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

Cruise to Fiji and New Caledonia

So last year for Christmas my fiancée surprised me with this:

Turns out she'd purchased us a cruise. Sailing with Royal Caribbean onboard the Explorer of the Seas. Now, a cruise would never be my choice for an adventure, being stuck on a boat with a group of strangers, however there were at least 4 stops, Lautoka in Fiji, Suava in Fiji, Nouméa in New Caledonia and Isle of Pines in New Caledonia. The rest of the days were at sea, which I would have been worried about but I actually thought it would be nice spending the time with my (at this point recently became) fiancée, also, because I was a huge fan of trivia finding out there was many sessions of trivia on the cruise I was excited.

Lautoka and Suva were swapped

And so the date finally came around, and we set sail!

We obviously instantly headed to the buffet for a good feed. Lucky, and to save you the wondering, no, there was no outbreak of Gastro. However at one point a real creepy old guy did cough all over the food however people saw him and reported it right away and the food was removed. However it continued to prove my point that certain people are filth. We had a restaurant dinner the first night and were excited to discover they were serving escargot. Which, if you don't know, is snails cooked in garlic butter. Sound gross? I'd always thought so too, but I'm a pretty adventurous eater and we were unable to try it on our Eurotrip while in France (I swear I'll write about it one day!) so we'd had to travel to Darling Harbour in Sydney and try it at a French restaurant called The Little Snail which I took the dive an ate first to find... THEY'RE DELICIOUS! We have since been back to the restaurant a few times and the food is always amazing. But back to the cruise! So I skipped ahead to dinner, but long before that and after our lunch at the buffet we explored the ship stopping in at the Schooner Bar and getting the cocktail of the day (which we got whatever it was every day).

Schooner Bar

So we soon, during trivia events (of which there was usually morning trivia, battle of the sexes trivia, afternoon trivia and music trivia) learned about our hosts. Paul Poppe, Gustavo, Johnny Cash, Jessie and the lady we referred to as "The Aussie One", which was our least favourite. Gustavo was Mexican, and was fun, feminine and we thought he was awesome, Jessie, Johnny Cash and Paul Poppe were all American I found myself doing a great impression of Paul Poppe that apparently sounded completely accurate in which I quoted him "Hi I'm Paul Poppe and I'm from Miiiiamiiii Floriiidaaa!" He was our favourite. I questioned bringing them up and talking about these people because they are real people. However Gustavo and Jessie didn't give last names, Johnny Cash's was obviously fake and Paul Poppe had stated he did theatre and dreamed of being an actor so being called out on some random Australians travel/hiking/adventure blog that isn't read would hardly phase him I think. We won the trivia a couple of times and came close second or third a lot which we thought was pretty good considering you could be in a team of up to 6 and we always did it just the 2 of us. People started getting real competitive by the end and more and more people started coming to them. The battle of the sexes started ok, but as it always does it reverted and became very petty. The room was meant to be divided but my fiancée ended up sitting over with the men and complaining that the women where particularly obnoxious, she also complained saying that Jessie, the female trivia host for that battle tried to make it easier for them. As the men started to take the lead towards the end of the cruise the women began to get angry and actually complained to Jessie the host who then decided to change the rules. As it was if you answered it right, you got the next question and it continued that way, until you got it wrong then the other side got a chance, however if they got it wrong too you would continue. The women had no problem with this until the men started getting them all right and they couldn't get a shoe-in. So the very final day of it the rules changed to be each team gets a question and if wrong the other team got a chance to answer it, so everyone got a question turn per turn causing the women to jump ahead, and win the entire game and gloat, causing my fiancée to actually be really shitty and annoyed more so then the men who really didn't seem to care.

Now I'm a huge Batman fan, and during one trivia hosted by our favourite Paul Poppe (who it turns out was apparently a super geek like myself) we got the question "Batman is Bruce Wayne, who is Robin" causing me to yell out "Which Robin?" because multiple people have been Robin. To which he says to the captive audience "Ladies and Gentlemen you have our Batman nerd!" Insisting he was too and that we'd have to talk after the trivia. When reading out the answers he asked who else I put besides the obvious 'Dick Greyson' I replied, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Damian Wayne and 'some chick" which I had actually wrote because I couldn't remember the name of Carrie Kelley. He laughed and repeated "some chick" I turned to my fiancée and said "Some chick WAS Robin, it was in The Dark Knight Returns, I can't remember her name." I never ended up going and talking to him because I'm naturally a socially anxious person despite my fiancée insisting because she wanted me to make friends with him, she insisted this the entire time causing me to be super awkward around him. But I'll bring that up later.

Our first stop was Lautoka. The one place we had prepaid in order to do a tour to a Fijian village with a thermal mudpool and try Kava also known as Yaqona. Our first stop off the ship we took a photo to show the size of it before catching a bus to what I believe was Sabeto to the thermal mud pool.

