MORONG DEEP – JANUARY 2009
Morong Falls Fire Trail > Morong Creek > Kowmung River (Morong Deep) >Megalith Ridge
After we finished our Morong Adventure last year, we decided that we’d have to go back and complete the trip, we’d already done the Kowmung River Ford to Morong Creek (and a little ways beyond) section, so we weren’t going to do that section this time and we’d just drop down into the river at Morong Creek and do the section that we’d missed. At least, that was the plan, didn’t quite work out that way.Steve (as leader) and I (as person pushing for the trip) had new “victims” Sharyn C and Martin D (both experienced), plus repeat offenders (from the 2008 trip) Jenny, Jeff and Len S, and a beginner.
Now, here’s where it gets tricky. In BWOC we (as in mostly me) had been doing a bit of membership recruitment (I wanted people to go overnight walking with!). The Beginner had just joined, and, as I was the goto person for new people, she called me up and asked if she could go on this trip. She said she was in her 30s, she walked every day, went horse riding and scuba diving, on paper that sounded good. I said that the best person to determine her suitability was the leader, Steve, so I booted the call to Steve. Now, Steve is in his 30s and he figures that everyone in their 30s can do what he can do. I’m a bit the same way, I figure anyone younger than me can do what I can do, so between us, we both said that she’d be fine. After all, we’d taken Jenny (a beginner) on the same trip last year and she’d loved it! You can see that neither of us are taking full responsibility for this, we’ve both obviously been bush walking too long! We did explain what the trip would be like but sometimes when you’re telling someone about something, there must be subtleties that are missed.
When all arrangements were made, we all rocked up to the end of the Morong Falls Fire Trail and parked the cars, we’d start and end from here.
We started walking down the fire trail to where we’d access Morong Creek to walk down to the Falls and straight away people started lagging back, we were only 1/2 hour into the trip. What was going on? Maybe they were lagging back to keep The Beginner company. Anyway, we eventually got to the drop off point and headed off into the scrub, down into the creek, across, down a bit of a spur. It was at this point that the immortal words “this isn’t a beginners trip” were uttered.
I explained that well, yes it was, it wasn’t hard, just not on a track. She grumbled a bit and continued on, albeit slowly (which is fair enough, don’t injure yourself). Anyway, we made it down to the top of the falls and had a break. The view from the top was amazing, what’s not to love about this walk.
Then Steve negotiated us across the creek and on a bit of a wombat track down to the river level. All down safely, we regrouped on the rocks and had morning tea. Everyone, including Th
e Beginner is happy now that we’re down the bottom and on the river. We pumped up our lilos and then headed downstream. We rock hopped downstream until we reached The Big waterfall. Now, in the past, Steve had jumped this waterfall, but it’s a bit high and we weren’t a “big jump” sort of crowd, so we decided that we’d scramble up to the left and traverse along the bank. Everyone started up, we set up a bit of a hand-line to get up the steepest bit and then we started traversing along. The beginner wasn’t too happy about climbing up (there wasn’t any exposure and there was a hand-line you just had to pick your route) but she was extremely unhappy about the traverse. Yes, if she’d tripped and fallen, she would have fallen to almost certain death, but, she would have had to work hard at it, nevertheless, she was extremely stressed and tears were shed.
So, Steve and I Reassessed The Situation and decided that if she couldn’t handle this traverse she sure as hell wouldn’t be handling what was up ahead. So, we decided that the best thing for it was to turn around and do the easier section upstream. We still had 2 days so we decided that we’d just walk all the way up to the Ford (Kowmung Fire Trail). On the third day, Steve and Jeff would high-tail it up to the ford and then hitch-hike over to Morong Falls Fire Trail and pick up Steve’s car.
Getting back down off that traverse turned into a problem in itself, going up the small slope wasn’t all that bad but going down definitely freaked The Beginner out and it ended up that I went down on my butt with her right behind me hanging on to my shoulders, at least she couldn’t see what was ahead, although it truly was nothing!
So, we ambled upstream and stopped at a camp site we’d used before then walked upstream and played in the cascades (spa paths). We were all fine with the decision, after all what’s not to love about the Kanangra area, the views are fantastic and this part of the Kowmung was pristine. Plus, we didn’t expect to see another person for the 3 days, doesn’t get much better than that.
It was sort of nice, Jenny and I got to play in waterfalls and saw things that we’d missed coming downstream on the previous trip, like this cool cave that we could crawl through. We took time out to do some jumps into the pool at the base of the falls – sadly not much water flowing over them this weekend, not like last year!
Then we made our way upstream and found our second camp site for the night. Next day Jeff and Steve started bright and early, after all, they may have to walk from the ford all the way on fire trails back to the cars! Meanwhile, in the river, The Beginner wasn’t handling things well, her pack was heavy and she was slowing down a little almost right from the get-go so on Day 3 we started carrying her pack for her, well, that was the royal “we”, Len and Martin carried it the whole way (they are such troopers!). The rest of us took turns in walking with her to keep her spirits up.
We arrived back at the Ford and sat down to wait for the guys, they eventually turned up and we started for home. I’m not sure we’ll ever see The Beginner again which is a shame, we’ll definitely be a bit more careful about accepting people on the Morong Deep trip in the future. The problem is, when you know it’s going to be a fabulous trip, you’re a bit reluctant to say to someone “no you can’t come!”
So, now we’re going to have to go back again as we still haven’t “done” the trip! We all agreed, same time next year!