Barren Grounds - Kangaroo Ridge and Griffiths Loop Track

So after going for a morning walk with my friend Tristan and doing the Ken Ashburn Track on Mount Keira (1/2/21), I received the results of my bone marrow biopsy indicated their were still leukemia cells in my body.

This really effected me, upsetting me and ruining my positivity towards beating cancer. I tried to get myself back into a positive headspace and decided I want to do a massive walk to take my mind off it. I had started 2 blogs in between my previous walk at Barren Grounds, both that didn't get finished and a thus sitting as drafts until I go and complete the walks (I'll explain why they were unfinished when I write them). 

So I decided a return to Barren Grounds to do the Kangaroo Ridge Track (while also completing the Griffiths Loop Track) would be the walk for Dad and I to do, so we set off back up to Barren Grounds (3/2/21).

After arriving I began applying sunscreen in the car while my Dad talked to two ladies who had pulled up the same time as us, saying they were just going to do the Griffiths Loop Track. He told them the story of how he believed he had seen a Quoll here a few years ago.
I finished applying my sunscreen and we set off to begin our walk.

As we began my Dad commented that the path would likely be a bit flooded and wet, I commented that it should be fine, but shortly in he was proven right as we came upon sections of path still lightly coated in water.

It's not an Australian Bushwalk without a Termite Mount

In 900m we came to a turn to our left to the Illawarra Lookout, which again we had been to many times. I asked Dad if he wanted to quickly duck down. He offhandedly responded no, to which I quickly insisted it wasn't far and turned our direction towards the lookout.

To the right of the turn-off, Barren Grounds scrubland

We made our way towards the lookout passing the two ladies my Dad had spoken to in the carpark who were returning to the Griffiths Loop Track. The path opened up to an area with a small wooden picnic table and a little fence made to stop people getting too close to the edge. We looked out over the Illawarra, Jamberoo below us, Lake Illawarra, Warilla Beach and Windang Island all visible.

The view looks better when not through the lens of a phone camera

We returned to the loop track and made our way forward. Shortly after returning to the path my Dad received a call from his Wife (my step-mum) saying she had forgotten to take her lunch and had left it in the freezer, my Dad responded he thought it was for us and had packed it in the esky (which was sitting in the boot of my car). He began to tell her that the alcohol free beers she had packed for us to have when we finished actually contained alcohol (which I had pointed out to him at the car). She began to say it was trace amounts and I was being silly for not drinking it. I held my ground, saying I didn't want anything to risk not beating cancer. My Dad said it was 0.05% but I told him it was 0.5% so not much weaker than a light beer. He questioned if I was sure and I told him I was.

I commented on how beauty the landscape was, recalling how years ago the times I had done the walks I had thought they were a little boring, realising how I had grown up a bit through the years.

We soon came to a bit on our left that was almost swamp-like leading me to believe it was an area constantly filled with water and not just because of the recent consistent rain.

The path began to incline and the area around us become more dry, with the path also more rocky.

As the track continued to twist and turn it also continued up and down, with my Dad and I both commenting that we remembered the walk being very flat. Although none of the slight hills were particular arduous.

Soon the track entered a more covered forest area in which my phone camera either glitched and overly brightened each shot, or my screen had a thin layer of sweat over it because all the pictures I took look a bit misty.

The path begins to head down and you enter a rainforest area that you continue through for a while.

I had been waiting to come to this section with this fallen tree, as while doing this walk in 2014 with my girlfriend (now Wife) I had taken a photo that made it look like I was lifting it up, and I wanted to replicate the photo 9 years later, however it had obviously fallen completely and I was unable to replicate the photo as below the roots was a deep puddle of water.

From 2014

The path through the rainforest began to end as we once again began uphill.

The landscape opened up again overlooking the shrubby bushlands and continued on a slight incline until we noticed the viewing platform just popping up over the scrub.

I remembered the viewing platform looking different, and being in a different spot and so did Dad. I questioned whether this was a new one and if the old one was on the path heading towards Saddleback Trig, or if this was a new one in the area of the old one, or if we were just completely misremembering the whole thing. 
As we rounded the bend to the full view of the platform we noticed the two ladies sitting at a wooden bench across from it eating lunch. We walked up the platform for a nice view overlooking Barren Grounds and were happy for the cool breeze we felt while up there.