As we took the bus out a local Fijian Lady filled us in on Fijian history and culture explaining what side of the head you wear your flower indicates whether you are taken or single. We then selected someone from the bus to stand in a chief, for the Kava ceremony. As we continued to drive the rain began to fall heavily. So as we arrived we had to run from the bus under the shelter as wait for the ceremony. Kava itself actually didn't taste too bad, I didn't get too much of an effect from it myself but my fiancée felt really relaxed. We couldn't go properly into the mud pool because of the rain so as it slowed down we instead covered ourselves with the mineral rich mud and let it dry. As we were pretty much half naked for this, and both being self-conscious we took no photos instead we tried to focus on the experience. After walking around the village covered in the mud we then washed off it the thermal pool.

The next day our stop was Suva. Which, if I'm going to be completely honest was a fucking shithole. I don't know if it was alright for people who payed for a tour maybe, but it was just a crowded city of people hassling you and trying to sell you overpriced shit, think the streets of Kuta in Bali but 1000 times worse. We then had an old Fijian man bump into us and start talking and not wanting to be rude we talked back. He explained he was with the Suva council even showing some ID and saying he lived in Australia years ago and he was very nice, however weird as the entire time he held what looked like a tea towel in one hand, he then proceeded to say he new the best places to shop and kept taking us around to overpriced very expensive stores and we struggled to find a way to get away from him, hiding out in one for a while looking around hoping he'd have left and he was always there waiting to take us to the next one. I eventually said to my fiancée my plan to get away from him, so as we left from maybe the 4th shop I said we had to go as we were meeting friends who were leaving the ship, he then said he'd take us back to it... but that wasn't where we wanted to go, we just wanted to get away and explore on our own. So I said "Oh we're not meeting them back at the ship it's alright we'll find them." Hoping that would be it. He then proceeds to say because he helped us (by dragging us all over the fucking place to the most overpriced tourist trap shops) that we should help him (ie, give him some fucking money). I just told him we didn't have anything and we left. If you ever meet that guy, just fucking avoid him. We explored Suva for a bit and decided it was shit and we were sick of being hassled to we went back on the ship. That night during trivia, even Paul Poppe said he had no idea Suva was like that and that he walked past a movie theatre and was tempted to just go watch something, which, we walked past the same one and suggested the same idea. I would honestly (if I didn't have a tour book) if I was on a cruise again that stopped at Suva, stay on the ship.

Our next stop was Nouméa and after Suva, we weren't particularly looking forward to it, given many people had told us it wasn't great. But the lady who sold my fiancée the cruise informed her of a place called Lemon Bay or Baie des citrons. We paid for a hop on hop off bus and took our snorkeling gear and we were not disappointed. The was a reef just off the beach and once I got over my ungodly fear of Sharks it was amazing, the shops just across from it were really lovely too, I could holiday in that one spot and love it. Although I was frightened at one point by either a sea snake swimming past and touching my head, or an eel that looked exactly like one.

We then took the bus to the other side of the island (having already snorkeled there for hours on end, we snorkeled a bit here but it was mostly just a beach (although a lovely one) however we did find this guy there waiting for us.

The next day, having our spirits lifted by the joy that was Nouméa, we got up bright and early to be the first ones across to the Isle of Pines (which we had heard by everyone was the best). Upon arrival we were given a floral headband.

 However, the snorkeling wasn't great there, a lot had been bleached or destroyed and as the day progressed it got incredibly packed almost feeling like being at Bondi beach, albeit nicer.

We tried around this little island, and although there were fish, I think we were disheartened after how amazing Nouméa had been. Maybe it was the hype, and Nouméa had been talked down, but once people arrived on Isle of Pines so much sand was kicked up there was zero visibility. We decided to abandon snorkeling and just explore the island because numerous food and drink stalls had been set up by locals. One of the stalls gave us a free meal called a Bougna which is a cultural dish made with taro, yam, sweet potato, banana and a meat, it was delicious. We also made friends with some of the wild dogs of the island, at least we assumed they were wild. We also bought a lovely fresh fruit of a lady who no one was buying from. It was like a custard-apple but I think a different variety then we get in Australia because it was actually sweet and very delicious. We also paid and got a coconut to drink (I've never actually been a fan of coconut water but this one was actually very delicious) the man we bought it from the opened it with a machete so we could scoop and eat the inside of the coconut. We then went to the other side of the island where less people were and just swam around in the beach with the ship out in the background. 

After this we were back on the ship, knowing our relaxing adventures of trivia, islands, swimming pools, buffets, drinking and the other entertainment had almost come to an end. So I guess I can say now if you read for the island you can stop reading as I will simply tell a few more stories that happened on board the Explorer of the Seas.

