Into the Walls of Jerusalem or Choosing the Wrong Option: Solomons Throne and The Temple

It is a decade since Doug and I walked into the Walls of Jerusalem with Jason who had not long completed his successful circumnavigation of Australia by sea kayak. The Walls were a quieter place then. Now there is a constant stream of bushwalkers heading in or heading out, the flow is almost uninterrupted! We started at 7:30 am walking up – the best bit of the track – the initial uphill section to the undulating plateau at about 1150 metres. Dozens of walkers passed us on the way out. When you are on the way out at 7:30 in the morning, I always wonder why you didn’t just finish the walk out the night before. At this time of year, it is dark until almost 7:00 am so, unless these folk started walking at 4:00 am (perhaps they did), they must have been within striking distance of the trail head. But, if the increasing creep of left wing authoritarianism in Australia has taught me anything it is that it’s not my business!

We passed the old trappers hut (1050 metres) and the track that goes to Lake Adelaide. A new (at least to us) sign at the trailhead advertises the route through Dixons Kingdom, down to Ball Lake and back via Lake Adelaide as a two or three day circuit. I imagine the circuit is quite popular. I also imagine, after reacquainting myself with the trail, that many hikers find it tougher than the track statistics would imply. I certainly did!

Past the Lake Adelaide junction, the track goes up a bit, down a bit, up a bit, down a bit, to the left, to the right, to the right and left, followed by to the left than right. In other words, it is surprisingly slow given there is no real elevation gain until the ascents to Herods Gate and then Damascus Gate. I kept looking at my Garmin watch and thinking “how is it possible that we are so slow?” Eventually, we passed the new (at least to us) campsite at XXX creek, just below Herods Gate. It was gratifying to finally come out into some more open terrain as we passed by Lake Salome. We had a brief stop here, sitting on a boulder in the sun looking down on Lake Salome and across to The Temple with King Davids Peak behind. As an aside, how is it possible that the woke crowd has not demanded that all these places be renamed? The Christian themed names of these places must be driving them bat-shit crazy!

Of course I had hopes of tagging the three highpoints around Damascus Gate: King Davids Peak (the highest and most impressive although the ascent is, as usual, up the gentle back/west side), Solomons Throne (which I had done before) and The Temple. Doug, who is eminently more sensible than me was planning on hiking up one of these only and chose Solomons Throne (called Halls Buttress on the topographic maps). I decided I would walk up Solomons Throne with Doug and continue along to King Davids Peak. All Trails shows a footpad along the ridge between the two.

Walking up Halls Buttress/Solomons Throne was like a mini-Everest expedition – there was an actual traffic jam! A group of seniors was slowly crawling up, with one fellow making so much noise I thought a cardiovascular event must be imminent. We managed to pass this group near the ridge top and soon were at the top of Halls Buttress and a magnificent view point. I walked up here at dawn on a frosty morning ten years ago and remember being impressed with the quality of the track. The track is stellar. Big boulders have been moved to make good steps all the way. 

A young couple of backpackers who were ahead of us continued on to King Davids Peak their speed a bit of a wake up call to me that the walk between Solomons Throne and King Davids Peak would not be any quicker (and likely a good bit slower) than the track into Damascus Gate. The ridge between the two drops 60 metres and then gains 90 metres, and is about three kilometres return (not counting all the twists and turns). A son and his father who were just ahead of us were enjoying the view and later we would meet them after they traversed the ridge to King Davids Peak and descended the northern aspect to regain the track near Lake Salome. The seniors group stumbled past us, moving exceptionally slowly and shakily. One woman had an unusual (honestly stupid) pack design where most of the weight and bulk was carried on two enormous pockets on her chest. This might seem like a good idea to someone who has never scrambled before because, initially, it might seem that you are equalising the weight between the anterior and posterior aspects of the body. It’s not, however, a good idea, and impairs the ability to use your arms for balance and for minor climbing moves.

