It was definitely cold when we got out of the cars at Blackheath Station. I thought it strange that no one was waiting for us… I checked my mobile and it turned out that Ruby was still 40mins away… apparently I can’t read the time and David and I had left nearly an hour early! We kept ourselves busy, checking oil levels, refilling wiper water, putting my left indicator back in (it must have fallen out the day before). Before I…
After a week of intense rain and closures in Glenbrook due to the flooding of the causeway, the initially planned route down to Erskine Creek had to be changed. And so the 11 km walk over two days was changed to a 26 km return walk to Splendour Rock. In total, we were a party of 18 – with some of us deciding to catch the train on Friday night and stay at Ashley’s new place in Leura, and others arriving at Blackheath the next morning. After everyone…
Another very lucky break with the weather; just one day later and we would have been lashed with rain and strong winds. As it turned out we had an overcast but rainless walk. Eight of us met up at Circular Quay for the Manly Ferry, and sat out on the rear deck and took in the Harbour views along the way. At Manly…
With the theme song to “The Trap Door” still in my head, Michael and I made our way down Evans Lookout road avoiding the cars also heading down to the lookout. One of these cars slowed to a stop… it was Martin the third member of our small party. We jumped in and before long we where following the Horse Track into the Grose (which looked exceptionally blue today!). We spent…
The trip started with some trouble on my part in locating Felix and his crew at Lithgow, which in hindsight wasn’t really that hard to figure out… Hats off to those who got up early for the 3-hour train ride in. Once all 3 cars were on the same side of the station, we drove towards Newnes for some abseiling practice. Everyone did…
We left Sydney Uni at 1.30 on Friday. Heavy traffic and finding somewhere to refill a gas bottle in the mountains meant we arrived at 4.30, setting up camp along the river opposite the old Newnes Hotel. The pub looks much as it did when it served its last drinks sixty years back, with the front bar now serving as the camp office and kiosk. We camped…
Despite the poor weather forecast, our group met promptly at Springwood station under a wonderfully blue sky. From this point, we sauntered southwest through the streets of Springwood, until we reached the trailhead at the end of Sassafras Gully Road. We then followed the track downhill, making several water crossings until we reached Glenbrook creek. The water…
As we were packing up from lunch at Lost Rock (aptly named for us at least!) I got another call from Thomas, who was now way behind schedule, but still keen to push on so I told him we would wait at the base of Billys Ridge until 10:00am the following morning. I had previously been on the Uni Rover as far as Mt Savage and assumed the obvious foot pad and track markers went all the way to the river – in fact they both dropped out around Mt Lannigan and the final descent of Lannigans Spur was much slower going than I had expected. Unfortunately I…