This walk takes place on Dharawal and Gandangarra Country
Pre-blog Catch Up
Following my last walk and blog at Fairy Bower Falls I tried to organise another walk with Tristan, however we were very busy and finally locked in a date to go and do Didthul/Pigeon House Mountain on the 26th of June (which should be the next post after this). Meanwhile, a lot of time passed without actually doing any walks, or going on any adventures and I had things going on in my personally life that were triggering anxieties and severely affecting my mental health, which my Wife believe was partially due to trauma associated with my cancer diagnosis and treatment.
So on the 5th of May my Wife and I decided to take our Dog Orla camping, as we had planned to take her camping (and even booked and paid for a Dog friendly campground), before having to cancel because of my cancer. We found a Dog friendly area at Wingello State Park, and we organised time off work to go, with my Wife believing it might help with my declining mental health. The story of this camping trip I will share at the end of this blog post if you're interested (as it ended up being a much larger story than I had initially planned).
Hoddles Track - Saddleback Mountain
My friend's Stuart and Megan ended up messaging me, as the three of us had been meaning to go on another walk together for a while now, and I suggested Saddleback Mountain to them, having done it only once back on 7th August 2011, with my high school friend group (the same ones mentioned in my Kiama Coastal Disaster blog). my recollection of the walk was incredibly vague, and I could only really remember ending up along houses down near Foxground while my friend Nathan played John Butler Trio out on his phone to us and we ended up having to walk alongside the highway towards Gerringong, before catching a train into Kiama, and having to pay for a taxi up to Nathan's car at the top of Saddleback Mountain (which I had to pay for, and was unemployed at the time).
Footage from 7th August 2011
As soon as Stuart and Megan arrived at mine and I got into the car we instantly began discussing the new Zelda video game: Tears of the Kingdom, the two of them confessed that they had just had a two-week break from work and had spent most of their time playing it.
"Time well spent". I declared. As Stuart asked where we needed to go (with me not remembering the directions at all) and put Saddleback Mountain into his car GPS. We continued discussing Zelda and Zelda-isms about being to in the mindset of the game that you see things in real life and think about it in terms of the game controls and/or logic. I mentioned that I too had stayed up late the night before playing 'Tears of the Kingdom', and that the day before I had gone to Spiegeltent in Wollongong to see a Drag Show. (As my Wife loves RuPaul's Drag Race and Drag Queens). I commented that I had enjoyed it, being my first drag show, but that I preferred the more comedy aspects to the lip sync singing and stuff.
Stuart's GPS started taking us through Albion Park Rail, getting us to turn right as we passed McDonald's on the highway. I thought it was trying to take us out through Jamberoo and told him to ignore it and turn around and just follow the highway to Kiama before adding Saddleback Mountain into the GPS on my phone and directing him once we reached Kiama.
We reached the top, pulling up, and hopping out of the car and realising that the wind outside was absolutely chilling and we all commented on how freezing it was. I quickly ran down to the sign to snap a photo with Stuart and Megan in the background commenting to Stuart he would be in the opening photo.
We walked through to the viewing platform to our right with a family already there and we looked out over the Illawarra, while I made a joke about the serenity of the steelworks billowing smoke in the distance.
The top of Zelda-ism in real life was brought up again and I commented about how when 'Breath of the Wild' the predecessor of 'Tears of the Kingdom' came out I had mentioned finding a Korok in my blog at Belmore Falls. But mentioning I also had a lot more time to play that game because six months after it came out, I broke my ankle so was home from work for that whole time playing it.
We continued up the path looking for the start of the walk and getting a photo at the Rotary Lookout just to the left of the fire trail you follow to begin the walk.
The fire trail you follow to begin the walk
As there was no sign marker indicating this was the start, and I hadn't fully researched the walk and could scarcely remember doing it I suggested we look down in case it began at the picnic area just down from the toilet so we walked down and across to the picnic area that had markers for the Saddleback Mountain Southern Lookout Walk.
It was a short walk down to a lookout with a view of Seven Mile Beach and Coolangatta Mountain.
