K2M - Will the real Mittagong please stand up?

[Bushman_Craig]

Back in 2014 I did the Katoomba to Mittagong (K2M), except that it was actually a Katoomba to Wattle Ridge NPWS Car Park (K2WRNPWSCP). We had planned to stomp down Wattle Ridge Road to Hilltop, then follow the old Loopline Railway into Mittagong, which is a much nicer walk than it sounds. From the Golf club to the Mittagong railway station is an easy 10 minute walk. Despite all good intentions, the lure of cold beer and lukewarm pizza was too great so we all bailed out at Wattle Ridge and got a lift into Mittagong.

When I did the K2M in 1988 as a whippersnapper we went all the way down the Nattai and popped out at Lake Alexandra in Mittagong to brass bands playing, thunderous applause, flashbulbs popping and microphones shoved in our faces... OK, so my recollections may be a little skewed...

Does everybody just bail out at Wattle Ridge or do some hardy souls brave the upper Nattai? I have heard that it's a bit of a nightmare these days. Does anyone have any recent experience of the section of the Nattai between say Rocky Waterholes Creek and the Nattai Creek Junction below Mt Alexandra in Mittagong?

I'm doing the K2M again in April 2017 as a "trad" walk and the idea of coming out at Mittagong rather than Wattle Ridge Car Park is appealing.

[rcaffin]

We came out in Mittagong, at a Sports Oval or something similar. Took the bus back to S - it was an hour late turning up due to breakdown. Worry. Then we were sick (really really sick) for 24 hrs due to inadequate treatment of the Nattai water. We later found out it drained the Mittagong STP. Just DON'T drink it at all.
Cheers
Roger

[Grabeach]

....inadequate treatment of the Nattai water. We later found out it drained the Mittagong STP.

Considering the SCA long ago banished cyclists from formed roads up on the plateaus in the name of improved water quality, one would have thought fixing the STP would have been a no-brainer.

[Bushman_Craig]

....inadequate treatment of the Nattai water. We later found out it drained the Mittagong STP.

Considering the SCA long ago banished cyclists from formed roads up on the plateaus in the name of improved water quality, one would have thought fixing the STP would have been a no-brainer.

Now we're getting into my pet hate territory...

There's a particular traditional (Myles Dunphy and the Mountain Trails Club circa 1914) route and campground I want to experience but unfortunately a mere 8km of this particular route falls within the [cue: overdramatic music] "Forbidden Zone". I've been told to go to the SCA and apply for a permit to access the area but unless it's a formal historical research trip then such a request is sure to be stamped with a big fat NO in red texta angrily underlined three times with a little tear in the paper at the end of the last underline. Of course, that's just me imagining things. Maybe I'll just ask them and see for sure how much it will cost (SCA chaperone's wages) and what other hoops we'd have to jump through like pooing into a ziplock bag or having to wear wool socks over our boots so as not to disturb the dust on the firetrails which may wash down through the catchment and silt up the big dam...

People can cop massive fines just for walking through these areas which are replete with old roads and fire trails. Yet every time I flush the toilet down here in the Southern Highlands, it ends up (after treatment of course) washing down the Nattai and into Lake Burragorang, then into the taps of Sydneyfolk. The same thing happens with treated sewerage from Lithgow which is flushed down the Cox's and into the morning coffee of folks in the city. If that's acceptable, why then isn't LNT bushwalking and MTBing? Properly regulated - even by a permit system, these activities would have far less impact on the catchment and the water supply than the treated sewage and stormwater currently does.

Maybe one day...

[ribuck]

Properly regulated - even by a permit system, these activities would have far less impact on the catchment and the water supply than the treated sewage and stormwater currently does.

A permit doesn't make anything safer; it just makes jobs for bureaucrats.

Lots of water supply dams have public access (e.g. Tallowa Dam). Humans on foot are one of the least harmful things in the modern world, and I'd be happy to see the exclusion zone abolished.

[Bushman_Craig]

A permit doesn't make anything safer; it just makes jobs for bureaucrats.

A permit system would make risk-averse bureaucrats, their legal staff and their parliamentary overlords feel more in control, whilst still permitting (pardon the pun) bushwalkers to access these areas.

There's no way they will ever abolish the [cue: overdramatic music] "Forbidden Zones" as long as Sydney's water supply directly relies upon these catchments. I can just about guarantee you they are worried about everything from terrorist attacks on the water supply to blue-green algae and all of the other things a bureaucrat sits down and obsesses over when paid and directed to do so by a paranoid state government apparatus.

