TheBanyanTree: Climbing Mount Exmouth

[Peter Macinnis]

One of my standard CVs, kept for times when serious and po-faced people 
demand one, lists my hobbies as walking up small mountains slowly, and 
sitting on top of small mountains, wondering how to get down. On Tuesday 
I think I supersized my sense of 'small', but I never planned it that way.

We have mainly small mountains in Australia -- the highest peak on the 
continent is only about 2200 metres above sea level, and most ranges are 
much less. The Warrumbungles is a crop of volcanic remnants in central 
New South Wales.

Mt Exmouth is the highest mountain in the Warrumbungles, and it rises to 
1206 metres. There used to be a four-wheel drive part of the way up, but 
that has long since closed, so I walked all the way from a car park at 
about 330 metres. That was where I made my mistake, I think -- I took 
the vertical part of the climb from the top of the road, at something 
like 750 metres. When I heard the road was closed, I forgot to check again.

The first part, through Burbie Canyon, is suitable even for old-age 
pensioners (I met two as I was walking out), and while it rises a bit, 
maybe 50 metres, it isn't extreme. Then you come to the old 4WD road, 
and that suddenly becomes steep pinch after steep pinch, but it is 
pleasant enough if you can make your own pace. You go up a rise, come to 
a turn, and are confronted with another rise. In one straight line, it 
would be heart-breaking, here, it is constant variety.

I always wear Dunlop Volley sandshoes (which upset our English guide in 
the Troodos mountains of Cyprus last year -- she wanted me to wear 
boots, until I showed her the soles and explained that roofing 
contractors wear nothing else. Her eyes flickered curiously at this 
Australian custom, then one of the other Australians in our group 
clarified by adding "on their feet"). Sandshoes are lightweight canvas 
slippers with thickish rubber soles with amazing traction.

Anyhow, Volleys are traditional with wilderness walkers of a certain 
vintage, and I am of that vintage. They let you feel the ground, so I 
walk very quietly, especially when I am on my own. The result of this 
was that I was frequently alarmed by kangaroos that only saw me at the 
last minute. At least I knew they had likewise been alarmed.

600 metres (vertical) and 5 or 6 km (on the ground) above the car park, 
you come close to the mountain proper, and from a small saddle, you 
start walking up. That was the point where I looked at the map, and 
realised my error, that the total climb was more like 850 metres, not 
450. I had not looked at the map closely enough, and had assumed the 
wrong starting point. Still, having gone that far, I thought I would try 
a bit more. My legs were querulous but I spoke sternly to them.

The final climb begins with a narrow track up a scree slope that plunges 
away on the lower side, nothing too daunting, but the track drives 
eternally upwards, then there is a flat section through trees, then the 
way slides up the mountainside again. There was one point where I had to 
work around a rock face carefully, with multiple strands of fencing wire 
strung between two trees behind me.

It was a bit wet and slippery -- nothing dangerous, but I had seen no 
fresh footprints on the way up (and I was in fact the only person up 
there that day), so I knew help would be a while coming -- I had posted 
a walk plan and given 8 pm as alarm time to send out searchers. That 
meant I needed to go extra carefully over stuff that I wouldn't think 
twice about, down at sea level. In this case, there was a steep drop 
below me, so I just took my time, leaning in and keeping three limbs 
attached at all times. My younger son who is climbing in New Zealand 
would have sneered, but I felt safe that way.

What made it truly interesting was that a wedge-tailed eagle had been 
circling the peak all morning, and now it was swooping in, about 5 
metres over my head as I worked around the face. Of course, as soon as I 
rounded the corner and got my camera out, the rotten bird lost interest 
and drifted away. So I just kept plodding up the track, wondering if I 
really needed all this, and suddenly, I was on top. Well, on the ridge, 
and that meant I only had little jump-ups along the ridge to the peak.

It was an almost perfect day for being on top of a mountain -- on 
Thursday, as I drove past the mountain from the west, it was wrapped in 
cloud, but on the Tuesday, I had a perfect monarch-of-all-I-survey view 
of the Warrumbungles. I ate salami, cheese and dried apples, I drank 
water, I mooched around.

That bloody eagle stayed well up, but kept flying so its shadow passed 
over me -- it had to be deliberate. Then a second one came in and flew 
wingtip to wingtip, then rolled over and grasped at the first eagle with 
its talons, when the two of them dropped, recovered, and did it again. 
Mating display or aggression? As far as I could see, they never made 
actual contact with their talons.

My knees maintain that they are are elderly, and they had had enough. 
Four hours from starting off, I headed back down, each step carefully 
placed -- it took me just under three hours. The day wasn't hot, but I 
still used two and a bit of the 4 litres of water I took, but in the 
end, I never used the bivvy bag (an orange plastic bag large enough to 
put broken people in to keep them warm, dry and visible -- I have 
carried it for 25 years or more and never needed it yet) or my kiwi 
jacket or sweater, or the extra food or the torch and other stuff, but I 
needed to carry them as insurance.

The day after, I walked up Mount Harris (named after the surgeon who 
gave his name to Harris Street Ultimo and Harris Park, if you are a 
Sydneysider), described by a later explorer, Charles Sturt, as a hill 
120 feet high, but one of just two rises near the Macquarie River.

John Oxley climbed up that hill-mountain in 1818. He saw the 
Warrumbungles (the Arbuthnot Range, he called them) and decided to head 
for them. He saw the Great Dividing Range from Mt Exmouth, and decided 
to push on to Walcha and then the coast at Port Macquarie. Mt Harris is 
north of Warren, and far enough west for the flies to be bad. It was, of 
course, the only day that my trusty fly veil was not in the car. 
Photography in dense fly swarms is no fun -- but I came back with about 
500 pictures, all in large format. It is spring here, and the 
wildflowers were out in force, because there has been rain in the west. 
Not a lot, but enough.

The area is dead flat, right across the flood-plain, so I was amused at 
one point to find a flood-depth indicator in the middle of nowhere, 
which would be good in a flood, as it would tell you that you had been 
driving in 2 metres of water for the past 5 or 10 kilometres. It is the 
sort of country where explorers climb trees or each other's backs in 
desperation, seeking the sight of a landmark, any landmark, on the 
horizon. There are no 35-metre trees, so a hillock of that height is a 
boon -- especially when it reveals an interesting peak, almost 130 km 
away. Explorers like distant landmarks that they can take sights on, 
because it helps them map their way.

I had not been able to see Mt Harris from Mt Exmouth because it was lost 
in the haze, but I could see the Warrumbungles and Mt Exmouth from Mt 
Harris. Mr Oxley managed to see each from the other, so he must have 
been lucky.

Mt Harris, by the way, is private property, but the owner, John Egan, 
kindly gave me permission to walk up it. Apparently they get a few 
oddballs making the same request.

I am glad I went up Mt Exmouth, but I probably wouldn't do it again on 
my own, and possibly not even in company -- one has to learn one's 
limitations with age.

Or maybe one should ignore the limitations and go out in style? Not just 
yet -- there are too many Mt Harris-sized small mountains to walk up and 
sit on top of. I just need to clarify my internal concept of 'small 
mountain' a bit.

Small is beautiful.

peter

-- 
   _--|\    Peter Macinnis         petermacinnis at ozemail.com.au
  /     \   manufacturer of automated parakeet flensing systems
  \.--._* <-at Manly NSW, the birthplace of Australian surfing
       v    http://members.ozemail.com.au/~macinnis/index.htm