Great North Walk reprise

I was so pleased to be able to resume my hike of the Great North Walk, Sydney to Newcastle, only two months after I had to abandon it. I had an easy drive up to Sydney with the result that I started walking north from Cowan towards Brooklyn a day earlier than I had planned. This was going to mess up my logistics for the next few days but it was so lovely and sunny that I didn’t want to waste a moment of hiking time.

I parked at Cowan station, the place where I had to sit in soaking wet clothes for an hour waiting for the train the last time I was here, and took the track down towards Jerusalem Bay. The bay (photo above) looked pretty in the sunshine - perfect weather on a long weekend in Sydney is unusual in my experience. The trail continued around the bay and then climbed to a ridge where I suddenly saw Brisbane Water and the Brooklyn rail bridge; I let out an involuntary Wow! only to see I had yelled right at a couple sitting on a rock admiring the same view. The views of the water and the various wooded islands lasted until a very steep downhill into Brooklyn. I got the train back to Cowan then drove to Brooklyn to stay the night. 14 kms

The next day I had a dilemma over what to do as my carefully thought out itinerary would not work for several reasons if I drove straight away to Patonga and did the next section of the hike (there is a disjoin in the route between Brooklyn and Patonga where one is intended to use a ferry but the ferry no longer operates), so I decided to drive to Teralba and hike the very last section into Newcastle as this was a flexible section of the route.

I parked by the station in Teralba and started out along Lake Macquarie on a paved bike/walking path. It was again a sunny day and the path was busy, then Warners Bay was frantic with people enjoying weekend breakfast at cafes for the first time in 10 weeks. The route went through sporadic sections of bush and followed a few creeks and was altogether quite pleasant for an urban walk. The best bush was in Glenrock SRA, which was again very busy, and when I emerged from there, having gone slightly wrong and walking an extra loop, I was at the beach. I tend to forget how nice the beaches are in Newcastle, big golden long swathes of sand and I had a great few hours walking on the sand and rock hopping along rock platforms. There was an elevated walkway all along the beaches into the city centre with some big hills, a white obelisk and then a descent to the route finish. 

Only one problem: I could not work out where the finish line was. I had read that the walk was supposed to finish at the Newcastle railway station within a few hundred metres of where I was but there was no such place shown on my gps map. I asked some people where the station was and they pointed to my left saying it was a long way down there so I thought I had better go that way; after a couple of kilometres I thought this couldn’t be right so I turned back towards the way I’d come. I asked someone else if I was going to right way for the station and he told me it was the opposite way (the way I’d been going originally) but that I could not possibly walk there and should take the light rail. So I continued walking the way two lots of people had believed led to the station and after a while a map in the street confirmed I was going the right way. After walking through some roadworks and taking a hot dusty diversion I made it to the station, 4 kilometres further than I had planned on walking. Even then I had to walk another few blocks to reach the replacement bus as the trains were not running. By the time I got back to Teralba and drove to my motel in Kariong (almost 2 hours) I was exhausted. 29 kms

On Sunday I drove to Patonga to park my car and start the 6 pack-carrying days of my hike. The trail rose above Patonga to several lookouts with views over Brisbane Water and then went into the bush. I was passed by some runners doing a race, which surprised me. Several times the path would come out onto flat granite tops with great views over the bush. There was lots of birdsong. I descended to Kariong Falls which were bigger than I expected but unfortunately crowded so I continued on to the next, much smaller, falls to have a coffee break. A family out hiking in the opposite direction stopped for a chat. 

I came to the big suspension bridge over Pyles Creek (freshwater) where I had planned to camp but I couldn’t see any suitable spot for a tent so I went on for a couple of kms. It was going to get dark soon so I stopped when I reached Mooney Mooney Creek and camped on a grassy patch. After seeing all the mangroves along the creek I suspected that the water in this creek would be salty, as indeed it was, and I didn’t have much water left so I had to be frugal with cooking my noodles. It rained a little in the night. 24.6 kms

I walked under the two Mooney Mooney Creek bridges, the source of much traffic noise in the night, and  into denser bush. For a while I walked with a runner who was doing a chunk of the GNW and said she kept getting lost. I was surprised, but soon it was my turn to go the wrong way. I was labouring up a hill when I saw a sign that seemed ambiguous to me; if in doubt I keep going uphill but at the top of the hill I saw no further signs so I had to go half way back down and try the other option, which turned out to be the right one. It was a good thing I backtracked because this piece of track along Robinson Creek was delightful: rainforest, huge Gymea lilies and tiny waterfalls.

The track emerged at Somersby and I was curious if the store would be open. I did not expect it to be open as this was a public holiday, and indeed it was not; its already short opening hours were even shorter than I had read during my research. Coming out of Somersby I had to cross a creek that flowed over flat rocks right over the road and were mentioned in my route notes as being slippery. Too right they were slippery, covered in a green slime. I made it across the road very carefully then took off my pack and went back to get water from the creek, completely forgetting about the slippiness. I skidded and fell flat on my back, grazing my elbow and bruising my leg. 

