Date: 2/3rd April 2016
Hikers: Adam (leading for the 1st time with SUBW), Ankit, Tim, Geoffrey
Tim and I met Ankit at Westmead Station and headed out towards Windsor. We had dinner and met Geoffrey at the historic Macquarie Arms before setting out again towards Culoul Range Fire Trail. The road was passable for our 2WD sedan with only a couple of minor bottom scrapes. We found a place to pitch and went to bed.
Just as we were about to head off on Saturday two day walkers arrived heading towards the lookouts of our intended Sunday exit. They shared a few tips and we then set off to take a look at Hollow Rock.The trip down to Crawfords Lookout was uneventful save for a good viewing of a Lyre Bird gliding from branch to branch.
After taking in the vistas from the Cliffs we scrambled our way down the ridge. Unfortunately we missed the path going down to the river and ended up on the nose of the ridge and spent half an hour finding our way down through the cliffs. Eventually we made it down to the Wollemi and had some much needed food and swimming.
Making our way down to the Colo Confluence was slow going and involved a swim across the river with our packs. At this point Geoffrey was wondering what he had signed himself on for. We finally made it to the Colo and soon discovered the infamous quick sand, which was a laugh every time it didn’t happen to you.
We made camp under an overhang before the big pools. The evening was spent star gazing with Tim explaining how to find South from the Southern Cross.
The next day was spent going around or through large pools and looking up at the spectacular gorge. We ran into two guys who were aiming to walk from our exit point all the way back to the cars in one day, they eventually decided that wasn’t going to end well for them and we met again just before leaving the river.
After a lovely 2 days of cool river walking, we slogged it up the hill back to the cars stopping to take in the down river views.
A great weekend all-round
https://goo.gl/photos/8urvrWfaM4FESsUC9
