigeon House Mountain
Well we got up early to be on our way for our 1st day of the Budawang and Morton National Park Adventure. We left home with our hiking buddies Ange and Alice at about 8am.

We headed inland from Milton at about 12.30 for our first hike. The Pigeon House Mountain Didthul walking track in the Morton National Park, a Grade 4, 6.6km return hike to the summit (485m ascent). We started the hike at 1.20pm walking through forest, heathland and age-old sandstone before coming a series of ladders that lead you to the summit and the view. The sight of the amazing cliffs and gorges within the Budawang Wilderness showcasing ‘The Castle” which was our adventure for the next two days was spectacular. Looking east you were also able to see the coastal waters of the Ulladulla region. It was fantastic yet again. They have improved the track since our last visit. Originally the track went up at a very steep gradient straight up from the start but they have made it a little bit more user friendly with many switchbacks for the first 20 minutes or so. With a stop for about 20mins we headed back down again as we still had a 30min dirt road drive to our camp for the night.

Unfortunately Long Gully Campground which is at the start of tomorrow’s hike was booked out so we headed to Blue Gum Flats. This was a lovely campsite with a river nearby and a pit toilet. We arrived at our camp after a pretty easy drive at about 4.30pm to find all the campsites taken, luckily for us the young campers were happy to vacate one site for us as they were all together and didn’t realise other campers had booked there. After setting up camp we then had a lovely Salmon and stir fried vegetables on quinoa and rice for dinner. Yummy!! We experienced a little trouble with our Isobutane gas which was struggling with the cold. It took a lot longer to cook our dinner and fusspot Dave had to put his back on because the veggies were too crunchy. We enjoyed a lovely campfire compliments of Ange and stayed warm for the night.

We were using our new blue camp mats for the first time and were very happy with them, we had the best night sleep even with our young neighbours. Yay!