Seeing is believing - Mt King William I

There is meant to be a mountain above us. I keep looking up in hope. I see nothing but a ceiling of cloud - the sky, overcast and low. It seems, if I stood on tippy toes I could touch it. As we follow the track towards the base of this invisible peak, it is tempting to turn around. I am wondering, what fun could we possibly have on a mountain in grey, wet soup like this? We keep walking, despite. There is, after all, a mountain above us, whether we can see it or not. 

The lure of hidden monoliths...

I love bushwalker log books; but, this one is particularly unforgettable. It is housed in a silver box, attached firmly to a rock on the summit of a little-known mountain. The lid of the box is beautifully engraved with the mountain’s latitude. Due north is marked with a bold arrow. All the surrounding peaks are named and distances to them are also given. The logbook is an unexpected surprise because the walk here is rare, untracked, unlisted (in print or online) and hard, physical work.

“I wonder how I got to the top...how could I let myself be dragged into this adventure...[but] a very beautiful place, superb!” - Stephan Delabre, 4 July 1991 (written in French). 

'The Monarch of Tasmania's west' - Frenchmans Cap

Picture this: a large rock midstream in a fast flowing river. The rock protrudes above the water. A swift current races around it and on the downstream side is a pocket of calm water. The current causes the sides of this calm to change and swirl with movement. But immediately behind the rock is complete stillness. 

Now imagine the protruding rock is Frenchman’s Cap. The river's current is the wind and the water is dense cloud. The mountain’s bare, white quartzite peak holds firm above it all. Picture two little bushwalkers, sitting in that calm spot on the downstream side, sheltered from the howling south-westerly wind. A tongue of clear, still air stretches away before them while either side, the dense clouds whip past, whirling on the edge of the eddy in a dance of mesmerising flurries. Then the sun rises above this streaming world. The light is crystalline but diffuse. Picture the two bushwalkers sitting in the morning sun completely entranced, watching this wild show of streaming clouds, backs leaning against the bulk of the mountain. Sudden pirouettes of cloud rise and fall on either side. They are alone, for more than 4 hours, bewitched. The day warms. The flood of streaming cloud slowly disperses, swept away across the world.

Mt Cabre Bald, Barrington Tops National Park, NSW

The Barrington Tops, in NSW, is renowned as the watershed of 14 different rivers including the once mighty Manning, the Karuah River and the Hunter. These rivers flow out of the Tops like arteries. And between each river valley, runs a long finger of forest-clad ridgeline, spreading from the subalpine heights of the wild plateau to the farm land far below. 

Along one of these ridges, sits a peak called Mt Cabre Bald — one of the most unique, ancient and rare landscapes I have ever visited. The view from the top of the mountain should be enough - it is a vast, 360 degree panorama. The Barrington Tops stands in the north like a Great Wall of forest. I can see east down the Hunter Valley to farmland and dams and the nearby peaks of Mt Royal and Mt Allyn loom either side. But it is not for the view that I am lugging an overnight pack and kilos of water up the steep final pinch to the top. At the grassy summit, Caz and I drop our gear to begin searching for the true treasure. 

Revealing Mt Plagyan & The Pinnacles - Mount Kaputar National Park, NSW

This is one of those walks where I cross my fingers and hope the route will 'go'. Especially as we pop out onto the first high point and realise we've tracked a little bit too far north. Which is not surprising as we have no topo map to hand and bugger all pre-trip research that can help us navigate a route.  Even the access road proved so anonymous it took a day to find it. This is becoming one of those walks that we keep re-thinking, on the fly. 

We are trying to find Mt Plagyan - an ancient mountain tucked away in a rarely visited parcel of land at the southern extreme of Mt Kaputar National Park, in north-west NSW. It's one of those spots we have taken a punt on. We spotted it while camping at Camel's Hump in the main section of Mount Kaputar National Park - visible way off in the distance (read here, WAY OFF). But, close enough to entice us on this wild goose chase through the unchanging, sameness of acre after acre of cypress and box woodland. And that first high point, saves us. As we 'pop out' of the woodland onto the rocky hill, Mt Plagyan is visible and close. It also looks spectacular. The punt has already paid off. There is a sweeping wall of rock along its north-west flank. This towers over a deep gully. At the head of the gully is a collection of awesome, rounded, chunky rock pinnacles. Man, I hope our new route goes.

Call of the Wild - Washpool Creek wilderness

Without a second thought, we begin what is now a familiar routine.  We drop our packs, thread our walking sticks through the straps then launch the packs into the long pool of water ahead. We jump in after them, boots and all.

The rainforest creek we are following, has suddenly become gorge-like. Its sides are bare and sloping rock. The water is deep and black. Dense forest lines the steep valley slopes on either side. 



As we swim behind our packs, cicada noise pulsates in deafening crescendos. A flock of wonga pigeons takes flight across the narrow band of sky above. At the end of the pool we drag our water logged packs onto a rocky beach. Ten metres further on, we repeat the entire process, throwing ourselves into the next pool as we struggle our way through day three of our adventure.

***

This blog post is the story of one of our favourite wilderness walks ever - following Washpool Creek, through the middle of Washpool National Park in northern New South Wales, travelling from the creek’s headwaters through remote rainforest to the other end of the park, 35 kilometres away. With no tracks to follow, and just the creek to guide us, it quite literally immersed us in a rugged wilderness experience.

But this is an old story, and an old adventure (we completed the walk in December, 2012). So why post it now?

Mt Gingera, Namadgi National Park, ACT

At the start of this track is a sign - “Very Steep” it reads. I brace myself, but I have done “steep” before. And besides, one of my earliest lessons as a writer was to never use the word ‘very’.  Something is steep. If it is steeper than steep then the writer’s job is to find a better word, not add ‘very’. 

As we begin walking, there is no warm-up. The acclivity starts metres from the carpark as the track begins its climb of 900m in elevation from the wall of Corin Dam outside Canberra, ACT, to the 1,855m summit of Mount Gingeri on the edge of the Bimberi Wilderness. The first 500m in elevation is the boldest and most sudden. Fortunately there are excellently wrought steps. Not too big, not too small. Slowly but surely we gain height as the morning wears on. I have hours, and many steps, ahead of me, to come up with a better word than ‘very’ steep.