We walked back up and headed back towards the fire trail, the only thing in sight that could possibly be the starting location of the walk (while also looking on our phones for any information on the start of the walk, with one website mentioning green marker poles). As soon as we reached the horizon of what we could see of the fire trail from where we began it began to dip and head downhill, following it down to a gate blocking random cars we noticed the small wooden green pole next to it and assumed we were on the right path.
As we continued past this there was very loose gravel over the dirt track and we progressed slowly as Megan didn't want to slip and fall, though all three of us slipped on the loose gravel at various times, none of us took a fall.
Don't fall guys. I'll be watching. Aaaaalways watching.
To our left I could see old stone farm fences overgrown in the bush, and told them they were built by convicts (though I have no idea if they were), simply because when I had worked at Killalea State Park for Green Army doing Conservation and Land Management we had cleared lantana back at least six metres to reveal similar stone fencing that had been built by convicts and our work group was featured in a the newspaper. (I also told Stuart and Megan this story).
There was a group of plants on our right as we continued heading down the path that I wasn't able to identify but I point it out now because right next to it on our way back from the walk we heard a Lyrebird just here, and it was cycling through various bird noises, it was like someone playing them on a loud stereo, much louder than the actual birds would sound, (as Lyrebirds are able to mimic most other sounds), it did the Whipbird sound, Crow sound, Magpie sound and even Kookaburra noises cycling through and repeating certain ones.
It was just at the top of this hill (as we returned)
As we continued down the track thinned and we could see a fallen down green sign post. We all commented about how the track might not be very well used.
After a short walk further downhill, we came to a clearing with powerlines heading both North and South, before the walk now began uphill. I turned around and you could see Saddleback Mountain clearly from where we were.
I commented that we could again see Seven Mile Beach looking south from the powerline clearing and Stuart jokingly stated, "I wonder why it's called that?" Before we began joking that it was six point eight, mile beach or seven point two, mile beach.
Megan mentioned One Mile Beach, which she said wasn't one mile long, but was named so because it was one mile from the post office, which Stuart and I found pretty amusing.
Just a short walk up the hill the fire trail finely has a sign indicating Hoddles Track, inwards to our left while the fire trail continued uphill, with another gate blocking vehicle access.
I joked to Stuart and Megan that this was probably the start of Hoddles Track which was apparently a 7km walk, and I joked that the 7km started at this point (although I actually have no idea and I've never much cared for distances or elevation and I have had people often comment on some of my posts asking, which I read, shrug, and never respond to).
The walk started uphill and the scenery of it instantly reminded me of walking up Bong Bong Pass.
As we continued uphill the trees began to thin giving us a view of farmland on our left and you could see the stonewalls on either side.
We reached a flat clearing, next to a barbed wire farm fence with a clear view over the Illawara once more and I pointed out a section of fence completely coasted in Cape Ivy.
The track was level for a while and we soon came to a tree across the track, which I told Stuart and Megan I had seen complaints about while I had tried Googling the start of the walk when we were on top of Saddleback Mountain. We simply walked around the right side of it and the track soon came to a small metal fence but a path to the left of it with a fallen down Hoddles Track sign.
Which, now is a good time for me to break up the walk with some history! Hoddle Track was named for surveyor Robert Hoddle, and the following is an excerpt from the Kiama Library website:
"In 1830 the plan was to open up a route from the lush pastures in the Southern Highlands to Kiama Harbour, to enable a faster route for produce to be shipped to Sydney and to avoid the slow overland journey. Robert Hoddle was the surveyor who was set this task. Hoddle set off in the July of that year, starting at Wingecarribee Swamp and surveyed the Illawarra Escarpment in an attempt to find a way to Saddleback Mountain and down to Kiama.
Hoddle wrote in his diary that the rainforest of the escarpment was "the most formidable brush". Hoddle had a team of 20 convict men, pack horses, bullock teams and drays. The path that Hoddle created went throught sub-tropical jungle and was described as rough for both man and beast and only suitable for pack horses. You can walk part of Hoddle’s track today. It is sign posted from the western end of the car park on Saddleback Mountain and will take you to Barren Grounds. The track will take around 4hours return. The views from the forested Norrinan Mountain to Kiama and the Illawarra coastline are worth the rough, steep trek.
