"Was it actually raining," asked Doug "or was the bush just a bit damp?" It must have been my bedraggled appearance arriving home with my clothes and back pack wet through and stained black from forest fire charcoal. "Oh, it was raining." In fact, it was a very wet day up in the hills near Clyde Mountain.
For many months, since the 2019/2020 bushfires, I had been looking at the map and the long ridge line that runs south from Mount Murrengenberg and reaches a high point of 1020 metres. If followed in its entirety, you would eventually reach the Boundary Fire Trail in Deua National Park, where you could follow fire roads and old bridle trails south to civilisation. From the Corn Trail, however, up and over Mount Murrengenberg is all trackless for the first 15 or so kilometres.
I had originally looked at doing the route as a circuit walking over the 1020 metre high point and dropping down to cross the Mongarlowe River and returning by a much easier (possibly a little longer) route along River Forest Fire Road. But we have had a very rainy year and I thought that crossing the Mongarlowe River, with the height at over 1.00 metre on the gauge at Mongarlowe was anything but a certainty. So, I decided to walk out and back along the ridge, a days outing that would involve a lot of bushwacking, and, as it turned out, considerable rain and some tenuous navigation.
Leaving the Corn Trail in light drizzle, my first objective was to go up and over Mount Murrengenberg. Mount Murrengenberg is a decidedly bushy hill and leaving the Corn Trail and following a rough compass bearing I had a fair tussle with burnt trees and heavy regrowth until I sidled up onto the "summit" itself where the forest was more open. There was no view, although along the south ridge of the "sub-summit" I did get a misty view down the Buckenbowra River valley.
A descent of a bit more than 100 metres brought me to a very old road cutting and a saddle where the real ridge walking would begin. The route is basically south. Navigation on the way south was relatively straight forward as the ridge dropped precipitously to the east and provided a rough handrail. I was soon very wet, however, as the burnt eucalpytus forest has resprouted very thickly and the small trees held quantities of rain water which sluiced down my legs.
It was cold, damp walking with a strong wind blowing up the escarpment from the coast, tendrils of mist billowing over the ridge and not at all conducive to stopping so apart from stuffing half a chicken burger in at one point, I simply walked all the way, with many intermediary ascents and descents to point 1020 where the ridge begins to descend and sidles to the west. About 4.15 hours to this point, which was suddenly seeming long as over the eastern valley a dense wall of rain rapidly approached and the coastline disappeared into gloomy grey clouds.
I would have liked an easy return along a trail or fire road, but descending to the Mongarlowe River and finding it unfordable would add many hours to this trip so I choked down half an energy bar and began to walk back.
Within half an hour, the fog had blown in so thickly it was near dark, my handrail, the precipitous edge of the ridge, had all but disappeared in the murk, and it was raining steadily blown along on a strengthening wind. I had some concerns about lightening storms but the wind so strong I could not have heard thunder anyway. I did, however, see a sugar glider run down hill, spread-eagle its front and rear paws and fly off over the Buckenbowra River valley. How cool is that?
The first half of the return trip was not too bad, and I even managed to recognise a spur ridge I had seen on the way south. As I continued north, however, the sky got darker and darker until it seemed more like 8.00 pm than 2.00 pm and I was constantly consulting the compass and walking almost entirely on a compass bearing as the rain sluiced down. Any idiot who tells you that there is no such thing as bad weather is just that, an idiot.
There are times out in the wild where I definitely have to keep a lid on some mild incipient panic, and this was one of those times. I stumbled the 160 metres uphill to the top of Mount Murrengenberg for the second time, the only thing keeping me warm was walking up the hill. Although I was a mere kilometre from the Corn Trail, it felt like much further than that and I really did not want to miss the faint foot pad as having to bushwack right out to the highway would be very slow indeed through thick tangled forest and boggy swamp.
I walked on with the compass held in front of me pointing the way. As anyone who has bushwacked knows, however, you cannot assiduously follow a bearing, particularly in tangled forest, so I was weaving around a good deal. My final check of the map indicated that on an easterly bearing I should intersect the trail in a couple of hundred metres, and finally I did. Here I made that most egregious of mistakes, luckily, corrected within 20 metres, by turning right (south) when I should have turned left (north). A final check of the compass, however, and I was walking north along an increasingly familiar route.
It was an adventure, but, like many adventures, not one I am in a hurry to repeat.
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