From here the road and then trail made a huge descent into rainforest, then climbed out again and went down again, ending up on a flatter trail and following Ourimbah Creek. At the end of this trail was a bridge and a clearing for camping called Stringybark Point. I camped here, the only time on this hike that I camped at a designated campsite. I had creek water, flat ground and a wooden bench to sit on. It rained at night. 29.1 kms

The next morning was misty and felt damp but the walking in the cool forest was welcome. Lots of scribbly gums. The path undulated and I met a group on a two day walk going in my direction. They were keen to chat, which was nice. I stopped to make coffee by a tiny waterfall at an opening in the forest with good views, the only problem was that I had to sit under the dripping water to get the view. There was a section of road walking and I was surprised how slow I was but I got to the small town of Yarramalong and went in the store to buy lunch, then sat outside to eat my sandwich and cookie. I was concerned about how far I had to go because I realised I had miscalculated this section when doing my planning. 

As I left Yarramalong I saw two maintenance workers doing something to the GNW sign and they started talking to me. One guy asked about the track condition and said they had been clearing the part I was heading for. He also said I was going to reach a big diversion because of logging work in the forest and that would add 7 kms to my route. I must have looked very crestfallen because he then said Or you could ignore the sign and just walk through. After this I had 11 kms of road walking, passing small farms with lots of horses and I saw my first kangaroos of the hike.

When I came to the sign saying the trail was closed I opted to ignore it. Within the next half hour I met the only two other GNW thru hikers (one each direction) I was going to meet on my whole hike, all of us ignoring the trail closed signs. I told the guy who was walking southbound about my difficulty in finding the end of the trail in Newcastle and he said he had the same problem so he had decided on his own starting point.

I came to my planned camping spot, a rest area with a water tank and a shelter to provide the runoff, which is where I met the other thru hiker. He said it was going to start raining at 10 pm, and he didn’t mention when it would stop. The day's distance wasn’t yet quite enough so I went on and I was soon in the heart of the logging area, although there was nobody around. There were numerous clearings with huge logs stacked up and there was a lot of machinery at just one of these clearings. These clearings seemed to be the only place where I would find flat ground so I picked one to camp at where there was no machinery. By now it was 5pm and the rain had started, early. I put up the tent and sat on a log to cook and eat. I was pleased my stove worked ok in the rain but it was not so much fun eating in the rain. 30.1 kms

It rained all night so my tent got very wet but luckily did not leak. It hasn’t been tested all that much in constant rain. I had to pack it away wet and I did not have breakfast straight away, waiting until I got to a lovely little pool in the forest, well past the logging area. I saw a couple of lyrebirds and later on some wallabies. At least the morning wasn’t cold and putting on wet socks was not as unpleasant as it could have been. But it went on raining all day.

I came through the rainforest and eventually emerged in the Watagan Creek Valley, quite tiny and surrounded by high hilly forest. From here I had a very steep climb on a tricky trail up to Mt Warrawalong and then the wider dirt road seemed to climb on interminably. This was mildly frustrating for two reasons, firstly the difficulty and secondly that I knew I would not be able to see anything when I reached the lookout at the top due to everything being in cloud. I came to the Flat Rock rest area with a water tank and usual tiny shelter; I had lunch here, standing up as there was nowhere dry to sit. Shortly after I got to the Flat Rock lookout but I barely bothered to walk over to the huge flat rock because all I could see was whiteness. 

All along this hike I had been appreciating how the forest kept changing as my altitude changed, from dry eucalypt to rainforest, from dry clear forest floor to masses of grass trees or ferns. Even in the rain I could experience these changes. And the rain appeared to bring out more wildlife, a few wallabies, although animals did not feature much on this hike for me.

I think I was walking along a ridge for hours and I briefly went wrong at the Warrawalong  communications tower as the trail was hard to locate, then I had a long descent down to the Congewai Valley. The mist was swirling a bit here and I got some glimpses of the forested hillsides. I had to walk from one side of the valley to the other and then along many kilometres to the next trailhead. It was going to get dark before I could reach somewhere to camp as I needed to leave the farmland and get back into the forest. As I marched along a woman pulled up in her truck and said there was a hut on her property close to the trail that I was welcome to sleep in; I really appreciated this but she hadn’t given me much idea of where to find the hut.

As I turned off the road and climbed back into the bush it was already dark (at 5pm) and I had to walk by torch light. I wasn’t happy about this because most of the track marker signs were just a timber stake and not reflective and I could easily miss a turn, so after I barely noticed a sharp turn I decided it was time to stop. It was a very black night by 6pm. I realised there was no way I was going to stumble on the hut I’d been invited into. The sides of the track were grassy - I had no idea really what sort of terrain I was in - so I stopped and put up the soaking wet tent pretty much on the path. It was raining fairly heavily and there was no question of sitting outside and cooking, but inside I was nice and dry. I ate my last two bread rolls and a kitkat for dinner. 35.6 kms

The rain stopped in the early morning and there was a strange silence. When I got up I was pleased to see I was in a grassy floored sparse forest. I sat on a log and had breakfast. The weather looked promising. I made good time to the Barraba lookout which I had originally intended to camp at the night before (if I had not miscalculated the distance earlier) but the views were still shrouded in mist. I followed more ridge lines in a downward trend, and had a nice chat with a woman who was out for a stroll. When I got to the Hunter lookout I not only had a good view over the Hunter Valley I also had a chance to hang up all the parts of my tent and get them dry in sunshine. Shortly after I got to the Maclean lookout with a view over the Watagan escarpment and especially a huge cliff face.

