Monolith Valley

So the year has flown by and I haven't done anywhere near as much travel or adventures as I would have liked, but many things have been going on in my life. As I mentioned in my last blog post I took part in the Refugee Challenge by 'Act for Peace' which really took its toll on me. I lost four kilograms in a week and took part while still going to work, worse than the weight lose I really felt a drop in my mental state which I'm just starting to feel better from (although the warm weather could be helping too).

So feeling like getting back into it I called my Dad to organise our next adventure, Monolith Valley, a walk we wanted to do after our hike of 'The Castle' in which we wanted to take the alternate turn off to Monolith Valley. We organised a date and set off down the coast.

So we headed inwards from Milton along the dirt roads, out past Pigeon House Mountain, through Yadboro Flat where the cows were wandering around the campsite freely, and on to Long Gully where we set up camp.

Dad getting the tent ready

While setting up camp we were visited by a very friendly bird who didn't mind coming right up close to us watching what we were doing.

We soon began our camping ritual... which involved drinking. So we quenched our thirst with two pints of beer each, before cracking open our Berry bottle of Little Fat Lamb.

We began to hear a large buzzing sound while we were drinking. Wondering what it was Dad suggested a large group of bees, while I suggested someone up in The Castle/Monolith Valley car park flying a drone. We decided to walk over and investigate, which is when we met a physio from Gerringong. He was waiting on two mates from Canberra to rock up so we could hike up to the Castle that night. My Dad couldn't believe they were planning to do it when it was so close to dusk. I noticed he'd put up a slackline, to which we was super enthusiastic telling Dad and I to have a go. My Dad didn't know what it was and I had to explain it to him, having done it quite often in 2017 when I was really into my fitness and going to Dynamite Bouldering Gym in Wollongong. Dad instantly struggled, and I found it difficult too being out of practice. I tried again determined to walk it but ended up flying off and hitting the dirt with a loud thud, a cloud of dust and rolled along the ground in a fit of laughter why they both checked that I was ok.
"Probably not the best thing to be trying after drinking" I said, brushing the dirt off.
Soon his mates from Canberra arrived and we let them get ready and head on their own adventure while we returned to our campsite. My Dad still going on about he couldn't believe anyone would go at night as it's so easy to lose the path as it is.

Soon the sun set, and we lit our fire as we cracked open another pint and began cooking dinner.

That night we were again visited by my friend the Possum who visited us the last two times we were there.

We drank into the night until it was time for bed, where unlike last time  there was no howling gale of wind keeping me up, only Dad's snoring keeping me awake all night.

Morning came and we packed our camping gear away and set off.

The start of the walk wasn't as hard as I had anticipated as it'd been over 4 months since I had done any exercise (besides working a physical job), while last time we went I had been jogging, doing push ups, sit ups, chin ups, bike riding and swimming. However as we started going uphill I got hot very fast and as it was freezing I had worn my jumper which I soon took off.

We saw more wildlife this time, passing 3 Lyrebirds (all of which ran off too fast for a picture) and saw at least two Wallabies.

Working in Bush Regeneration currently I kept looking at plants I didn't know or found interesting along the way as I had done this walk before twice now so I found myself taking in new things I hadn't noticed my previous times here.

We soon reached the base of the Castle after about an hour of walking up hill where the trail becomes smaller, and involves much more scrambling.

Walking up to the base

Looking over the Bush from the Base

We continued the walk which is mostly detailed in my Castle post, which you can read here to stop me having to rehash it all.

However we not too long after the base ran into the 3 guys from the night before who'd camped on top coming down. They said they'd had a good time and got there fine and had a great view of the eclipse that had occurred early that morning (which we had missed). We said our farewells and continued hiking the trail until we reached the branch in our destination.

Excited to finally reach a new area of the walk, we took a left turn this time and headed off through the slightly overgrown path towards Monolith Valley, continuing the arduous uphill walk.

It wasn't too long a walk before we reached our first sign post.

Deciding to extend our walk we decided we'd better head downhill to Coyoyo Creek even though we knew it was going to be additional effort walking back uphill.

Boulder to the right of the sign post

We the walk down started to flatten out we noticed a toilet block, looking pretty newly constructed which we were shocked to see and we stopped for a little to have a quick snack before exploring around Coyoyo Creek which seemed like it was a point for people doing various hikes in the area to camp around.

Continuing past the spot featured above the area opens up on a cliff face over looking the whole valley on the other side of the Castle.

Coyoyo Creek Lookout, Pigeon House on the right in background

Jumper back on after stopping, instantly freezing

We continued to explore around, finding a trail leading down to what I suppose was meant to be 'Coyoyo Creek'

Guess some people would rather sleep under a rock

Standing in the dried up Creek

We soon headed back up where we both instantly started having horrendous leg cramps, realising that we truly were both a bit out of shape (I have no excuse, my Dad however was 64, 65 in exactly a weeks time).