The surveyor was of immense importance in the new colony, expanding topographical knowledge, and planning roads, towns and property boundaries. From the 1920’s no land could be leased or owned unless it had been surveyed first. Robert Hoddle was an experienced surveyor and draughtman and was also an explorer and artist, whose paintings document the area around Kiama as well as many other parts of NSW and Victoria before white settlement.
Hoddle completed the survey of Sydney after he arrived in 1823, and then went on to be the Surveyor-General of the new colony of Victoria in 1851. In addition to the work around Kiama and the Illawarra Escarpment, Hoddle surveyed and explored the Southern Highlands, Shoalhaven River region, and south coast down to Moruya, was possibly the first white man to climb both Pigeon House and Mt Budawang. Hoddle also surveyed the area around Canberra, as well as Bathurst, Liverpool and Berrima marked the northern route through the Blue Mountains."
Which upon researching and learning he was the first white man to climb Didthul/Pigeon House, I found pretty topical considering I was planning to walk it again the following weekend.
The clearing had a fire trail heading on the left. Megan asked if that was the way, I had a look down but didn't want to walk to far down it as I wasn't sure that was the right way so we continued straight along the path. I snapped a picture on my phone commenting at how green the photo looked considering it had no saturation, as I don't like to filter or edit photos I take (even if they don't accurately represent how the scenery looked to the human eye).
We commented a few times about how dark the clouds looked, wondering if we might get rained on.
I literally don't recall any of this walk, I told Stuart and Megan as we continued along. Megan wasn't surprised. "You did do it 12 years ago." She said.
As we continued along the trail we came upon a sign saying there was no track through to Barren Grounds, which is where you need to go to actually get to the viewing platform at Saddleback Trig. (In my mind the end of this walk would take us to a Trig Station similar to what was on top of Mount Jellore, I have no idea why I thought that though)
I pointed out to that the plant surrounded this sign was native raspberry 'Rubus rosifolius'.
Continuing up there were now trees all over the path, nothing too strenuous but just involving some light climbing or ducking around to continue on.
At the top of this little incline the path was pretty overgrown, and you had to actually squat and duck through some branches to continue along.
We continued past some boulders on our right before getting a pretty marvelous view south over Seven Mile Beach once more.
We rounded the corner and came to an awesome section of rocky cliff-face on our right, with a rock protruding that I commented looked like a Turtle.
Turtle Rock
Fun fact, Turtle Rock is a dungeon in three Zelda games
We admired it for a bit, with Megan taking a candid photo of me doing so, and commenting how it looked like the most staged photo ever, I replied "How do you think I feel when I take photos of myself on solo walks?" and we continued over some more fallen trees that were over the path.
As Stuart finished crossing the fallen trees I asked the two of them if they wanted to stop for lunch, as we were in such a lovely and perfect spot, they agreed and I sat down on a rock and began munching down on my sandwich. As Megan opened the 1 bag they had brought, she asked Stuart where the food was. Apparently, it was in their other bag they had left in the car, as I was down taking a photo of the sign at the start of the walk, Stuart had asked Megan if she wanted to bring anything else and she had said the one bag would be fine, unaware that their food was in their other pack. I felt guilty, eating my sandwich, with them telling me not to worry about it.
The conversation once again became about Zelda, talking about different play styles, and I how they had spent two weeks binge playing it. I said that if you're not out on a walk, or doing some travel or adventure, playing Zelda was the next best thing. Which is why I loved escape rooms, as they sort of felt being in a live Zelda scenario, reminding them that we still needed to travel to Sydney to do a Jumanji themed escape room together. Stuart asked me about if we had a group gaming night playing Dungeon and Dragons (I have never played but after we all saw the movie together my Wife and I agreed we would with them), if we would like a normal game or a Zelda themed one. I commented that we should probably do normal as my Wife doesn't really know Zelda related things. However, I commented that I had banned myself from playing D&D with Stuart until he had finished my Steventure logo.
