Saturday 27/06/2020 Bendeela Road – Mount Carrialoo
Morton National Park, Kangaroo Valley, NSW
Tharawal country
Participants: Ella Brewer, Lee Cordner (Leader), Andrew Corish (guest author, Report), Stephen Davies (Photos), Sue Davies , Kynie Evison, Frank Hartigan, Warren Mahoney (Header Photo), Trish Law, Yanwen Shao, Dave Whitelaw
A crisp winter’s day did not dampen the spirits of a keen group of South Coast Bushwalking Club members to get going. An earlier reconnaissance party confirming our intended route closed due to road closures on Jacks Corner Road from summer fires, we set off on plan B up McPhail’s trail. A hill climb that would get any faint heart firing meant we soon climbed from the lowest point to highest point in Kangaroo valley.
Max elevation: 687 m
Total climbing: 1953 m
Total descent: -2125 m
Average speed: 4.30 km/h
Total time: 06:18:20
Soon off trail and rock scramble to Mount Carrialoo plateau top, on the northeast corner, through the burnt out country. The fires have left a scarred landscape and now relatively open making it easy walking through normally dense underbrush. This new perspective allowed us to find new routes throughout the plateau summit area for the rest of the day. We marvelled at the post fire bush regeneration with open gumnuts and grass trees in full bloom in their magnificence.
Gully climbing on Mount Carrialoo (Photo: Kynie Evison)
Lunch on rock ledge overlooking Kangaroo Valley, while a breakaway group elected to do Lee’s cutting climb down and return on the northwest corner of Mount Carrialoo. An intended brief 20 minutes turned into somewhat longer as the cutting was a little more challenging post fires removing the regular hand hold trees, and with lots of loose rocks.
The afternoon spent with further exploratory of the plateau, including to the normally inaccessible southwest corner, meant we found new viewing points then descent back down the ridge and return to the cars for a good day out.
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