I think a permit system would be the only solution to our Forbidden Zone access problem which would be acceptable to all parties.

But yeah, you're right. A permit system wouldn't make anything safer on the ground.

[Bushman_Craig]

In case anyone is interested in the current [cue: overdramatic music] "Forbidden Zones", the latest SCA map is here - http://www.waternsw.com.au/__data/asset ... 2016-2.pdf

[Grabeach]

I wonder how many here remember that it was the SCA's originally intention to keep walkers out of the Restricted Access (yellow) Area as well as the current No Entry (red) Area. Mt Solitary, and even the Ruined Castle, would have been off limits.

[Bushman_Craig]

The SCA/WaterNSW/CatchmentGestapo/whatever website specifically states

Entry to Schedule One Special Areas and Controlled Areas purely for recreation or tourism, such as motorcycling, four wheel driving, camping, bushwalking, cycling or horseriding, or for organised or group recreational events, is prohibited.

(http://www.waternsw.com.au/water-qualit ... her-access)

And yet, every time I or someone in Lithgow flushes the toilet...

There are provisions for non-commercial arts/media access which I may be able to invoke, but the amount of hoops through which one has to jump just to walk 8km along a formed fire trail from one national park to another in the footsteps of some of our earliest bushwalking pioneers (Mountain Trails Club, Sydney Bushwalkers, etc.) makes it almost not worth the effort. I'll revisit the idea in a few days and see how I feel.

Crazy stuff.

[ribuck]

I wonder how many here remember that it was the SCA's originally intention to keep walkers out of the Restricted Access (yellow) Area as well as the current No Entry (red) Area. Mt Solitary, and even the Ruined Castle, would have been off limits.

Yes, I'm old enough to remember the sign on the Federal Pass track to Ruined Castle. It was a bit ambiguous as to what was prohibited, but it was threateningly worded and had a chilling effect on visitation to Ruined Castle.

There are provisions for non-commercial arts/media access which I may be able to invoke...

You can play the cultural/historic card provided you are doing something in addition to just walking it. Perhaps you can tie it in with an anniversary of something, or arrange with a local newspaper to contribute an article about it to some relevant feature that they are running.

I remember Wilf Hilder once got permission to enter the forbidden zone. I forget the reason but it may have been for a commemoration. The Water Board (as I think it was then) even gave him a ride in their truck from Yerranderie to Picton "the direct way" and he described with great enthusiasm how part of the route was along the shore of the forbidden water.

[Grabeach]

Bushman_Craig, perhaps you should get in touch with Alex (Alchin09) re the Dunphy Kowmung Adventure on the centenary of Dunphy / Gallop’s 1914 epic. This went through the No Entry area with the SCA’s blessing. I am unaware of permission being given for any other bushwalk. Perhaps if you are still around for the bicentenary .....

ribuck, I'm surprised Wilf actually ever obtained permission. He and a few others of that era seemed to be able to wander with impunity into the 3km zone. I've heard (and supported by my one experience) that when it was the Water Board, the rangers weren't too worried about walkers passing through as long as they didn't do anything stupid like light a fire. Catchments were just one relatively benign part of the whole system. The creation of the SCA, however, means there is now a group of people whose be all and end all is defending the catchments, hence a less reasonable attitude.

[ribuck]

ribuck, I'm surprised Wilf actually ever obtained permission. He and a few others of that era seemed to be able to wander with impunity into the 3km zone.

Oh, I'm sure Wilf ventured into the 3km zone on many other occasions, without permission. The time he got permission was for the W4 road, which is not really practical to wander with impunity.

For a few years there was some kind of "gentlemans agreement" that the Water Board would not prosecute members of responsible bushwalking clubs, but when this became publicly known they had to abandon that policy.

[Hughmac]

Have done the Emmet's Flat to Mittagong part of the walk a couple of times over recent years. It is doable, but much of it is badly overgrown, with blackberry and a native called Hymenanthra (covered in thorns) taking a lot of the fun out of it. There is also no clearly defined track through it, and finding practical crossing points for the Nattai can be problematic when you get 'cragged out' as an English friend of mine calls it. Did the walk from Katoomba a couple of years ago, but we chose to do Katoomba to Kanangra then on to Starlights via Yerranderie, rather than the traditional slog along Scott's Main Range to Yerranderie and then along the Nattai to Mittagong. Was a much more enjoyable option. (With acknowledgement to David Noble, whose notes detailing the same walk in the opposite direction led to our choice.)