We had a drink and opened up some trail mix and decided to continue on, as we walked past the ladies they began to get ready to continue walking too.

The track surface became very rocky and the shrub land around us even more low lying. 

We were in the middle of talking when Dad told me he saw something on the path up ahead. I looked up but couldn't see anything, as we walked up we saw what he had seen close to the ground on our left. A little Echidna eating a bunch of ants.

Of course my Dad, character that he is, calls out back to the ladies to let them know about the Echidna. I would have kept walking, socialising as little as possible. He was almost going to stay standing there to point it out to them but I told him they would see it, and we continued walking.

We soon rounded a bend and came along to another sign marking directions and distances. I didn't properly read it, just quickly took a shot of it with my phone as too men were walking up the hill and getting close to the sign. 

They said good day, and talked about how it was a nice day for a walk. The two man carried big, heavy, expensive looking cameras and asked how much further it was to Saddleback Trig. I told them it wasn't far and that they would reach a lookout and the turn off to it would be on their right. My Dad talked to them a little, also letting them know about the Echidna, and we made our way down the hill, the steepest part of the walk so far. I commented to Dad "No wonder they were asking how long, after just having to walk up here". (To not be rude, but the two gentlemen were pretty heavy-set).

We continued down the rocky path, while I recounted stories of some of my adventures in Europe to him. The path down the trail was pretty sodden and we talked about how we had both been watching the survival show 'Alone' and discussed the contestants and survival in general.

I felt like the walk was completely different to what I remembered. Remembering a bit just up a hill where you can sort of overlook everything. But everything looked different than I recalled, even the path. Dad pointed out a rock on the ground with beautiful colours inside. I took a photo and placed it back where he found it.

The path continued down the entire time, and eventually we began to hear running water, to my complete confusion, when we came across a sign post...

We had completely missed the turn off to Kangaroo Ridge, having not even seen it as it was exactly where we had ran into the two men. We had now walked 1.6km in the wrong direction, which meant 1.6km back up hill. I felt completely bummed and a bit demoralized, deep down questioning if I could do that walk back up and then the rest of the walk to Kangaroo Ridge, still not back to my old fitness precancer. We decided to continue down the 20m to the running water to eat our lunch while I internally debated whether or not to bother walking back up to do the Kangaroo Ridge walk.

We sat and watched the dark running water (that looked like black tea) and ate our vegemite rolls.

Finally after shooing away a big fly that was pestering Dad and I, whilst looking forward at the easy way forward and short loop back to the car, I made the decision to work our way back up hill and do the Kangaroo Ridge walk.

Just 2km back to the carpark, so tempting

Shoo fly, don't bother me

Overjoyed to be backtracking...

After walking our way back to the turn off to Kangaroo Ridge, it was easy to see how we missed it while distracted by the two gentlemen, but it didn't help make us feel any less stupid and annoyed at adding an additional 3.4km onto our walk.

If my Dad was worried about how wet the rest of the walk was he must have been bothered now, as the walk was instantly squelchy, muddy, damp, and every step was wet to varying degrees. Not long into the walk my Dad told me his socks where already wet.

After a long walk through the sloshy wet terrain, the trees formed a barrier on either side reminding me of the first time I had done the walk with my girlfriend, we had been walking for hours (albeit at a pretty slow pace), and reached an almost tunnel bit of trees but got concerned about the time (having started the walk later in the day) and turned back. It wasn't till a few years later where I first went with Dad on Father's Day where I got to the end of the Kangaroo Ridge walk, to tell my (fiancée or wife by this time?) that we had been a mere 5 minutes away from finishing the walk.
However I knew we were not up to that section of the walk yet, and soon the path opened up, to a track through the small scrubland again, and the slight hill but I had recalled sitting and resting at (that I was confused about not reaching while wrongly walking towards the Stone Bridge).

We stopped on a large flat rock even with the ground on the top of this slight hill, looking at another hill through the scrub, facing away from the path, with Dad saying out loud that there was surely some way to walk to the hill. I told him there was, but it meant traversing through thick scrub.

We soon rounded a bend to the left where the trail quickly veered off to the right, but we could see through the trees another trail which we followed a short distance that gave us a view over the Shoalhaven. I asked if the beach was Seven Mile Beach and my Dad agreed.

