2009 Budawangs - Byangee Walls

Day 0 - Friday

We left work around 5:00pm, and the trip was expected to take us about 3 hours. We were heading to Long Gully carpark, and after several weeks of rain, the dirt road was very slipery. We managed to arrive right on 8:00pm though, despite driving the last 30km very slowly!

Somehow, we managed to stay up chatting and drinking until after 2:00am, so the next morning was a rather slow one!

Day 1 - Saturday

The first section of the trail was pretty tough, following the fire trail up the ridge to the foot of The Castle. Several stops along the way were required to catch our breath! The foot of The Castle was reached before 11:30 , for a short break before pushing on towards the saddle.

At the saddle between The Castle and Byangee Walls is an amazing rock arch and some great camping caves that will be very useful if the weather turns bad while in this area. Pushing on and following the trail, we shortly reached the cliff line below Byangee Walls and followed around the North side until we found the climb to the top, marked by a large rock cairn. It was 1:00pm so we stopped for a relaxed lunch.

After lunch, we started up the 100m rock climb to the top of the mountain. The going was quite tough in a number of places, which often required removal of packs so they could be roped up or pushed ahead of us. The most difficult section is made a little easier with a length of rope to help get around a large rock wedged behind a tree. Eventually though, all three of us made it to the top of the climb, and relaxed on the plateau with some of the best views you will ever see in The Budawangs.

It was 3:30pm when we hit the summit, so we enjoyed the views for a short while before heading off to look for a good camp site. There were a couple not far from the track we came up, but we kept going, looking for something better. We made it as far as the trig station on the top of Byangee Mountain before turning back to a great little spot only a few hundred metres from where we started! We hadn't found a good water source all day, but we were lucky that there were plenty of puddles around to draw water from.

The evening was excellent, with amazingly good weather. The cloud would roll in, then roll back out again, with some intermittent star gazing to be had. We had a small fire which kept us warm until we all succumbed to yesterdays late night! We were in bed by 9:00pm.

Day 2 - Sunday

We woke to another amazing day in The Budawangs. The forecast had not been good so we were very thankful that the morning was completely dry. There was fog in the valley which looked amazing, and the sun was just coming up around Mount Talaterang. We quickly had breakfast, and then headed off to the East to see if we could reach the end of the plateau.

We didn't do too bad, as there is a very faint track most of the way. We fell about 1km short. We had some great views though which we took photos of, and then decided to turn back before the weather changed. We had a few rain spots on the way back to camp, but nothing more than an inconvenience.

Obviously, the climb back down the mountain was much quicker than coming up. We stopped for a long lunch at the castle arch, where we repaired some broken flesh, and bruised some shins! The climb back to the car took about 4 hours in total, and we arrived back at about 2:30pm in time for a cold beer before driving home.