Draft logo, actually inspired by old Zelda artwork showing 'Dueling Peaks'
Megan told Stuart to hurry up and finish it and he told her that she needed to force him, because he's bad at motivating himself.
I finished my sandwich and said we should press on because I didn't want to take to long, aware that the two of them might be hungry, mentioning my prior walk at Fairy Bower Falls I had forgotten to take water and not taken food. I turned to follow the track that looked like cobbled stone before Stuart pointed out a piece of lichen shaped like Australia.
We continued onwards around the bend, as I pointed to a little tree that had decided to grow on a boulder.
Dirt, who needs dirt?
The next section of the walk had the most trees over the track and involved some pretty ungraceful maneuvering on my part.
As we continued through this section I stopped on the tracks as there was a little bird with a yellow belly perched on a horizontal tree across the path. I tried to take a photo but at the distance I was at by the time I tried to zoom in he had flown away. I commented that it sort of looked like a Wren, and that it was probably just called a 'Yellow Bellied-Wren' joking about the names of some birds we had learned from their board game 'Wingspan'. Though looking it up when I got home, it might have been a 'Golden Whistler'. I told them I wanted to get a bird book, just of birds in the Illawarra, so I could mark off ones I saw while on walks. Megan told me she knew I would get obsessed and actively seek them out as I got to the remaining few in the book. I agreed that would probably be the case.
As we finished traversing through the area of fallen trees we came to a little pond and sandy section of the path, and I commented that it was a weird section to find sand, although it was near water, so it was probably from rain causing it to flow downhill, eroding rocks and other things over time.
"Thirsty Stuart?"
The track now began uphill once more and became very thin so that the bushes on either side brushed against us as we followed the path along.
The path soon split in two, each path looking like it could be the right way. I followed the one on our right first but saw that it began heading down after a while, so we turned back and followed the left path leading us to a lookout at the top of Noorinan Mountain.
We stopped for a rest and some water and started talking about Zelda and Zelda lore, as well as fan theories regarding 'Tears of the Kingdom' and its placement in the Zelda timeline. Stuart and Megan couldn't say too much as they had played much more than me, but I began spewing out my own personal theories about how it's meant be the 'founding of Hyrule' but I mentioned how that didn't work with the established lore of the game 'Skyward Sword', and gave my theory that although it was a founding of a Hyrule, it wasn't the original founding, with that founding and ancient past still being long after the other games. Stuart and Megan couldn't say too much to me without spoiling anything, but Megan mentioned she needed to get more into the Zelda lore (and if you've never played Zelda, this is all probably gibberish). We discussed some of the fan theories we had read prior to the games release including ones about Demise and Ganondorf as well as the symbol of the Ouroboros and how the games nature my be cyclical, but I digress.
We decided we had better continue on and get to the end of the walk (unaware that where we had been sitting on Noorinan Mountain was actually the end of the walk, as I was still expecting a Trig Station).
We ended up following a bunch of random trails through the bush atop Noorinan, some points just bushwhacking because I was desperate to reach the finish and not have an uncomplete walk due to and overgrown on unmaintained walk.
I'm sure this is the right way guys, I promise.
After wandering through thick bush, I began looking on my phone for answer regarding the walk and ended up installing the app 'All Trails' which I had so far been unwilling to use because I like exploring a walk with no prior knowledge. I did find some other people's hiking blogs, but they seemed to be severely lacking in information. I found that we had long passed the end of the walk, discovering that it was the Noorinan lookout.
We tried to find a trail back to the actual trail but again it was the blind leading the blind. We somehow found our way back to it and were soon at the section with the pond and sand where I stopped Stuart and Megan as we watched a Lyrebird in the bush as it ran across the path. We followed it up the hill on top of the area with the pond for an extra explore before we headed back to the start of the walk.
We passed a couple on the way down, and I asked if they had done the walk before. They responded that they hadn't and I let them know that there was no signage indicating the end and told them it was Noorinan Lookout, mentioning that we had to look it up. I commented to Stuart and Megan as we passed them that this was completely different than the walk I had done in 2011, and that myself and my friends must have followed that other fire-trail down to Foxground.
