Splendour Rock Bushwalk

Thanks to Helen from SUBW who organised this very nice walk. Summer is a bit hot for bushwalking in the Blue Mountains and better suited to canyoning. But with so much water in the creeks, I thought a bush walk may be better for the weekend. The other members of the party were Albert, Peggy, Cathy, Crystal and Mary

Splendour Rock is a nice walk from the Dunphy Camping Ground at Carlons Farm in Megalong Valley. The standard route that many parties use, and the one that we used is via Carlons Creek to Breakfast Creek, cross Breakfast Creek then up the ridge opposite (Black Horse Range) to get onto the track from Medlow Gap to Mobbs Soak.

Crossing Breakfast Creek

Well, we set out and found Carlons Creek flowing very nicely and the vegetation was certainly very lush after a lot of recent rain. There were two bad aspects to this – much of the vegetation is stinging nettles and all the water brought out a multitude of leeches. It was so damp that if you stopped to try and pull off some leeches, then you tended to get more on you than you could pull off! We continued fast to the Breakfast Creek crossing.

Goanna at Splendour Rock

If you walk down Breakfast Creek to the Coxs River, there are normally something like 60 creek crossing required. We only had one crossing. That was good. The level of water was quite high. One crossing was enough. Once over, we rapidly climbed up onto the ridge, seeking to find a dry place to de-leech. I think I pulled off ten or so from my legs and then another twenty once I had taken my volleys and socks off. Some other members of the party were better off wearing gaiters.

Coxs River Valley

One at the Mobbs Soak track, we thought it better to climb up to Black Horse Gap and traverse along the track along the side of Mt Warrigal instead of going via Mobbs Soak which we though might be quite leech infested. This route was OK, but quite wet – with a a lot of drips coming down along the “Wombat Parade” section – and there still seemed to be plenty of leeches.

Shrouded Mt Guouogang

Mt Merrimerrigal and Mt Dingo were better, and we soon arrived at Splendour Rock. What a magic place it is! We spent a nice evening sitting out on the rock – taking in the views and also enjoying a fine platter of cheeses, mussels, olives, vine leaves…… washed down with white and red wines. Not a bad way to spend an evening. We then retreated back to our campsite, a little back from the cliff and cooked dinners and helped one of the party, Albert, celebrate his birthday.

With lots of nettle stings and leech bites, some of the party spent a restless night, but most got up early for a magnificent sunrise. All the valleys were filled with mist. The sun rose, warmed things up, and the mist started flowing – changing the scene while we attempted to make a photographic record. As the sun got higher, we were lucky to see a Brocken spectre.

Then, it was breakfast, pack up and head slowly back to Carlons Farm. Our route back was via Warrigal Gap, Mobbs Soak, Blue Dog, Knights Deck (fine views – and eagles), The Coxs River at the Breakfast Creek junction (the river was very high, but we cooled off with a swim) and then up Ironmonger to Ironpot Mountain and the back to the Dunphy Camping Area.

Brocken spectre

A high Coxs River

Mary inspects sharpening grooves on Ironmonger

More photos on my website here