Kaputar & The Warrumbungles

Pete and I had decided to tack an extra day onto the Queen’s Birthday long weekend and make the long drive north-west to Kaputar and the Warrumbungles, a few parks we had been talking about visiting for a while. Both feature amazing rock formations and because of their distances from the East Coast are relatively quiet. The plan was to pack the bikes to do some cycling, and tick off a few of the more interesting walks in the parks.

We camped overnight at Burning Mountain on Friday night (about a 3 hour drive from Sydney), and got up early the next day to head to Narrabri and on to Kaputar. We arrived to slightly misty and cool conditions, and decided to have an easy afternoon setting up camp and doing some cycling on the long and steep hill formed by the main sealed road in the park. This was testing for my lungs, but helped clear away some of the aftereffects of the cold I’d had the previous week. 

The plan on Sunday was to do the Yulludunida Crater Walk, and consider adding on the traverse out along the crater ridge subject to conditions. It was a nice clear day and so there were to be no excuses. The ridge traverse seems to be known as the ‘Skyline Traverse’ in the rock climbing community, but doesn’t appear to see too much traffic. This is somewhat surprising given how absolutely fantastic an experience it is. The route is about 1500m of scrambling across a very scenic and in places exposed knife edge ridge. Some spots require very basic climbing, with one or two in particular being exposed enough to get the heart racing. The views in all directions are amazing throughout, and this would have to rank among the top days out I have had.

We spent the next two days (Monday and Tuesday) in the Warrumbungles. We ticked off the climb up Split Rock on Monday, before hitting a 15k trail run up onto the High Tops on Tuesday morning. The area has been heavily impacted by the fires of early 2013, but remains absolutely stunning and well worth a visit.

Taffy's Rock Microadventure

I had been put onto the good work of Alistair Humphreys by Hornsby Heights Athlete/Adventurer of the Year and all round good guy A Bowesman (aka the Bowesmanator). Humphreys has made a deserved living out of espousing the microadventure, essentially any short trip out of the city requiring minimal time commitment, but still providing that feeling of really getting away from it. We had discussed doing a microadventure ourselves for some time, and a date finally came up when we could turn plans into action.

The itinerary was to jump on a train out of the city on a Friday night (post work), and start walking from the train station. We would then set up camp, enjoy dinner and a game of cards or two, before returning to civilisation via the walk out the next day. We picked Cowan, having previously done the route out to Taffy’s rock in daylight and thinking the turnaround point would make for a good camping spot. 

The track out to Taffy’s from the GNW is a little scrubby in places, but surprisingly felt easier in the dark than it had during the day. There were some light spells of rain on the way out, but overall nothing of any great consequence. After setting up the tents we sat down for a dinner of braised beef cheek and mixed vegies pasta as well as numerous games of cheat and crazy 8’s. I recall numerous noble victories for myself, but this may be my memory playing tricks. 

Overall the experience was a fantastic one. I was back home in Lane Cove by midday Saturday feeling refreshed, healthy and ready for a game of football. Humphreys is right, time is really no restriction on getting outdoors and capturing the refreshing and recharging feeling of adventure.