Wollemi - North South Traverse

[Lotsafreshair]

A mate of mine is starting the 18 day trip to walk from the northern most part of the Wollemi NP, to the southern most part TODAY.

It's a small group (3) from the Sydney Bush Walkers Club and the Bush Club and it's been months (possibly years) in the planning.

You can follow their adventures here http://www.dingogap.net.au/navigation/o ... _main.html

[Allchin09]

Awesome, wish I was there! I'll have to venture that way one day.

[juxtaposer]

Starting with what looks like will be a full traverse of the Monundilla Range. That is gutsy.

[juxtaposer]

They'll be sweatin like pigs right now. That's if they can find enough water up there.

[Lotsafreshair]

They're on schedule and making the planned campsites (or close to them each night). By a creek Wed, high camp last night... You're right though they will be sweaty Betty up there.

[juxtaposer]

They'll be right if they go up Blackwater Creek. Beautiful in there.

[Explorer_Sam]

Is it all on-track, or some off-track, or all off-track?

[Strider]

They'll be right if they go up Blackwater Creek. Beautiful in there.

Hope they remember to take a paddle!

[Lotsafreshair]

Is it all on-track, or some off-track, or all off-track?

All off track as far as I'm aware.

They're currently a day ahead of schedule - all going well!

[Explorer_Sam]

Sounds like fun! You can keep us updated, expedition style!

[tom_brennan]

Is it all on-track, or some off-track, or all off-track?

Mostly off track.

There's some long sections of fire trail along
- the Kekeelbons (18km?) (west of the Hunter Main Range)
- the Wollemi Range to Gospers Mtn (20km?)

After that here's some overgrown trails south of Gospers (useless in places), they'll cross the fire trail on the Wolgan River, and then another overgrown trail from Mt Cameron (again, sometimes it's better off the track than on it)

Towards the end there are some fire trails, but if they're trying to stay in Wollemi, they won't be able to follow them for more than a few kms.

[juxtaposer]

Mostly "soft" options since the Hunter Range. More challenging through the Wollangambe section, although I find the idea of dodging the Blue Mountians/Wollemi Park boundary rather contrived.

[juxtaposer]

A really awesome walk and acheivement. It was interesting to follow the route as it played out.

[Lotsafreshair]

The guys finished up as planned yesterday... The first shower was apparently the best ever.

Now we await the stories, pics, downloads etc...

Well done to all, including support crew and family n friends.

[micmar22]

I just stumbled across what I assume is your friends book the other day.
So that got me looking at my old topo maps in order to digitise a north south traverse I did with my brother starting in week 37 (September) 2000.
We started off at Bylong Valley Rd on the eastern side of the Baerami Creek Rd and finished at Mount Irvine.
The whole trip took us about 3 weeks to complete with 2 food drops placed 2 and 1 week before our start.
First food drop was buried at Mount Monundilla and the second on the fire trail less than a km from Mount Wirraba.
We stayed almost completely on the connecting ridges by carrying multiple days water in order to avoid the ups and downs.
They have done a great job documenting their trip, and I must buy the book.
All I have are some scanned film photos and pencil lines on old 25k topo maps.
All this has got me to mapping out our route on Gaia Maps after all these years. I have our route pretty much complete now and am just trying to work out where we crossed the Colo. I'm pretty sure that we came down on the Girribung Creek junction. The Wollangambe crossing is a bit more sketchy as to the exact ridge down and up, somewhere between the Nayook Creek and Bowens Creek junctions
Anyhow if you are interested I will post a kml file of our route.
Would love to hear from you.

[Allchin09]

Hey Mic,

Sounds like a great adventure! I spent 12 days walking solo from Mt Wilson to the Putty Road around Mount Wirraba. I'll have to do the northing half another time

Would be great to see your route. I climbed out of the Colo via Girribung Creek.

[juxtaposer]

I note an account of a more recent epic walk like this in the latest Wild magazine, by Ben Artup.

[Allchin09]

I recall going to a talk by Ben Artup, I thought it was talking about attempts to recreate the early epic Grose walks from Blue Gum to Penrith, but I could be getting it mixed up.

I might have to track down a copy of the magazine. Article on Kybeyan also seems interested.

https://wild.com.au/news/opening-spreads-from-wild-195/