Sunday 26 June 2005 – Old North Road – heading North!

After the obligatory phone calls at 6.15am (“please tell me Doug has rung to cancel, given the cold / the rain / the time / the whatever”), we actually got going on time… Richard rang, and struggling for a credible excuse, actually pretended to be coming for a while. Then, once we’d made it to Calga, he rang again to advise that he couldn’t find his bike shoes, and pulled the pin. Ah well. His bad, as they say.

We arrived at the pumping station at Mangrove Mountain at around 8am. Cold, a little damp, but not raining. We then climbed the hill to the Wat Budda Dama – and hung a quick right at the Ten Mile Hollow road sign. Following the road over the bridges, we headed off into the ‘wilderness’. It was very jolly beautiful up there today, lots of mist hanging around the valleys, but not too wet or slippery. We got up a good pace on occasion, and Jeff went from quiet achiever, to aggressive pursuer, to challenger for the lead. The sun even popped out now and then for entertainment.

We passed around 30 (yes, lots!) of bush walkers, all of whom had chosen last night as their camping night of the year (oh my gawd, how cold and wet can you get!), and they generally looked less happy then we did! Made it not quite to the Waterhole, turned around and come home. I was tired and off the pace on the way home, so don’t recall anything spectacular, but do recall the drop back to the pumping station. Gotta love it – every week, it’s a blinder! By the time we got back to the pumping station, the pent up rain that had not troubled us over the previous five hours let go, and we crossed the causeway in about two inches of torrential downpour…

Almost no photos, and no profile, but we did get the track (the few other photos are here):