This Page Hosted By  get your own Free Homepage

Home

We were meant to be for but Andrew Introna pulled early in the week, due to having to move house We could not con anyone else into joining us.

Alarm set for 5am Boxing day morning, (this is the first time I swore at Andrew) finally got myself out of the house
by 6:20. to met the Pope's at 08:30 at Oberon, I got there at 8:40, The Pope's at 08:10.

We then raced off to the access point, we had planned to come in from the Oberon side of things, instead of the Jenolan side, as it involved a lot less walking. (racing being the operative word at times, Andrew was trying to see how fast his car would go, and if I could then keep up ,(I did).

We headed out on the abercrombie road, which continues through to Goulburn, we hit the dirt, and the dust, I dropped back so I could see where I was going.
Turned off  the main road, and went along a badly chewed up track, I missed the tank trap, and went airborne but recovered, by resisting the urge to jump on the brakes, and just steered, and let the 4WD drive do it is thing. (and it did cool!).  Got onto some smoother dirt, and after a few k's along Banshee rd, we came to the spot where we were going to leave on of the cars, it was decided to leave mine (good idea as it turned out).

NPWS has blocked all the side roads. so we had to leave the car about 4k, from were we expected to come out.

We headed down to were we happy to get into the gorge, there is a nice little lookout, above the Molong Creek falls, seeing it was a very steep decent into here, it was decided after much map reading the best spot to get into the gorge.

We geared up and headed down, took only 35 mins to get in, was a nice easy decent from that spot. Was about 10:20 when we started off the gorge for good, rock hopped along, for awhile, avoiding swims, we had our first swim and the water was quite warm, we had a break, and we had managed to do a about 1k, in just under an hour. Things got a bit steep and to many falls so we had to head off up on the left bank, Then a thunderstorm came across as well, but we only got a few drops of rain, just enough to make the granite really slippery. travelled along, for a bit ,and decided to come e down into a nice pool, unfortunately we came down to early, we were behind another major fall, we could not get back left, right was the only option.
(This is when I was really swearing at Andrew) right was a scramble through low scrub, across a very steep line, it was a nightmare, and it was hot as well, finally we got down and past the fall, took over an hour to do 50m.

We continued on down stream, I was in a bit of a daze, as the mild fever I had from a tooth infection, skyrocketed after the
trip on the right side, more panadol taken, We got to a average camp site about 4pm, and set up. we had managed  about
4ks (Andrew could confirm distances)

When we were having a relaxing swim in the river (water was really warm)  a few people wandered past, the had come in from the Jenolan side, and they had 8 in the group.

We had a very nice dinner, and all hit the sack very early, I was totally shattered, cool change had come through during the
night, so water was actually warmer than the air.

We were on the track again at 8am, we caught up with the other group just as they were leaving camp, about 200m further down, a nice big flat spot. One of this group had a thermometer it was about 10degrees. We journeyed on a bit with these guys, sometimes passing them sometimes we had a break they would pass. Going was fairly easy for the first couple of k's nice and wide, we ran across a couple of red belly black snakes, one was about 1,5 meters,and was swimming down just where Andrew and I had crossed, and were Bindi was about to cross, it tried to get out on our side but could (thank goodness), and went out down from Bindi, We started to get into some steep stuff, and involved a bit of bouldering, and then a swim or 2. We had one spot that involved a bit of a pack lower off and down climb, not nice at all but no choice it had to be down. We had a very nice lunch on a very warm piece of granite, to warm up, as the wind had swung fully to the south and was quite strong.
We were making pretty good time, we had a few difficult spots. trying to get across granite slabs (it seems the trick is to just jump in and avoid them, that is what the other group did when I checked with them how they got a cross) We had to do some fairly long swims, and they were quite pleasant really, it was getting on in the day, Bindi and I did some more swimming as we
preferred that to scrambling across granite slabs (I know I love granite slabs , but that is going up with nice and sticking climbing shoes).

We finally made camp about 5pm, on hell of a long arduous day. the camp we made was just below the ridge we were to escape from, I was as sick as dog, from the infection and over dose of panadaol, so my equilibrium was not to good,
(i.e. I was feeling very pissed off with the world) We were all very tired and crashed as soon as we had finished dinner.
Up early to escape to the top before it got to hot. We were at 450m, and the top was at 1102m. I was about 7;20 we left, and attacked the ridge, going was hard but fairly gentle for first we got to first small plateau for a water break, maybe 200m down, next stop, surely we have down more than 300m, then it got real step, then another plateau I pushed to the plateau, as I was not going to get going again if I stopped before it, we pigged out on snakes, water and chocolate and every 2nd stop,
just to be able to keep me going, we topped out after about 2hrs 40mins.

Checked maps for the roads, the road was marked as being about 400m from the peak, so the faint track we crossed at 150m we decided was not it,(dooh), we finally come across the creek between the 2 roads, after some discussion, I bowed to Andrew' better experience and nose and we kept going due west to hit the next road, we finally did (hate when Andrew is right).

Got down the track a bit and pigged out on what was left of the lunch food, crushed  rivetas, cheese spread, cucumber and peanut butter, ran out of biscuits, still cucumber cheese and peanut butter, Andrew and Bindi shared the cucumber and I finished the peanut butter(the things you do for food and energy when you are desperate was rather gross just eating spoonfuls of plain peanut butter.)
Looked like about 5ks to the car, so we headed off, I went full steam, went into a semi trance and just paced, till could not face one more hill, then we had a break we had been on the road for about 30mins looked like we had to do about another 2ks, we headed off again, and after about another 15mins, when I was about to drop at the end on the hill we were one rounded the bend and there was the gate and the car.

With nice cool fresh water in it. After a bit of a rest, we drove down to pick up The Pope's car, unfortunately the remote for the alarm would not work, as it had got wet, and more unfortunately for some reason, the bypass switch would not work either, so we could not start the car. (one reason I like old cars)

We were about 70k, from Oberon, much discussion about what to do, finally decided to get to oberon in my car and talk to the NRMA to see what could be done, and worse case drive back to Sydney and get spare remote,and come back the next day.
Andrew wanted to stop at the first town to ring the NRMA, but I kidnapped them, saying it was my car and I was not stopping till we got to Oberon. (OK there was a lot of F's in there as well) as that is were the NRMA depot was and were the toilets and food was as well.

NRMA guy said not a problem, he used to install car alarms and he knew which wires to cut to bypass the alarm system
so he had to do a job first, and would met us at a spot on the map called Shooters Hill, and then follow us out to the car,
Amazingly the bloody remote worked when the NRMA guy tried it, looks like after we had opened it earlier it had dried out more and was now functioning.

By this time I was dead on my feet, and was planing on staying in Oberon the night as was too exhausted to drive but Andrew and Bindi kindly shared driving my car to the M4 Caltex/Mcdonalds, which allowed me to sleep for a bit while they were
driving, (OK while Bindi was driving, I was not a very good passenger for Andrew).

All in all in was a good trip no injuries or major dramas, it was just F'ng hard.
I probably would have enjoyed it more and been better company, if was feeling better (was a really pissed off at times) but thanks to Andrew and Bindi for dragging me along ,and getting me out the other end.

I am sure Andrew will have additions to make. to this report.

This Page Hosted By  get your own Free Homepage

Home