The Thin Red Line

YENGO NATIONAL PARK – 30 July 2026
Jeff decided that he needed to go back to the scene of the lost phone as it was really, really annoying (aka a pain in the arse) to set up a new phone with no available data as he hadn’t backed up his phone.  Lesson to us all – back up your phone.  So, I offered to go back to the ridge with him to follow his Saturday route, a last-ditch effort to find the phone.

We had followed where Heather had walked (the track log on her GPS), this time we’d follow Jeff’s route, after all, he hadn’t always walked in Heather’s steps or vice versa. When he got home last weekend, he’d downloaded his track that his watch had recorded.

This is what his route looked like, and similar to what we used on the Sunday search, we focused on when we’d stop, reassess our route and maybe change direction, logically that would be where he’d lost the phone as he would take it out of his pocket and then put it back.

We decided to use a new route up to the ridge, one that didn’t involve a rock climb, and started at 8.30am.

The first challenge was to cross the creek.  We were further downstream, the creek was wider and deeper than it had been further upstream, so we needed to find a way across that didn’t involve we feet.

And voila! a relatively easy way across if you didn’t slip!

I didn’t think this walk would be blog worthy as we were looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. So, on the walk in, I didn’t take any photos (ones above are the walk out). When we got to the ridge we had walked along last weekend, the scrub was again horrific.

Once we got to the top of the new spur, we located the first “high point” that we’d walked to on Saturday, then followed Jeff’s track … he “walked the track” and I either followed looking from side to side, or, when available looked in other routes that he may have taken (as we didn’t know if he had walked right on the line or a few meters either left or right).

We went all the way to where he discovered that he didn’t have his phone, and then back again to the first high point.  We then decided that we’d walk all the way back to where we had morning tea.  We figured it was highly unlikely that he’d left the phone at the morning tea spot (most of us have a good look around to make sure we haven’t left anything behind), but we were here, it made sense to explore every possibility.

We were getting close to the morning tea spot and Jeff called me over (he was walking on the edge of the cliff line, I was back in the scrub).

And, there it was! right on his track, sitting there waiting to be found. Turns out you CAN find a needle in a haystack. Also, turns out that I was looking for a shinny black phone, sparkling in the sun – I would never have picked out this phone in the leaf litter!

We couldn’t believe our luck, also, turns out that if we’d come up the original spur first, we would have found it much earlier LOL.  But, then, we wouldn’t have made the other discovery!

On the walk in on Saturday, from the time we crossed the creek, we’d complained about the horrific scrub.  The trip in took longer because we were battling the scrub the whole day.  It did get marginally better, but because it was so bad at the beginning, we assumed that the ridge was a “no go zone” for the future, and also assumed that all the ridges would be horrific due to the fires and following regrowth.

How wrong can you be. I had assumed that we were on the top of the spur, but we were about 75m off the top and when Jeff and I walked out yesterday, we walked up to the “first high point” and low and behold, it was dead easy walking!

And the route down was the same, easy as, no scrub whatsoever – so long as you followed the high point of the spur.

We didn’t follow our exact route up, but where we were going down was the same as coming up, no scrub.

On Saturday, we had had to do 2 rock climbs, but this spur, had nothing like that, easy routes up and down with no rock climbs at all, maybe a few butt-slides but nothing scary.

And once we got close to the creek, it was easy as – compared to Saturday’s walk it was a dream.

So, we’d written off this area as “never to be returned to” and after today’s route, it’s back on!

So, Heather, my “bad”, Saturday would have been much easier if I’d chosen a different route LOL.  Maybe we should go back and do the walk again with a better entry spot LOL.

Originally, Jeff was going to go on Tuesday, but I couldn’t go, then he changed it to Thursday, which meant that I could go.  Great fitness walk for me, thanks Jeff for changing the date, and good outcome on both fronts, the phone AND the good route in!