ALLYN RANGE, BARRINGTONS – MAY 2013
Mt Allyn > Allyn Range > Carey’s Peak > The Corker > Lagoon Pinch
Shane had joined BWOC a year or so ago and was extremely capable so I asked him if he wanted to put a trip on the BWOC calendar. He came up with a traverse of the Allyn Range over to Carey’s Peak in the Barrington Tops area. Cat, Garth, Glenn R, Peter H and I signed on for the trip. Sitting over dinner at the Vacy Pub on Friday night, we looked at the map and said to each other, “only 10k on the first day, with an early start and ten hours of daylight, there’d be something wrong if we couldn’t do more than a k an hour, plenty of time to get to the first night’s proposed campsite at Carey’s Peak!” Shane had done the walk 5 years ago and expected a nice campsite and great views, with a “fair bit of up and down”.
It was to be Garth’s first overnight walk (pretty brave jumping right into the deep end with a walk in the Barringtons!) I was a little concerned about Garth, and did mention something to that effect to Shane, but he didn’t seem overly concerned. Not having done the trip myself, no alarm bells rang – they should have.
We did the car shuffle positioning one vehicle at Lagoon Pinch on Friday night and then settled down at the Allyn River campsite. Our scheduled start was a little delayed when we discovered that a long section of the road to Allyn lookout, was seriously eroded with a sign “4WD vehicles only”. The low-slung Mazda was slow going over the many rocks and ruts in the road.
Starting the walk at 516450 (Barrington Tops), the first k was relatively easy going. It took a while for some of us to get used to the rock hopping and uneven terrain, and there was a decent uphill to Mount Lumeah and a small rock scramble at the top. The saddle beyond Mount Lumeah was lovely, nice and flat with plenty of tent sites (too early to camp though). The next hill, Mount Gunama was a bit more challenging, we started running into a bit of lawyer vine and the saddle beyond was quite overgrown.
By the time we got to the top of Ben Bullen the vegetation was virtually impenetrable. Our progress was less than 500m an hour! We were hopeful that the lawyer vine jungle was confined to Ben Bullen but sadly the next small hill was more of the same. By this time it was approaching 4 pm and it started to rain so we cut our losses and made a quick camp in a small saddle with enough room (after landscaping) for four tents. Quotable quote from Garth a shocked “is this where we’re camping”, I think Cat had sold him on the walk with the promise of a nice grassy campsite, nothing like where we were setting up.
We were able to start a campfire but with a cool breeze blowing and wet undergrowth it wasn’t the idyllic campsite we had fantasized about. Nevertheless, after a hot dinner and chocolate we all felt a little better and crawled into warm sleeping bags with the expectation that Sunday would be a lot easier than Saturday.
We were up bright and early and set off at a reasonable pace, only to be back into the lawyer vine on the next small hill, a positive was that we didn’t find a better campsite within the next 200m (as is often the case). By 10am, we were climbing the second last hill, and Shane had warned us that this one would be tricky. The rock face on the top was not easy to scramble, in fact there were no hand holds. Glenn and Shane explored another option and decided against it (too exposed). Shane had tried the right hand side of the mountain last time and said it was pretty “airy”, so we opted for traversing around the left hand side. This proved to be a good choice, relatively open and very little lawyer vine. With a small rock scramble and a bit of pack hauling, we were up on top by 11.30 and had a quick morning tea. This was our first real opportunity to admire the fabulous views (up to this point there were no good spots for viewing).
A quick walk down to a lovely saddle (this was Shane’s proposed alternate campsite), then we were off climbing up to Eremeran Point Lookout. More lawyer vine and if there is a lookout, we couldn’t see it. Shane had warned us that the 500m from the “Lookout” to Carey’s Peak trail was quite dense scrub, and whilst it was dense, there were lovely sections of moss covered ground and compared to the lawyer vine, it was a walk in the park. However, 10m from the trail, we were back into lawyer vine again (predictably).
We were all relieved to be on the fire trail and were soon at Carey’s Peak for a late lunch, picked up some water from a side creek and admired the view, although I have to say, the lookout is less than average, not even a chair to sit on to sit and contemplate!
We couldn’t dawdle as it is a 3h walk down to Lagoon Pinch and it was already 2.30pm, so we set off in an effort to make the car before nightfall. Whilst the walk down The Corker is all downhill, it does become a little tiresome, although the section of trail through the Arctic Beech forest is beautiful. Some made it to the car before dark others finished the final k walking with headlamps.
We then had to retrieve the cars at Allyn Lookout, clean up and find somewhere to eat, not easy in the Patterson area; most things are closed by 8pm! Garth was a champion, it was a very challenging walk due to the terrain and vegetation, but he handled it in style, an amazing effort for his first overnight walk, he will have to go a long way to find a more difficult walk! We all agreed that this was a true adventure, probably not what we’d consciously choose but we definitely felt we’d achieved something by the end of the walk.