As I waited for Stuart and Megan to cross the fallen trees just past Turtle Rock I quickly scrambled up the rocks close by it while Megan snapped a photo.
We made it back to the car but decided to stop in Kiama for Stuart and Megan to grab some coffee and food while making plans to go for a walk again soon.
As we packed, I was keen to get away, but also knew it could potentially be difficult with Orla as due to my cancer along with the Covid-19 lockdowns in Australia we were never able to properly socialise her and she had developed Dog anxiety and reactivity herself, but I was still hoping for a good experience.
As we made our way up the highlands, we stopped at the toilet block in Robertson (where I had filmed the guy mowing in the fog on my Fairy Bower post). There was a sign put up by a Wingacaribee Council Cleaner about the toilets being cleaned (but when you gotta go you gotta go).
I went in first to the male toilets while my Wife kept Orla on her lead, and as soon as I walked to the toilet cubicle (not being a fan of urinals, no thank you), I saw that it was completely and utterly covered in diarrhea. No I'm not exaggerating, it was like a shit-bomb had gone off. I quickly walked out and used the urinal much too my own dismay, while the council employee came in behind me to begin cleaning, saying nothing to me. As I left, and tried to find my Wife who was walking around the toilet block with our Dog, another man entered the male toilet. I soon caught my Wife and took my Dog walking out into the field as my Wife went to enter the female bathroom the employee who had said nothing to either men, had a go at her for not reading the sign about being closed for maintenance. This left my Wife shaken and taken aback as apparently, we were meant to all use the disabled bathroom in the middle but his incredibly rude and aggressive tone frightened her, when old 'Terry Toughie' as I like to call these men, had said nothing at all to the men.
We got back in the car and I told my Wife to write a complaint to council as there was no reason the man simply couldn't have said "Hey sorry the toilets are out of order are you ok to use this one?", not that hard and not being aggressive towards small women could go a long way in our world.
We continued on making our way through the highlands (which I always complement as it's a part of Australia I genuinely love), before finally arriving at our campground that we had never been to before.
We pulled up at the mostly empty campground, other than two men packing up their mountain bikes. We put Orla on her lead before taking a walk around the campground with a lot of signs around the dirt roads saying that they were closer areas for authorised personnel only. We looked around for which spot we thought would be the best camping area for ourselves before beginning to unpack and build the tent we had bought years ago and never once assembled, which was a little bit of a cluster, partially because of our lack of reading the instructions.
The spot we had selected had a table and we tied Orla up, giving her a Kong with a dental stick inside to keep her occupied as we put the tent together.
After some arguing and back and forth we finished the tent and proceeded moving items from the car to the tent or the table.
We then decided to take Orla on a walk around to explore her surroundings so she could get a feel for the area.
After walking around the campground with her and letting her sniff it out, we decided to go into the tent with her to see how she would go inside.
She seemed like she was going to be comfortable inside and we thought we might get lucky going on a weekday to get the campground to ourselves. But I was very dubious of this, as every time I have thought with while camping some weirdo had always rocked up last minute. For example, the last time we had camped at Carrington Falls, before becoming engaged. It was about 9 at night, we were all set up, the only ones in the campground, I had relaxed and had a beer (I was on my Green P's at the time), and someone on a motorbike turned up. Did a loop around the empty campground before pulling up and setting up a tent right next to us.
"Don't worry, I'm not a ranger." He said, smiling.
I wished it was, because we had actually paid the campground fee. We whispered to each other about how this guy had a whole fucking campground and decided to set up right next to us. As the night went on we began getting the wafting of chemical smells, like the chlorine of an indoor pool, before deciding it was suss as and slowly and silently dismantled our tent and left in the middle of the night. Luckily, I wasn't pulled over by police and breath tested because I'd had those few beers, but I have often had experiences of camping trips being wrecked (between degenerates being noisy, doing burnouts or just being creepy) so I tried not to get my hope up.