On the way up I couldn't help snap this photo of a tree with markings that resembled a face!

I am Groot?

We reached the signpost, sore and tired but pressed onwards to Monolith Valley.

We continued our way around, soon walking past a group of 3 who'd gotten lost and taken the wrong path. They reached this area:

and instead of going across they followed that path right, leading around in a circle, whilst Dad and I investigated both paths to take before noticing a stack of rocks (known by some as Cairns) that denote the way.

We soon spotted a sign in the distance walking up close we saw that Monolith Valley was close by.

We continued up past the sign climbing up a bit (that really strained my muscles by this time of the hike). On top the path continued on again, for what probably wasn't a huge amount of time, but felt like it to my legs.

We soon bumped into 3 older males and began talking as they had camped at Long Gully with us (the only other people there) and had left very early in the morning so had done the Castle (The same day) before heading to Monolith Valley and also passed the 3 guys we'd met from the night before.

We then climbed up a little section.

Which again was nothing compared to the climbing to get up the Castle, and sure felt better than climbing frayed rope in a howling gale. After this point you are pretty much at the top, and you can see the fantastic rock formations all the way to a clearing.

We stopped and enjoyed our last bits of food, while Dad didn't want to go any further I said I wanted to investigate and see if any more came after this and there was really no clear indication that this was 'Monolith Valley' so after eating I ran off, quickly down a path just to suss out if it was worth continuing ahead as we said we wanted to head back no later than 2pm and it was already 1:10pm.

Soon it was clear that from that point on it was truly the road less traveled.

I ran down the path through the bush pushing onwards to see what was ahead, past some caves before coming to a clearing again with yet another knocked over sign, unsure of which way was which.

I just continued on past this sign running for another 5 minutes before I decided the whole area was probably Monolith Valley, and these extra walks were to other mountains to climb, such as Mt Owen, Mt Cole, Shrouded Gods, Seven Gods Pinnacle and 'Natural Arch'. Knowing we didn't have the time, or equipment I ran back to bump into the 3 people we had previously encountered lost and my Dad, coming down the trial.

"Good luck." I said before explaining that it just leads to other mountains. They decided to walk down a bit further themselves before shortly coming back and heading home while Dad and I rested at the clearing still admiring the rock formations.

We too soon headed home, overtaking them we relentlessly walked, legs and feet killing we didn't stop or slow until we had reached Dads van to head home.

The walk was great, beautiful. But left me frustrated as my spirit of adventure leaves me determined to one day make it to the top of all those other mountains. But I guess it's better to be determined rather than apathetic. I have also been inspired lately to get back into film. Which was an old passion of mine that I had abandoned more than 6 years ago, so I'm trying to convince friends to get into doing that again. In the mean time however I'll try and be a bit more active, get back out into nature and have some adventures.

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Thanks for reading! - Steven

The Castle

So ever since I was a kid I had heard my Dad talk about The Castle, a mountain in the Budawang Ranges in Morton National Park. I have walked Pigeon House many times but The Castle walk sounded so grandious that it's always been a walk I planned to do.
Finally this year (July 30 2017) my Dad and I went away camping down into Morton and stayed at Long Gully to hike The Castle.
I was feeling like absolute shit (having been at my fiancée's work party and well over-drinking), however I made us up a nice fire for the night as we settled in, eager for our hike the following morning.

During the night as we sat around the camp fire and talked, mostly my Dad telling the story of how he had done The Castle before with Hash (Hash House Harriers) in the pouring rain and how they never made it to the top but the sights were incredible. As we talked we heard noises from the bush to realise we were being watched by two Brush Tail Possums, who soon came closer to our camp and were quite friendly. Enough so that I was able to feed and eventually pat them. 

However, I don't recommend letting them get too close as soon they were on our table trying to get too our food and one ended up chewing on the end of my finger thinking I had food in my hand.

That night the wind was howling, it was like a fighter pilot was taking off over our head all night. It was just the noise raging above us as the tent was not hit by much wind. The next morning, after not much sleep, we packed and began our walk.

After you follow the path for a little bit you soon come to a creek and have to look for the way to go as there is one sign post here, but well hidden and no more from this point on.

Photo (of my Dad) taken on the way back

You walk through a rainforest like area filled with cabbage palms for a while before the track begins to go up hill entering drier bushland. 

Termite Mound. A staple of every Aussie Bushwalk

It goes up and down a few times leading you to the base of the mountain, at this point the walk begins to be all up hill. Along this point, and just before you get to an incline (with some chains along the side to help you up it), we came across a little Lizard.

Just up this point you have a spectacular view already of the gully and Pigeon House Mountain in the distance to your left.

