"Budawang National Park Bushwalk" Budawang Range Travelogue by M0B1US

Within a few weeks of landing in Australia, my new found friends had invited me on a bushwalk...

Sure, why not I thought. I was pretty fit from travelling across the US, I thought I would be able to take it in my stride.

So, without much forethought on my part I embarked on a three day adventure to conquer such places as 'The Castle', 'Nibelung Pass', 'Monolith Valley' and 'Seven Gods Pinnacles'. Little did I know what I had let myself in for...

Chaaaaaaaaaaaarge!

The Budawang National Park is situated about 3-4 hours south of Sydney and seven of us set out in two vehicles on a Thursday evening, as ominously dark stormclouds gathered in the skies above us! First stop was Nowra, where we stocked up at the local supermarket on over $200 of supplies. We stayed the night at a summer home on the coast owned one of the guys before setting out the next morning.

Onwards and Upwards!

Driving to the edge of the National Park, we parked at the picnic grounds scattering a small group of scavenging Wallabies in the process. Kitted out with sufficient gear for a three day hike (I estimate my pack was a good 20kgs), our first objective was to ford the Clyde River before pressing on into the interior.

After a few hundred yards of making our way through a small valley of lush rainforest we found the trailhead for the Kalianna Ridge, an easy and well defined climb along the ridge's crest through a Eucalypt forest and past the odd termite mound. It climbs several hundred metres over about 3-4kms and ends abruptly at the foot of 'The Castle'.

Conquering The Castle

The base of The Castle at 400m is made up of conglomerate providing a barrier. To continue you have to climb a good 15m through a cleft in the rock (where Adrian is sitting) with the aid of a thoughtfully provided rope attached to the rock by iron pitons.

Obviously we had no way of knowing how long the rope had been there for and it did seem very springy and not worth risking your whole weight. We literally hauled ourselves up only using the rope for occasional help.

Once the top of this cliff had been reached we could look back and survey the progress that we had already made - the ridge below is Kalianna Ridge and stretches out below to the top left corner of the picture...

The Sentinel

After scaling the mini 'cliff', we found a sheltered nook to have a sumptuous lunch of salads and cold cuts in baguettes - just because we were hiking didn't mean we slummed it!

Once rested, we continued along the base of a huge cliff for several kms through very difficult terrain and almost non existant paths sometimes with only little bits of blue string tied to branches, or an arrow stratched into the rock to guide us.

Next we had to climb several hundred metres and over the saddle between Mt Nibelung and The Castle - it was at this point that the effects of the terrain and the climb with a full pack began taking their toll as my knees especially started to get very sore. It was about this point that I began wishing that I was a Mountain Goat!

Looking back was when I took the picture of the rock formation below, I noticed the 'eye' and 'nose' in the rock - I imagined it standing as an impassive sentry, surveying all below it for countless millennia...

once we crested the saddle, it was downhill from there to our campsite. Once in place we set about making a fire and cooking dinner and enjoying a couple of wineboxes(!) as the pitch black of night closed in.

On the Edge

Our first night was a night of howling gales blowing through the trees causing them to sway and creak around us as though they were going to fall on our tents.

We had a fitful sleep with the wind tearing through the tents and sleeping bags almost as if we were sleeping out in the open. I was well glad that I had upgraded my old borrowed sleeping bag with a brand new hi tech model - otherwise I probably would have died from hypothermia in the night!

The next morning we awoke bleary eyed and stiff from the previous day's exertions, however all that was swiftly put behind us as we prepared breakfast on the edge of a huge cliff with outstanding views all the way out to Pigeon House Mountain!

Tucked into a huge fry up of bacon, scrambled eggs, mushrooms, sausages etc washed down with a stiff black coffee... Mmmm raring to go!

At about 10:30am we set off, leaving the tents set up and only carrying our day packs.

Mt Owen 877m

Almost immediately I had the incident with the Black Boy tree described in the Warnings/Dangers category.

After a couple of hour's walking, we reached the spectacular Monolith Valley, which was a deep cleft in the rock through which a stream ran, the sheltered rainforest here gave the area a Jurassic effect and the whole area was, well, Monolithic in its sheer presence especially after passing under an impressive natural arch!

We stopped for lunch at the foot of the last of the strangely shaped Seven God's Pinnacles before circumnavigating around the bulk of Mt Cole where along the way we saw someone else's camp for the first time in two days.

After that, it was the frankly dangerous exercise of climbing the side of Mt Owen, including walking along 45 degree angles with only our shoe grips stopping us from falling. Once at the top though, the views were well worth the effort!

It was about here that things started going wrong as it took us a long while to find the path off Mt Owen in the direction we were going.

Given that this was winter, we were galvanised into picking up the pace as it was only a couple of hours before darkness and foolishly those that had torches hadn't thought to bring them...

Marshmallows before Bedtime

It was the fact that we were hurrying that must have caused the lead group to miss our path and we were suddenly stranded on top of a hill with no obvious route forward!

It was here that our lack of coordination as a group began to tell, as on my ascent I had seen what looked like the right path to take a little back the way we'd come - unfortunately our leaders had already disappeared ahead trying to find the way and I was unable to relay this important information!

As the minutes passed, the skies darked. I figured we had about an hour's walk and just over an hour's daylight! After over a quarter of an hour I was becoming very jumpy, as without light we would have been stranded and forced to spend the night without shelter in fairly light day clothing!

Suddenly from the seemingly impenetrable foliage in front of us, Adrian had found a route to the path and we were on the move again force marching our way back to camp in a race against time!

We reached camp with only minutes to spare, so much so that I had to prepare the campfire in torchlight!

After that all that was left was to swap stories of the day with mugs of piping hot tea and roasting marshmallows over the fire!

We still had a long journey to get back to the cars the next morning but at least the thought of hot showers and soft sheets kept us going...