But all this is beside the point as I realised I had chosen the wrong door. The walk to King Davids Peak would take more time, energy and leg endurance than I had available to me – I am an old, out of shape, walker too! I should have chosen The Temple because I had never been up it before. I left Doug on top of Solomons Dome and hoofed it down the track to Damascus Gate and up the also amazing track on the opposite side of Damascus Gate that climbs to the top of The Temple. The Temple is only 50 metres lower than King Davids Peak and has a tremendous view of its own, including across Jaffa Gate to Mount Jerusalem. There is a good track up Mount Jerusalem as well (we did that with Jason back in 2016). Even better, there was no-one at all on The Temple. I could see Doug across Damascus Gate on Solomons Dome and texted him to say that if he let me know when he was leaving Solomons Dome, as I would also descend The Temple and we could walk out together.

Doug regained the main track perhaps a minute or two before me and we started the long walk out together. We were now passing hordes of walkers coming in, rather than out. What a busy place! I got back to the van at about 4:00 pm so an 8.5 hour day (including stops) to cover a meagre 14 kilometres, although there was a decent amount of elevation gain included. I had to resort to more Vitamin I that night (Ibuprofen) as my injured hip was aching. We were camped in our van beside Lake Rowallan and had a wonderful fresh water swim when we got back to camp. I like to think the “cold therapy” (although it wasn’t actually that cold) did something to help recovery!

Ironstone Mountain

A number of tracks pierce the Western Tiers from the valleys to the north, most (all?) fork off the Westrope Road which runs west to east along the base of the tiers at around 700 metres ASL (above sea level). It is two years since we were last along the Westrope Road to walk a loop up Mother Cummings Peak and, in that time, the road has deteriorated some. The road bed is still good but the road itself is increasingly narrow as the forest grows in from either side. Nevertheless, we parked at the intersection of the Westrope Road and a small spur road that leads up to the start of the Western Creek trail. There is a loop walk along this trail – an endeavour that would take you about 1.5 hours and would be a singularly unrewarding walk for the effort involved. We did not realise this and set off immediately from the end of the spur road on the lower half of the loop track.

There were a few fallen trees to navigate and, in places, the track was vague. Throughout it was rocky, rooty, and slippery, the dark rainforest humid and wet year round. An hour or so after leaving the vehicle we intercepted the “top” half of the loop walk and some signage. For a short while, the track improved and was well banked into the hillside, but this lasted only 10 or 15 minutes before the character reverted to rocks, roots, talus, ups and downs, all while sidling along the hillside above roaring Western Creek. After a further half an hour, a side creek with a small waterfall is crossed on a sturdy bridge. Without the bridge this would be a difficult crossing as the creek is a foaming precipitous torrent.

In another 15 minutes, the main creek is crossed on rocks and the track finally emerges from the dark forest onto the scrubby plateau. Ahead on a hillside, the new outhouse that is nearby to the old Whiting Hut is visible, and, although it looks a long way, the going is much easier and the old hut is soon reached. We were about two hours to the hut which is awfully slow for the distance covered and a sad reminder that I am now an old lady. It’s not a fast track to walk, in fact, in places, the track is more a scramble than a walk, but, ten years ago, I would cover that terrain much faster.

Beyond the hut the track quickly becomes indistinct but is still easily followed for perhaps a kilometre until low scrub gives a view to a series of narrow talus slopes that ascend towards a pass to the northeast of some steeper crags that run west down from the Ironstone plateau. Looking at the Ironstone plateau, there is a prominent craggy buttress to the far right (climbers or “lookers” right) and then two smaller little crags to the left. The aim is to ascend 200 metres to the plateau via this pass. If you walk up the talus fields about half way up, cairns appear and a rough footpad ascends to the pass. Lose this footpad at your peril as to either side, the scrub is thick.

Ironstone Mountain is really a large flat plateau and once at the pass the major difficulty is working out where the summit trig is. A compass helps, but the best route we found did not head straight to the trig station, rather it followed areas of lower scrub and talus to finally arrive at the sturdy and familiar black circle trig. There is a good view from the top with all the familiar peaks of Cradle Mountain/Lake St Clair National Park easily seen, and of course, the lakes; the hundreds of lakes, tarns, ponds, streams and rivulets of the Central Plateau.