You begin heading left walking around the mountain and see many caves and Honeycomb rocks.

The walking track is quite easy from here, there are moments of uphill and climbing up little ledges but further along there is a decent amount of scrambling up and over and down big rocks, so if you're not confident climbing and scrambling this hike is not for you.

It continues on like this, climbing up ledges and trying to navigate the way, although there are arrows scratched onto rocks and trees along the way they can sometimes be hard to locate, so another system of finding the right way is looking for the knots tied into the plants by, who, I don't know, but Dad dubbed them "The Phantom Knotter."

You will eventually get to a pretty cave which Dad had told me that while walking with Hash in the pouring rain he found people huddled up camping in this cave out of the rain, and judging by all the fire places along there it must be a pretty popular spot.

Eventually you find yourself going up, not so much stairs, but wooden planks layering the soil so it's essentially stairs, there will also be some small wooden bollards along here too, while walking this I realised the back of my heel was getting rubbed raw from wearing old joggers that had worn down.

So I stuffed the back of my shoe with tissues and continued walking. You soon get to a cross roads where you can turn left to Monolith Valley (a walk I will have to do sometime) and right which takes you to The Castle.

Not far from here you reach a section called "The Tadpole Tail". I have no idea why, but you have to scramble over some rocks, squeeze through a cave and then crawl through the next bit.

You'll come out the other side and find yourself having to climb down a rope. 

Again you'll find yourself in the bush, no clear path so you can try to find your way, you'll have to go down and head right and as you walk along you'll come to a little shelter we dubbed "Licorice Rock" as we bumped into a couple here eating Licorice and it is a nice spot to have a little rest and eat. We stopped to take Dads insoles or 'gel pads' out of his joggers so I could place them at the back of my heel to stop the rubbing.

After this there is a lot more rope climbing, scrambling and from here on out I'm sure a lot of people would stop and not make it too the top as some of it is pretty hairy. Along this bit we bumped into 3 females who were lost and couldn't find the way to go, we found out they were professional rock climbers and we began to all make out we too the top.

Just after this there are some even steeper climbs and on the day it was absolutely howling with wind. We were exhausted and sore and we sure as hell didn't feel safe up in that gale, it was the sort of wind that blows you around on an average day just walking along the street, so being up that mountain we didn't feel comfortable and turned back while the rock climbers continued. However, disappointed we didn't make it to the top we went back and attempted again on the 15th of September 2017 (again camping at Long Gully and getting no sleep due to the wind). As we reached this point (the second time) we found a little had changed. The ropes looked a bit more worn and we found a lovely piece of it laying on the ground.

However the wind was on and off that day so when it'd died down we proceeded to continue the climb and make our way all the way to the top, hoping to sign our names into an apparent book that was on the top. I'd like to stop and just say how cool it is that my Dad (who is 64 years old) made it to the top.

Atop the Castle - Pigeon House/Didthul in the background

We found the plateau beautiful looking like something out of Arthur Conan Doyle's 'The Lost World'. We made a note of where we had ascended so we didn't get lost coming back, noting we'd come up right next to a little Xanthorrhoea (Grasstree). We proceeded to look around for the book to sign our names and complete our journey, however the apparent trails that were supposed to be there weren't, or were overgrown. We walked around the rim before we began to find piles of rocks which we realised were human made, we followed them assuming they would lead us to the book.

At one pile Dad stopped me, handing me a rock saying we should both put a rock on top. I looked down realising the one he was trying to hand me had a huge Huntsman Spider on it, when I told him he freaked and dropped it.

We both placed a rock on top and found they were all over the top but really only led to what looked like somones camp site. The wind then began picking up again and blowing an absolute gale, but we still spent an hour walking over the entire top, all around the outskirts and through overgrown scrub in the middle and were unable to find it. So I think it's safe to assume it's no longer there.

Panorama from the Top

We then tried to find our way down, even knowing what we were looking for we struggled. Eventually finding it we said we would get the heck down because the wind was that ferocious, there was just no rest to it. However climbing down we found ourselves terrified. One of the ropes is attached to a dead tree and in the wind the tree was moving and you could hear the roots pulling like it could snap at any time. It was definitely not safe and hopefully some new ropes will be put up and in a safer way. We eventually made it down having got to the top on our second attempt (even though the wind ended up worse than the first time we went). It truly is an adventure and an amazing hike. Hopefully I can go back soon and take the turn off to Monolith Valley and come back and post about it. The hike, including the hour walking around on top took us about 8 hours (although that was the second time, which was a cooler day and we stopped less on the walk up to look around and take photos or eat, also my foot was fine, so we powered through it). If you have a high level of fitness you might be able to do it faster, but it all depends on how much time you want to take (if you decide to attempt it!)

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Thanks for reading! - Steven