Kowmung River:
Howling Dingo + Morong Falls
27-30 December 2004
Danny Yee, Vic Gosbell, Andrew Molnar
(thumbnails link to larger images)
Monday
We left Sydney (Andrew's place in Roseberry) around 10am, had a decent
drive up despite the holiday traffic, stopping in Blackheath for lunch,
and were off down the Uni Rover trail around 2.45pm.
above Mathesons Creek |
Vic's new GPS got a trial as we left the track to head down Misery Ridge
-- with a sidetrip to look at the view over Mathesons Creek. We got to
Howling Dingo quite late, around 7pm, so had dinner and went to bed.
Vic had brought along his new camera -- a Panasonic FZ10 -- but I'd
left my new Olympus E1 behind and just had my little Canon Powershot
S330. It was a bit of a bludge trip so we'd all brought books: I had
O.V. Vijayan's The Legends of Khasak, Vic had an anthology of
Victorian poetry, and Andrew had a Eucalypt identification guide.
Tuesday
We left our tent flies, sleeping bags, cooking gear and so forth and
headed upstream. Crossing the river was actually reasonably difficult,
with a choice between slow but wide and deep pools or narrow but fast
sections. We ended up clambering over rocks and/or jumping across rapids.
Andrew and Vic went a few hundred metres further than I did -- I stopped
and had a brief swim instead. After a lazy lunch we returned to our
campsite and had a lazy afternoon.
Wednesday
Danny with termite mound,
Megalith ridge |
We had perfect weather for the 800m climb up Megalith Ridge -- the sun
only popped out occasionally and it was around 12 to 14 degrees for most
of the day.
When we got to the plateau we followed the high point on top and had easy
open forest to the road. (The last time we did this walk we'd tried to
cut off an angle, and had hit more scrub.) We weren't sure where we
were heading now, but we walked back to the 4WD road (past the locked
gate) and then down to Morong Creek, where Andrew saw a brown snake.
But it was too early to camp and the site didn't seem particularly
attractive, so we walked back the way we'd come, continuing to the end
of the road and down to Morong Falls. We sat around the falls reading
and relaxing, then filled up our water bags and went up to the road-end
to camp. There were nice views at sunset, looking down into the valley
of the Kowmung.
Thursday
morning shadows |
We did the 8km or so of road back to the car in what seemed like no time
at all — it was a cool morning, just 5 degrees when we woke up!
After an solid breakfast in Katoomba and the obligatory bookshop visit,
we got home nice and early.
