Sometimes the price of adventure is prosaic, in the case of Burra Peak, it was the price of a new tire. Last time we walked into the Burra-Oulla Wilderness we spent a good part of the trip walking along fire trails, this time we drove. And, somewhere along the not very bad fire trail we slashed the side wall of one of our tires.
If you have never had the misfortune of slashing the side wall of a tire, the resultant immediate loss of tire pressure is unmistakable. Within one kilometre of where we planned to park there was a pop and a loud hiss. We knew without looking that the tire was done. I jumped out of the car and immediately a red tailed black cockatoo emitted a deafening primeval shriek - as only black cockies can - "Good," I thought, "we are also about to be eaten by dinosaurs."
We gave some little thought to cancelling the trip and driving back out. This might seem extreme, but, on one trip to the local mountains behind our old house in Nelson, British Columbia, I tore the side walls of two tires on a 12 kilometre stretch of very rough logging road. Not only was that a really expensive day out, but, I had to walk back to our house and then, with Doug's help carry a snow-tire on a rim up a steep loose logging road back to where our vehicle was abandoned in a tiny pull-off. After a day out climbing mountains, it was quite a work-out.
After changing the tire, a lot easier on our small car than the old pick-up truck where I had to dig a hole in the road surface just to get the jack in position, we drove the final kilometre, parked and set off to walk about a kilometre uphill to where we would leave fire roads and enter the wilderness.
The peak we were heading for lies about 2.5 kilometres north of Burra Creek solidly in the Burra-Oulla wilderness, a trackless, roadless section of Deua National Park marked by steep sided gorges and clear running creeks. At 600 metres, Burra Peak is not the highest point in the area; Mount Donovan, about 6 kilometres north is just over 900 metres high. Burra Peak, however (not named on the topographic map), is the most prominent of the ridges and hills visible from Moruya, the Princes Highway, or anywhere to the north. Burra Peak has a characteristic conical shape and is ringing about by rocky bluffs all of which make it one of the more interesting peaks to walk up.
Our route was not planned to be the most expeditious, more the most scenic, as we would traverse over another rocky peak along the way that would take us past cliffs, gorges, small waterfalls and views west up the Burra Creek catchment and east to the coast.
Stepping off the Coondella Fire Trail we had easy travel down a ridge to a saddle and then a 100 metre ascent to the top of the first rocky peak. This little peak is not quite encircled by cliffs and offers excellent views in all directions.
We descended almost 500 metres down to Burra Creek via a north facing spur ridge that afforded a little easy rock scrambling but mostly just steep walking. At Burra Creek, the water level seemed as high as it had been a month previously and travel upstream was just as slow fighting a rising tide of invasives among knocked down trees and flood debris.
Gaining the south facing spur ridge we were to ascend involved a first 100 metres of steep somewhat scrabbly terrain before the angle of ascent laid back a little and we were able to continue more easily up talus and past small rock bluffs to a 510 metre spot on the ridge with views west over Burra Creek.
Burra Peak is about one kilometre to the north and involved a short walk down to a saddle and then a steep walk up with occasional rock scrambling (could be avoided) to the surprisingly bushy top. There is a big cairn and even a summit register (calls the peak "Burra Peak") with very few entries, but also no writing implement to make an entry.
We found ourselves a nice lunch spot looking west and I astonished Doug by pulling out a thermos of hot water to make tea. I do love a cup of tea at midday, never mind it was actually nearer 2.00 pm.
I had planned a somewhat longer route back to the car via two different ridges but this would have added some hours to what was already proving to be a long day so we decided to walk back down the ridge we had ascended and walk up the ridge we used to access Burra Creek on our last trip which we knew was open and easy walking.
Walking down was a bit of an exercise in ankle rolling and slithering as the talus was barely under its angle of repose and each step our feet would slip and the talus would begin sliding down hill. But, of course, bushwalking is always just one foot in front of the other and we made it to Burra Creek where we walked down stream to some rock bluffs and the start of the route out before having a last snack and ample clean creek water.
Apart from having to hike 600 metres back out of the creek, the final walk back up to Coondella Fire Trail was probably the easiest walking we had all day, and, some nine hours after leaving the car we arrived back happy to see that we still had four inflated tires.
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