Sirens in the Wollemi Wilderness – Trip #1

The obligatory “death photo” me, Mik and Lou, to prove that we started off with smiles on our face – a reminder no matter what happens. (photo: Lou)

We were able to drive for quite a way on the Hunter Main Range Trail, but then came to a tree across the road that we couldn’t move. Lou’s car got over ok but Mik’s car had lower clearance, so we thought we’d build a ramp. Yeah, yeah, you guys can laugh. We decided it was better if Mik didn’t try driving his car over it.

So, Lou drove her car back over the log ramp and parked it in a safe spot, and unloaded all the e-bikes. We’d cycle the rest of the way – which was the plan anyway.

Mik had hired an e-bike and I drove that. It was scary-as and the whole time I was scared that I’d drive off the edge of the road or stack it.  But, just 500m up the fire trail, Mik had a blow out on one of Lou’s bikes, so she drive my bike and I walked, which was ok because most of my heavy gear was in Lou’s panniers.

Trying the bike out to see if I remember how to ride.

Lou powering up the hill, she was so back heavy with her pack and two panniers that often the front wheel would come up off the road if she wasn’t careful – powered up the hills though.

Mik powering up the hill (sans panniers). The trail all the way to the big arse locked gate was cleared for vehicles (no big trees on the road), so the going was easy.  After the locked gate though, the road was not cleared and it was too hard man-handling the bikes over trees so we hid them in the bush for the return trip.

We walked on the fire trail for a few ks then headed off into the burned out bush – very easy walking!

A cicada hitch hiker, there were so many their songs were deafening. First time I’ve seen my hair from this angle I like it!

Lou was very excited about actually being here for this trip, she’d been dreaming of it for YEARS! We got to this point and Lou said we should be over there and pointed vaguely over to the left. I thought she meant that we’d be trying to get down this cliff which I definitely didn’t like the look of and suggested that we go down the gully – big mistake on my part, Lou was actually pointing in a different direction. Anyway, we went down the gully – now known as Wrong Gully (aka Shit Creek)!

It got a little steep so we put on abseil gear and abseiled down this sketchy downclimb.

This was our second small abseil. Both Mik and I struggled with having the heavy packs on (Mik’s way heavier than mine), it made you lean back too far and I ended up having a disaster later on in the day because of the weight of my pack.

Lou then abseiled down another pitch but then discovered that there was a fourth abseil and no anchor for it, and our rope wasn’t long enough to get us all the way to the bottom, so, we sent Mik up to see if there was a ramp out in another small gully and luckily there was. So at least we had a way that we could retreat without prussicing!

Poor Lou had to prussic up, she took one for the team though and I think she actually enjoyed it (she actually listed it as one of the highlights of the trip!). The creek looked like a lovely slot canyon, too bad we couldn’t get all the way down.

So, we’re back on top after our diversion down into Shit Creek and Lou’s back on track now going in the way she wanted to go in the first place (before I freaked out with the cliff0line). It was relatively flat until it then got steep!

The spur was great until the last 30m or so.  Lou sniffing around to see if there’s a way the 40m drop – which there wasn’t).

Didn’t seem far to the bottom (turns out it was 40m and we only had a 30m rope), so we set up the rope, figuring that we could always prussic out if it didn’t “go”.

After the abseil, we were still about 5m from the creak, but lady luck was looking down on us and there was a death defying traverse to where we could get down safely. Lou making it look hard and then Mik found some roots we could hang onto.

We managed to abseil right onto a part of the creek which had an overhang and flat ground to camp on! Big highlight of the trip. Low-light was that once Lou got down to the bottom of the abseil, she took off her backpack and it rolled down into a pool in the creek PLUS her bag of hot chocolate blew out (hot chocolate powder through everything), and one of her cans of wine took a hit – although she could salvage 200ml of the wine!

The creek was stunning, you wouldn’t know there’d been a fire up on the high points. Occasionally we’d come across a small burned section where a burning tree had fallen into the creek during the fire, but those burned areas were few and far between.

More lovely creek section.

Looking up Trib B, we didn’t go too far up here because we wanted to check out Trib C.

A bit of bouldering going downstream. We did find some stunning stals in one of the overhangs (but I’m writing a special blog post about them – they were AMAZING!).

Heading up Trib C, very easy walking.

Small waterfall in Trib C there is also a small waterfall to the right, but we managed to find out way up it via another death defying ledge.

After the death defying ledge, I sat around on a lovely mossy log whilst Lou and Mik went sniffing around for a pass for us to get out of the creek. No doubt about it, Lou can sniff out a pass better than anyone I know AND they were determined to find a pass that was suitable for M, ie no exposure or dodgy climbs. They came back ecstatic about finding our way out for tomorrow.

After finding the pass, we headed back to our campsite, there are lots of nice campsites on this section of the creek, some of which (close to the Stal Cave) could accommodate a large group. Most of the overhangs we found though, would really only accommodate 2 – 3 people.

Passing our camp and 30m upstream we headed into Trib A, which so far is looking pretty good.

The tributary starts to close in a little.

Not far upstream, we come to the gully that we would liked to have come down on the first day, the slot that I saw from up above that looked so attractive (you know how I love a good slot canyon).

I headed up the slot and this is where Lou was stopped on the first day, just above this chock stone and she couldn’t see a suitable anchor which is why she prussiced back up. It would have been nice if we could have completed the canyon but it will be there for the future, but at the end of the day, it was really only 50m of canyon!

Looking down the slot – really pretty.

Back into Trib A, a nice waterfall about 30 – 40m.

Continuing upstream in Trib A.

And stopped by a chockstone and a difficult climb, and we could see ahead that there were at least 2 abseils, one as big as 40 or 5m, and whilst it’s a big log and scrub infected, would be a good small trip, easy to get to.

Next day we took the pass in Trib C to get out.

First dead easy climb.

Second dead easy climb (really only a step up).

And then a stead slot up hill, then a long flat area, and then the final hill. Takes only an hour or so from the creek to get back to the road.

Mik and Lou on the road, an hour until we got back to the big arse locked gate, and although showers were forecast, the skies just spat on us for 10 minutes.

Lou and Mik picked up their bikes, dropped their packs at the bend in the road and drove up to pick up Lou’s car and they then drove down to pick up me and the packs. We talked about “what ifs” and decided that if it got to 5pm and they weren’t back, I’d head off to see what had happened. I miss-read my watch and set off to find them at what I thought was 5pm (but was really 4pm) and just as I got started they turned up in the car.  Apparently without the packs and panniers they had an awesome ride up to the car.