So there were a few shows, a magician (who did a good job) and absolutely awful comedian and a hypnotist. Now, I've always wanted to be hypnotised. Why? It intrigues me and I'm unsure if I believe its real. So knowing there was going to be a show I arrived super early to the very front seat to make sure I could be chosen. However as soon as he came on he started making threats essentially. "If you don't believe it wont work on you it won't!" he said, "So don't bother coming up you're only wasting my time and everyone else's!" He was very abrasive about it, putting doubt in my head, which, was evidently a ploy and a guilt trip to stop people going up and if they did to make them feel like shit if it didn't work that they were wasting time so that they'd just go along with it. But before he'd even called people up so many people in the front row had jumped up and taken chairs, so I believed they were planted. As the woman sitting next to me, at the very front said she was there because she could barely see, yet she was one of the first people to jump up and grab a chair before he'd said it. He had also been spitting while talking into the microphone so my fiancée and I just stood up and walked out and didn't even waste our time watching the show.

A few other things we did that they had on the cruise was ice skate, rock climb, shoot hoops, play Mario Kart, a shooting game and air hockey in the arcade, mini golf, and I tried the flow rider surfing thing. I can't skateboard or surf, needless to say I sucked. However one day out by the pool Paul Poppe showed up to host a bean bag throwing competition. My fiancée begged me to be in it to talk to Paul, and so I went up and signed up. While talking to him and saying my name was Steven he said to me "My middle name is Steven" to which, in my unholy horror and supreme levels of awkardness replied "Mine's James". Clarifying to everyone that I'm surely on the spectrum.

Needless to say I actually did alright at it, but eventually psyched myself out by doing too well and missed the board completely on my last 2 throws.

And so we arrived back in Sydney, I never did have a proper conversation with Paul, however the fiancée did try to add him on facebook. She got worse that a decline. She got ignored. And after being home we had a solid two weeks of laughing at my Paul impression and quoting Johnny Cash's "Money, Money, Money, Moneyyyyyy!" that he did over the speakers to get you to play bingo.

My fiancée will be my Wife in under 2 months time and we'll have a adventurous honeymoon in Bali, and although I've already posted a Bali blog. I may indeed write a whole new one.

If you have enjoyed this post, or my blog in general, please follow it, or like my page on facebook or follow me on Instagram. 

Thanks for reading! - Steven

Sublime Point

So today my friend Weekse and I went and did the Sublime Point walk at the Illawarra Escarpment west of Austinmer. This was our second time doing the walk together (my third). Our first time doing the walk took a rather dramatic turn as it began to pour with rain as we reached the bottom (it's all downhill and then straight back up) and so we found ourselves walking up was was basically becoming a waterfall while be swarmed by hundreds of leeches constantly. However today with nice weather there were no leeches.

Your first view is a beautiful lookout over the Illawarra.

However the first time we did this walk that lookout was like looking into oblivion. Just thick white fog, we couldn't even see a few feet in front of us.

The walk is a steep one, very shortly beginning a decent down ladders and then becoming stairs the whole way down. While seeming a relatively easy walk down, the walk back up begins to burn in the legs instantly, and so while not a long walk time or distant-wise it is one I'd recommend a decent fitness level for.

Continuing down you will come to a junction in which you can continue straight on down to a road (where Myself and Weekse had previously taken a reprieve to try and pulls hundreds of leeches off of us before trudging up the waterfall like stairs whilst being once again attacked by swarms), not too far from there, ending the Sublime Point walk. At which point you can turn around and walk directly up the god-forsaken steps of death, or take the alternate path out seeing where it goes as we decided to do before heading back up.

This walk is relatively flat, but after walking for a while takes you to another junction. However one of these paths was closed of so we continued on straight before coming to a big empty field. There appeared to be two separate paths here, neither saying how long they went on for, or how long they would take. So instead of blinding following paths to god knows where we headed back and proceeded to climb back up to the top.

It was towards the top on our way back we saw the most interesting things of the walk. A Lyrebird, and something even more fitting of the terrible place that is the Illawarra; a garbage bin in a tree.

So while not the most outstanding walk, if you're looking for something not relatively long, but something to still get the heart racing and maybe get your fitness up, this would be the walk. Though there are still more walks up the top where the Sublime Point Lookout is, I will do them one day and post them up. Who knows I might even be lucky enough to see the fabled 'Black Panther'. Although I highly doubt it.

More information on Illawarra Black Panther:
http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/2837299/illawarra-panther-leaves-sisters-terror-stricken/
http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/2135590/is-there-a-big-black-cat-on-the-illawarra-escarpment/
http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/2867419/illawarra-panther-picture-provokes-photo-frenzy-photos/
http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/2847069/does-a-panther-prowl-the-illawarra-escarpment/
http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/2665414/big-black-cat-spotted-on-austinmer-bush-track/photos/


If you have enjoyed this post, or my blog in general, please follow it, or like my page on facebook or follow me on Instagram.
Thanks for reading! - Steven