We tried to see Shoalhaven Heads and Comerong Island, as we had been on an adventure to Comerong Island just 5 days earlier (which I will write about at the end of this blog post). We finally agreed we could see Comerong Island from the lookout, seeing the opening at Shoalhaven Heads and even being able to see the break-wall. We made our way back to the path and continued on, feeling now that we were close to reaching our destination and I felt a bit of pride, as the walk hadn't even felt that long to me.

Soon we reached the bit of the walk I remembered turning around in back in 2014.

While walking through a branch got caught on my shoelace causing me to slightly trip while flinging up and lightly cutting the front of my leg, one of those annoying parts of walking. We came to the end of the track where there was an area that looped around a tree and bit of bushland, almost like a roundabout, obviously designed for fire vehicles to be able to drive through and turn around. Just behind this was a short track through the trees, which gave me a lovely face full of spiderweb, and then we were there, at Kangaroo Ridge, with a similar view to the lookout we had seen just a bit earlier.

I felt a sense of gratification. I had been meaning to do the Barren Grounds walk since 2015 where it sat in my draft folder until I had completely forgotten anything about the walk and never ended up writing it. Then I had planned for it to be my first walk with my Dad after he recovered from his rock climbing accident, but then I broke my ankle, which when it recovered we were planning to do the walk, but then I was diagnosed with cancer, and then last time I didn't have the strength or fitness so we just did the Cook's Nose walk and I was planning to use old photos to write about Kangaroo Ridge, only to find I really didn't even have that many saved photos of the walk. So to do it, and get there, and feel ok, was all a great sense of satisfaction. 

We walked around the cliff face further onwards and sat for a drink and some snacks at a bit of rock that reminded me of the rock formations at Drawing Room Rocks.

We began our walk back, which always feels much longer. I began to feel bits of my body starting to fatigue and hurt, it was definitely not use to doing so much after my 10 weeks in hospital not including intermittent times in between being neutropenic and laying around at home.

I began to tire of the walk, being keen for it to be done, mentally I had accomplished what I wanted, but need to do the return journey.
I complained to Dad that the extra 3.4km didn't help. We finally made it back to the sign post and began the walk downhill to the Stone Bridge... again...

About halfway down my feet began to severely ache, the sides of my feet next to my big toe felt like sandpaper was scratching my skin off with every step I took. Eventually I said I couldn't do it anymore, and took my shoes off to carry them. My Dad told me not too as the surface was so rocky. I said I couldn't continue to wear the shoes, and that I had done the whole walk at Comerong Island barefoot too.
The walk was much slower barefoot, having to be even more careful where I stepped, but much less painful. When we made it to the Stone Bridge my Dad told me to wash off my feet and he had some band-aids I could place on the part of my feet that were hurting. We did this, and it definitely took of a lot of the pain, although it still did hurt to walk, we could now move quicker as all I wanted now was to get home and have a lie down.

Just at the top of the stairs on the other side of the Stone Bridge was another wooden picnic table, and a sign pointing towards the Cook's Nose walk and the carpark in 2km.

While walking through I stepped down and sunk as I stepped, turning around a noticing a my footprint sunken in the mud. We finally made our way through to where the track left took you to Cooks Nose and the track right to the carpark.

Along the way back we saw another Echidna, almost in the same spot we had seen it when we had done the Cooks Nose walk a few weeks earlier. When we got back to the car Dad wanted to sit around and eat, it was past 4pm and I said it was almost dinner time. He ate a roll from the esky and on of his alcoholic 'alcohol-free' beers, which I was right about being 0.5% not 0.05%. I drank an iced coffee while I drove us down Jamberoo Pass dropping my Dad off home and getting home after 5pm feeling tired and sore. Later that night noticing a giant blood blister on the back of my right heel. Not surprising after a 22km walk.

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Thanks for reading! - Steven

Extra tidbits! - Comerong Island Adventure 29/1/2021

While off work due to my cancer I have been investing a lot of time into trying to research my family tree, which I have been doing since 2011 and have made a lot of good progress (especially on my Mother's Side). My Dad's side I have done well on his Mother's heritage, but I have really struggled with his paternal ancestry. My Dad was adopted out due to infidelity, as his Mother was having an affair. She came clean while pregnant when she worried that my Dad would come out Italian (the man she had the affair with was Italian), so my Dad was adopted out even though we now believe that my Nan's Husband was indeed his Father (until proven otherwise I suppose, but my Dad and I are not of Italian descent).