It had taken us four hours to reach the top so we did not have time to linger for much longer than 15 minutes before retracing our route. We were slightly faster back to the hut, although we did have to reverse our path part way down from the pass as we had veered off the footpad. In general, the footpad will be to your left (skiers left) as you descend but it is easy to trend right and lose the footpad on false leads. Back at the hut, we had another quick break and removed all the detritus that had collected in our shoes, and then began the slow walk out.

Only on the way down the track did I realise just how rough a track it actually is. This is frequently the case. Tracks that seem like a pleasant gradient on the way up, suddenly seem quite steep once you begin the eccentric loading against gravity that walking downhill entails. However, it’s not the steepness of the track that makes it difficult. It is the rocky, rooty, technical terrain all of which is covered with a slick of moisture and is slippery underfoot. At the upper track junction, we took the upper trail back which was a lot better than the lower trail having a reasonable benched in trail for part of the distance. We may have shaved a further 10 or 20 minutes off our ascent time but, overall, this trip will take as long on the way up as it does on the way out.

That Person

I feel as if I’ve become that person; the one who orders the ridiculously specialised coffee at the cafe. The half-shot, triple decaf, no froth, snow leopard milk, extra tepid in a mug made in Machu Picchu during the Inca period and rinsed out with unicorn tears. And it is a trendy cafe we are in: Doug and I completely out of place in this hip back alley cafe trying to get a plain old burger for Doug and something without meat – I can’t believe I am asking for something with NO meat! - for me. When I ask the very helpful and friendly (trendy and handsome too!) barista if they can whiten a coffee with something other than dairy milk, he looks upon us kindly, aliens that have arrived in the new trendy Devonport, our grey hair and wrinkled visages giving us away as old people or worse boomers.

In the 1980’s I lived in Devonport, in an old house only two blocks from the ocean. I kept swimming right up until mid April, although the water was pretty cold by that time. Devonport seemed a lot smaller and a lot less fancy in those days. There were no trendy cafes, or Kathmandu retail stores, just milk bars serving burgers and pubs that were a little rough around the edges. Even then, however, there was a back to the earth, trendy contingent in the area. I was training as a midwife at the Mersey Maternity Hospital and occasionally a couple would ask us to wrap up the placenta for them to take home. Some had rissoles recipes (true story), while others had secret mystic rituals planned. I volunteered once a week at the Wilderness Society Office and my beat up old car sported dozens of ‘greenie’ stickers. For some reason, the Wilderness Society Office always smelt of joss sticks and so did I when it came time to leave.

Two days before I had used my epi-pen and called an ambulance to the mountain bike parking lot. Some mild dizziness which had troubled me in the night, had gradually worsened after eating a piece of bacon for breakfast. In my usual, “I’ll just ignore it” fashion, I had started riding my mountain bike up the trails. But the dizziness progressed until even I admitted there was something wrong. I took the much shorter, downhill road route back to the van and realised that without intervention I was rapidly heading for unconsciousness, just like when I get a tick bite. By the time the ambulance arrived, the epinephrine had taken effect and my symptoms had receded.

As long as I’ve had my anaphylactic allergies (which is over 25 years), I’ve considered myself lucky because I don’t have food allergies. True anaphylactic food allergies are difficult to manage. Every label has to be examined closely and eating anything you have not prepared yourself carries some unknown, but possibly life threatening risk. You can be prepared but you can never prevent every eventuality. I carry a very comprehensive anaphylaxis kit which is prominently labelled EPI PEN and includes instructions on what to do should I be found unconsciousness.

We always think we would know what we would do in any circumstance. I’ve had friends die from cancer, more and more as I get older and cancer becomes more prevalent. Almost all of them fought the good fight, the valiant battle to the end. The last year(s) of their lives were consumed with medical and surgical treatments that, in the end, simply delayed the inevitable. Very few, two that I can name, refused treatment, and one chose MAD (medically assisted dying). I think about this a lot now. What would I do? I want to believe I would go gracefully and fearlessly into “that good night,” but when I feel the darkness closing in and I desperately reach for my epi-pen, I know, in my heart, that I am nowhere near ready to leave this world, which is crazy and imperfect, but nonetheless breathtakingly beautiful.