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to the end of Cedar Head along a shale ledge in the cliff-line
followed by a series of slips, slides, scrambles and near falls down a
multitude of small cliff-lines towards the valley.
We escaped a catastrophe by a whisker when a bumped pack fell down one
of the small cliffs, bouncing directly over Annie's head before
hitting the ground with a heart-stopping thud and threatening to keep
rolling all the way to the creek.
The size of the group, and lack of track, made for slower going than I
would have liked and it soon became clear we wouldn't be making the
stunning camp site before sunset. Twilight fell inconveniently, right
at the point where the terrain flattens out and a dozen small,
scrubby, indistinct ridges spear off in all directions.
There was some debate at this point about a dry camp and continuing in
the morning, but between Tom's "I've seen the brochure (picture of the
camp cave) and I'm gonna get there" combined with Diana's more
to-the-point "were not f***ing staying here" we decided to get a
wriggle on.
No longer able to see, we were navigating in a straight line by
compass, hitting every patch of lawyer vine / scratchy scrub possible.
The GPS came out as a backup, reassuring me that we were heading in
the right direction and placating the now mutinous crew.
At this point I was secretly a little worried, knowing the difficulty
a lot of people have finding a pass through the cliffs directly above
Cedar Creek, even in daylight, but I clung desperately my memory of
where it was. My self-belief did begin to waver when I realised we
were too low in the valley for the GPS to help any more, according to
it we were already 150 on the other side of the creek, so it was back
to the trusty compass. Amazingly, an hour after sunset we hit the pass
perfectly, an Aussie bush miracle!
After a brief rest to drink copious amounts of fresh, cool mountain
stream water we got moving, rock-hopping along perilously slippery
rocks.
A few hundred metres downstream the cavernous overhang began to loom
on our right, which I welcomed with a few overly enthusiastic whoops
knowing we were finally at our destination after the
less-than-enviable off-track night walking. The overhang was even
better than I remembered, giving great shelter for those of us who had
travelled without a tent.
Firewood was gathered, beds set up beds and we got started on dinner.
The long day had taken its toll, with a few walkers slipping off to
bed early to rest their aching legs, but a handful of troupers kicked
on around the fire, drinking the collective supply of wine, port,
whisky and jagermeister. The port, in a glass bottle, was drunk with
wonderment giving the pack it was in had not only been deliberately
dropped down a few tricky bits but had been the one that launched a
kamikaze attack on Annie earlier in the day. Finally after some
rowdiness (my recollections here get hazy) we made it to bed. Again I
don't recall how that happened, but I did wake up in my sleeping bag.
In the morning a couple of the uber-keen walkers disappeared to grab
more firewood and the fire was already starting to crackle by the time
I dragged my sorry carcass out of the sleeping bag.
We had a slow start to the day, enjoying a chat, a decent breakfast
and several cuppas while admiring the stunningly beautiful section of
creek.
The creek merrily gurgled between the mossy rocks while the coachwoods
formed a green canopy above.
Somewhere around 10am we finally got moving, heading up the exit creek
for about half a kilometre before starting the long ridge slog to the
Ruined Castle.
This section was steep and tiring, but other than a couple of areas of
lawyer vine, including the lovely section where it hid among the
ferns, it wasn't too scrubby so made life easier than it could have
been.
We reached the top, stumbling onto the first track we had seen in 24
hours, and walked the 50 metres to the looming rocks.
On arrival we had a shocking re-entry to the real world following a
remote walk miles from the nearest human as what seemed like a busload
of people arrived, clambering over every possible flat section of rock
and noisily hoeing into their coffee and tim tams.