Anyway, I believed I had found ancestors on this side coming over from Ireland and living in Numbaa (near Nowra in the Shoalhaven), and that he was Mayor of Numbaa at some point, so we decided to go on a day down to Numbaa and also explore the nearby Comerong Island.

We initially stopped at a farm in Berry (where you can get married or they do Yoga there) as another ancestor on my Dad's Mother's side, Issac Walton and previously owned the land the farm was on according to my Dad who told me he had viewed the land records at a museum in Berry.

You had to cross train tracks to visit it and I got a good shot looking up the tracks reminding me of my favourite film 'Stand By Me' and a terrible adventure with friends I had  when I was younger in 2011.

From here we drove to Shoalhaven Heads as my dad believed the entrance was closed up and had been for years, although I told him that it hadn't been when I was looking up Numbaa and Comerong Island on a map. We arrived in the rain and set out along the beach towards Comerong Island, looking up at Coolengatta Mountain in the rain.

We soon got there to find, low and behold, the entrance was open with deep running water. My Dad went up to talk to one lone fisherman to ask about when it opened up and we made our way back to the car to drive out through Numbaa to catch the Ferry over.

I was excited driving through Numbaa, past huge farms full of corn fields. We waited for the Ferry to come from Comerong over and drove on, talking to the ferryman about local history and ancestry as he was a local for generations and seemed very interested.

The ferry arrived on the island and we drove through past lots of farmland.

We pulled up in a spot while my Dad recounted a time he had been here before with my two younger brothers. We walked up through the bush eventually reaching the beach which we found a few feet down an embankment from where we stood.

We had to stand on the edge and let the sand crumble away and almost surf the sand down to reach the bottom (with it being higher than the photo makes it look).

Dad was determined to walk to the break-wall so we set out in the rain walking the long stretch of the beach littered with a lot of rubbish and thousands of washed up blue bottles (Portuguese Man O' Wars).

After walking the length of the beach in the pouring rain we finally reached the break-wall but could not find a path inwards (as my Dad had said there was another carpark you could park at the end here, and he wanted to walk back on the dirt road through the interior of the island). After some bush-bashing we found the Breakwater Track, realising it was just up and embankment and would be easier to find if we had came out that way.

There was one lone car at the car park but no one around and we began our walk in the rain along the dirt road (Coal Wharf Road) through the island. I found the whole situation very cool and couldn't help picture Jurassic Park.

The walk seemed to take twice as long as the road twisted and bended through the island.

The rain came in waves, light and incredibly heavy. Soon the lone car came around the corner on it's way out. Driving past a puddle splashed us to which my Dad was a bit annoyed but the car pulled up just in front of us. The man inside offered us a lift to which my Dad responding we were having a walk asking if the man had been fishing. He said yes and that he had caught some and wished us a good day.

As the walk continued my Dad began to question on whether or not we should have accepted the lift as we were both walking barefoot. I thought it was pretty nice to offer two soaking wet strangers a lift.

Soon we reached a turn off to the carpark, walking down into it however there was no car, my Dad began to panic. Then we realised it was the wrong carpark so had to walk back out and continue following the road until we finally reached the car, using a towel to clean our feet we jumped in and had to begin our way home as my Dad had taken my step-mums car and was meant to pick her up to take her to coffee with a friend. However the walk had taken so long he was due to pick her up in 15minutes and we were still in Numbaa. She called his phone to see where we were before angrily hanging up on him as the drive to her was at least and hour away.

She tested saying to just pick her up at 6pm as she was just going to work back instead. So we turned back from Nowra and Dad took us to Greenwall Point to point out a place that served the voted best Fish and Chips in NSW and told me about how when he was young and lived in Bomedarry everyone use to go to Greenwall Pub on a Sunday, as pubs used to be closed on Sundays but some stayed open but you could only visit if you were a traveler and as they lived more than 20km away that was their go to Sunday pub.

We returned to Numbaa and I got a photo with the street sign I believed was named after my ancestor and the Mayor of Numbaa (if I do more research and this is not the case I will feel a little dumb, as all other ancestors I know for a fact).

We went for a drive along Ryan's Lane to try and find a bed and breakfast that was on the road, but it was very flooded and muddy dirt road and we got about halfway before we had to turn back and we headed home after a fun day out exploring.