Date: 13+14/6/2021
Trip leader: David Lee
Party: Alex
Katoomba to Wentworth Falls Traverse
We caught the train up to Katoomba early Sunday morning, expecting very cold and wet conditions, we were pleasantly surprised as the ground was in dry and visibility was very good.
Starting from Katoomba station, we hiked to scenic world then down to ruined Castle where we had lunch – really nice view, but a bit crowded and also no hot tea as metho had spilled into my teapot. After taking a good hour for lunch we began the very steep hike up to Mt Solitary with the Korrowall Knife Edge being the most challenging part requiring actual climbing. After a taxing climb up to we were starting to run a little low on water so were very happy to find a creek, refill at Chinamans gully and admire the view from the southside of the Mountain. Arriving at Singa-Jingawell Creek campsite at 3pm, we had time to relax and ate snacks until it got dark before tucking into a luxurious meal of pasta and canned tuna in (wouldn’t have been great if it didn’t come out of a Trangia).
I got the chance to see the effects of exploding river rocks firsthand – saw a guy cooking a marshmallow over a fire before a very loud crack and a rock flying a good 3 meters along the ground – definitely would have hurt the guy cooking a marshmallow so something to be wary of.
Coming to night time we were expecting temperature of -2 degrees, however it ended up being much warmer (above freezing according to non-frozen cup test) which meant we got proper sleep and were able to get up to see a wonderful 7am sunrise over a blend of Nescafe blend 43.
As we’d cleared about a third of the walk, on the first day, we were expecting a longer but less strenuous walk on the second. This wasn’t quite the case as coming down Mt solitary was probably harder and more dangerous as the descent was at much steeper as it goes all the way down to the Kedumba river (also muscles were sore and fatiguing as this point). Surprising how quickly you got cold after taking a rest even after working up a decent sweat due to the chill of the mountain air.
Upon coming to the river, it’s a slow walk up, all the way to Wentworth Falls for a late lunch at a very good value take away shop. In total, we hiked around ~30km’s with about 11 hours of walking so had plenty of time to spare but was extremely sore the next day.
Walk Rating: 9/10 excellent views all the way through until Tableland road– very challenging on muscles (though we could’ve had a slower pace/taken more breaks).
Thanks to Sabs, Sunil and Bruce for giving me some hints on organising the trip.
