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