Talaterang Mountain misadventure

[Vern]

A two day hike in the Budawangs to Talaterang Mountain sounded great according to my guide book. It was graded hard purely on Navigation alone. Given a map, a compass, and a GPS I figured all would be fine.

I set off from the carpark and managed to find the old overgrown firetrail and heading generally South East and followed it as per the guide. About 2.5km from the carpark the guide said I should set my compass West and scrub bash. I had scrub bashed a few times before and expected it to be scratchy. To cut a long story short, the scratchy I had experienced before was put to shame by the Budawangs scratchy.

I ended up turning around and walking out after shredding my legs and arms despite wearing long pants and top and ripping my hinking pants. I also had my compass ripped from around my neck...it's out there somewhere if anyone dare find it! I had numerous deep slices on my hands from sword grass. I had a reed poke me in the eye and overall had an uncomfortable time.

I attempted to push through the scrub for hours and eventualy turned back not being able to find a way through a long wall of thick prickly bush. I got back to the car and considered walking to Mt Bushwalker instead but opted for a campsite on the beach at Jervis Bay where I bathed my wounds in the salt water.

I arrived back home and did some net search on Talaterang Mountain and found that the way in as mentioned in my guide book was no longer used. It is now classed as an easy walk that follows the same track to Mt Bushwalker.

Lessons learned:
1. Throw away my old guide book and update
2. Check the net for recent track info
3. Sword grass is an apt name
4. The road less travelled may be less travelled for a reason other than laziness.

Ps. The guide book was 120 Walks in NSW by Tyrone Thomas. It may be accurate for other walks but not for this one.
PPs. Has anyone done the Newhaven Gap - Monolith Valley walk and is it passable without a machette?

[PeterJ]

Have just returned from 4 day circuit from Endrick River entrance. Started on Allum Track (service track) then over Flat Top Mountain to Running Creek. The clear areas, mentioned in a walks guide, beside the creek were either now mostly overgrown or I could not find them; my guess is the former.

The track from Fosters to Styles Creek had some overgrowth and scrub and from Styles to Quiltys Bora turnoff had quite a number of fallen trees to negotiate. From there to The Vines was good.

A report and photos will be posted shortly.

[climberman]

Vern - best bet that I know of is to walk out to Mt Bushwalker, enjoy the view, then pick out the track southwards towards Talaterang from there. Mt Bushwalker is a nice walk on a cut trail through the scrub and sword grass. I went as far as the gap below Gadara on a lovely walk with my dad a few years ago. The track is not cut but is not really through scrub and is able to be picked out if you have a bit of track-finding experience.

I don't envy your atempt to push through the scrub !

See walk 17, p68, Ron Doughton's "Bushwalking in the Budawangs" for a Little Forest Plateau - Mt Bushwalker - Gadara Point - Talaterang Mountain description.

[Jellybean]

We went in to Mt Talaterang over the weekend (Route: Mt. Bushwalker car park - Gadara Pass - Pallin Pass - Mt Talaterang - Talaterang Creek and returned the same route. We camped under an overhang overlooking the Clyde River, Byangee Walls). The navigation of this route is definitely challenging! A number of the guys in our group came on the walk with the intention of learning the route so that they could come back again with other mates. The general consensus at the end of the walk was that this wouldn't be possible. While you can pick out quite a few sections of the track, there are enough "grey areas" that it would be easy to lose it. While good track finding skills are essential, it seems that a healthy dose of local knowledge doesn't go astray either! (We were fortunate, our walk leader has a lot of experience in the area, but even he lost the route at times). The walk includes a combination of open trails (only to the Mt Bushwalker lookout - the first couple of km's), rock platforms, hopping and scrambles (made a little dangerous on the weekend by the constant rain), footpads and scrub (hakea) bashing. A number of sections were quite overgrown compared to our leader's last venture in there at the same time last year. Don't think of going in there without gloves, long pants, long sleeves and ideally a hood or hat to protect your head.