From this lookout I embarked on one of the best stretches of the entire hike. The trail began with a couple of difficult descents to creeks (at the first creek I saw a really strange brown and white striped crab) followed by hard ascents back up which seemed like a test for what was to follow. The main stretch of the trail began with a long descent deep into the rainforest, which felt at the bottom like a hidden world with loopy tree roots, overhanging rock ledges and caves, waterfalls I had to pass behind and dense vegetation. There were several creeks to cross and one of these looked difficult as the water level was high; in an effort to get across as safely as possible and avoid getting wet feet I threw myself from one boulder to the next. I cleared the water just fine but one of my (empty) water bottles fell into the creek and was soon whisked away. I was distraught at the idea of littering in such a beautiful place but could see no way to reach it short of wading down the creek which did not seem a good idea as I had no clue how deep it was.The trail ended at the Heaton lookout which looked out in a third direction, towards Lake Macquarie. So three lookouts and three different views.

There was an amazingly steep long descent from this lookout down to the town of Brunkerville. There was a shop right where I reached the sealed road but I didn’t feel I needed anything. My route crossed the road and then I headed into the bush on a rough dirt road and I wanted to find somewhere to camp as it was already getting dark. I came to a flat spot beside the dirt road and was about to start getting out my tent when I noticed a 4WD coming along the dirt road towards me, so I felt it best to move on. The trail turned onto a smaller footpath and after a short while I came to a patch of grass that looked a much safer area for camping. Unfortunately it was very windy and I didn’t think I would be able to light my stove so for the second night in a row I didn’t cook. This time I ate two muesli bars, a sachet of tuna and a breakfast biscuit for my dinner. No rain tonight. 30.1 kms

Last day! There was a light rain falling when I got up but it didn’t last. I didn’t hang around for breakfast but got on my way, planning to stop later. I was once more in a sparse forest and soon walking along a narrow ridge with window views towards either Lake Macquarie or the Watagans. I was surprised how high up I was considering my long descent of the previous evening. I had a few kms on dirt roads through the forest where there were signs about mining subsidence and then I came to a sports oval where I was able to sit and have breakfast.

The final five kilometres of my hike were by far the least enjoyable. I had to walk on the shoulder of busy roads with a constant stream of mining trucks going by and once my gps wanted me to walk through a quarry. At one point a guy was mowing the verge on my side of the road and I was about to cross the road when I noticed he was beckoning me to come over; he wanted to chat and he had clearly once been a keen bushwalker. Finally I had a quick descent into Teralba, I crossed the railway line and I was all done.

I stayed at Speers Point on Lake Macquarie near Teralba and the next day I decided to go into Newcastle and walk along the beaches again. I also wanted to have another go at finding the proper finish line of my hike. It couldn’t be that hard! I had been seeing intermediate distances on signboards all along the route so there must be a marked finish. I drove into Newcastle and started walking towards the site of the former railway station in the city centre from a road junction I had stopped at the previous weekend; I had concluded that the route must end there as the station I had walked to on the fringe of the city might have been built more recently than my route notes were written. 

When I reached the former station I could see nothing relating to the GNW and believe me I looked thoroughly. The station building was some sort of shopping centre and one shop was open so I went inside and explained my predicament to the three women who were sitting there waiting for customers. They applauded my walking efforts but could offer no answer regarding the location of the GNW finish. So I drove to the new station I had walked to last weekend and asked a pair of police officers there if they knew anything about the walk finish. Nope, but one of them googled the walk and said it finishes at the wharf. So I drove to the wharf and I noticed for the first time that my gps indicated a GNW information board there; this must surely be the marker for the start/finish. I just wanted to see some kind of evidence of where the walk started/finished. I stood on the exact gps spot of the information board and saw nothing. A security guard at a restaurant there said the area was renovated about a year ago and maybe the signboard was removed. Who knows? After this I had to concede defeat.

Two days later I was in Sydney and it occurred to me that I had not seen the official start/finish of the walk at that end either as I had run from Circular Quay station to the ferry wharf to avoid missing the ferry across to Woolwich without walking the very first 300 metres of the route from the obelisk in Macquarie Place to Circular Quay. I duly drove to Macquarie Place and ran the first section of the route. But guess what? There was no sign in Macquarie Place indicating the start of the GNW. So it’s a walk without an officially marked start or finish even though there are many signs all along the route showing how far to Sydney and Newcastle. Hmm...