After hanging in the tent with Orla I cooked us up some sausages for lunch, saving the rest for dinner. Afterwards we did a little walk around to collect some firewood, before letting Orla have a walk around to explore off-leash as there was no one else in the area.
As it grew later in the day heading into the evening the temperature began to drop and we dressed Orla in her snood to keep her warm.
I had brought my magnesium and flint I had bought when I was in between rounds of chemotherapy and at home recovering (as I had gotten really into the survival series 'Alone' and binged watched it while recovering), as I wanted to attempt getting the fire going using this. While I was attempting to do it a man arrived on the opposite side to our campground with a Dog, and we assumed he was going to camp the night. However, he just began walking around with his Dog off lead, which was really setting Orla off and sending her into a panic due to her anxiety. The guy apologised, but kept getting unnecessarily close to our campground with his Dog off leash, as dusk arrived.
While dealing with Orla panicking and my Wife getting stressed out by both Orla behaving like this, and this guy sort of stalking around our camp with his Dog off leash, I soon gave up on using the flint and just used some matches to get the fire going.
As night fell and this man continued wandering around the bush with a torch, with his off-leash Dog right by our campground, I ended up having to just put Orla in the back of the car while I got dinner started, with my Wife worried the dude was some creeper or an Ivan Milat character as he kept doing loops down by the stream right by our area. I tried to alleviate her fears saying he was probably some sort of ecologist just looking at something in the area and he probably came all the time (I had no idea, but it was all I could think of to explain away his actions other than the guy being a fucking weirdo).
Eventually after a few hours since arriving, the man got in his car with his Dog and left. As I went to the car to let Orla back out with us, I found her asleep in the back. We ate the rest of the sausages for dinner, and I had some non-alcoholic beers (I occasionally still drink alcohol, mostly stout but have tried to switch to non-alcoholic due to my cancer) while chilling out by the fire, and enjoying the light from the moon, glowing over the pines. As the temperature continued to drop and the fire continued to burn away my piles of sticks and branches, we decided to move into the tent to cuddle Orla and do some reading (I was attempting Moby-Dick at the time but ended up giving up just shy of halfway, as it was super boring and I was only readying it because I was going to see a Lano and Woodley comedy show inspired by Moby-Dick.)
The night began to get freezing cold, and we realised we had not adequately packed enough to keep us warm, and so with Orla cushioned between us we shivered through the frosty night. We were up before dawn, just unable to sleep because of the penetrative chills. I sat for hours waiting for the kettle to boil some water for us to have cup noodles for breakfast and it was a very large kettle and I probably put in more water than needed.
Soon a lady rocked up with a van full of Dogs and she called out that she had a bunch of Dogs that were 'friendly'. Asking us if Orla would be alright. I said she was fine because she was on lead and that we had her under control, and she would be fine as long as none of the Dogs rushed her or ran up to her. The woman paused for a bit, before saying "Oh they probably will." But she just opened her door and let them all out anyway, (absolutely infuriating my Wife who had to retreat into the tent with Orla, and still continues to vent about people like this woman). Who walked off down one of the closed tracks with all the Dogs.
After hours of waiting, it was well and truly day daytime as the water was finally hot enough to make it before having ran completely out of gas by having it on so long for breakfast. We ate the noodles in the tent with my Wife seeing having no gas, and all the stress with Orla as a reason to only camp the one night, which I agreed to as it was a bit much for her and she had tried at night to keep getting into the car (we believe as she was ready to go home). I said we would enjoy the day up there and take Orla for a big walk while the sun got rid of the moisture all on the outskirts of the tent as I didn't want to have to back it away all wet.
So, we set off down a trail with Orla to explore.
After a couple of hours of walking we returned to the campground and luckily the woman's van was gone. We proceeded to pack away the tent and camping equipment (which was probably more of an ordeal than setting up). Before beginning the drive home. Unfortunately, the camping trip wasn't all I needed to magically alleviate my anxiety issues which only continued to worsen, to the point where I have started to see a psychologist to deal with my anxiety issues, which is ongoing.
