The Castle, Budawangs

Rolling hills near Kiama present some of the best scenery in that region. It's also a popular road trip destination- most people's road trip itinerary will either be a few days down Southern Highlands or Kiama. The industrial landscapes of Nowra soon creep in where we made a grocery stop. Chenghan went for a ramen place while we scrambled to get groeries sorted across Woollies, Coles and Aldi. 2 hours down and we got to Long Gully Campground afte a long drive on unsealed roads, just before the sun sets. The road was fine except for a few potholes and narrow wooden trestle bridges over creeks. We averaged 40-50km/h over roughly 20km of dirt road on a city car which is fairly decent. The plan was to summit The Castle on the first day but delays over the drive ruled it unrealistic. 

Using the remaining daylight to cross a river the sun eventually sat midway on the walk up to our campground. After the initial bushlands the track travels up along the slope just under a cliff. This is where it becomes messy as one track becomes a network of 2 tracks running parallel to each other, with multiple connections between each other. It was rocky and many sections were washed out by rain, turning this seemingly easy walk to a scrambling exercise. Doing this in the dark was no fun as we got to a creek, realising there was no track on the other side. We shined our torch across and it was a stone wall. Went down the creek for another go and it was a tiny cliff. We eventually went back, up and around a big rock where the track continued. There was a lot of growth as thick bush edges towards the track, but it's far from being overgrown and the track was still distinct. Guess this is why extensive works need to be carried out- without management the washed out sections will keep getting eroded. 

This year's new Walks Secretary has unfortunately been slacking off with placement and work, and has struggled with this walk carrying heavy packs. Being stuck in the city has given him extra body weight, noticeable enough for aunties in lunar new year family gatherings to comment "aiyooo you've gotten so fat!". Perhaps not having a proper lunch in Nowra also contributed to this fatigue, as I was also exhausted and surviving with my pack of Lifesavers lollies. All the tricky track conditions made this a 3-4hrs trek but we were fortunately entertained with Theo's monks story and our hardworking Wollies employee reminding us about gift card scams. 

Soon we got to Cooyoyo Creek campground with a bad (but expected) surprise that it's been packed with campers. There were roughly 20 tents scattered around, equating to around 50 people staying in this small site. Arriving late meant there were not a lot of spots to pick as we found a reasonably open spot to set up our tents. It was still fairly close to other campers, which isn't ideal. Walks Secretary found a cool spot and showed me his setup, as he pitched his tent roughly a metre away from a cliff. It looked scary but at least there's enough soil to secure tent pegs. Next to his spot is a platform on the edge of a cliff where we made dinner. I got some eggs, Frankfurt sausages and made myself pasta with scrambled eggs to top it up. Walks Secretary went to bed having to be aware of his bed's dimensions all night, just so he's not rolling off the cliff into the darkness along with his tent. This feels like being on a sleeper train when there aren't guard rails on the upper bunk, making for a terrific night's sleep.

Back in our tent we fell asleep straight away after a long day of walking, despite someone in the campground snoring through the night. Having a tent next to the cliff meant the Walks Secretary is ready for sunrise with a view straight from his tent. A tour group came along and complained that a tent was taking up their scenic spot, despite having a wide open viewing platform close by available to them. The Walks Secretary offered to move his tent to make room which they declined. The tour guide thought it'd be a good photo opportunity and told her clients to squeeze over the narrow ledge right in front of the tent for a picture. While it can be debatable whether camping close to a lookout is a good decision, intrusion into others' personal space by being very close to their tent is probably not a good reaction, as some people can find this scary and highly uncomfortable. 

Everyone soon woke up and gathered near the lookout for breakfast while one person (Theo) continued to sleep in his tent. As we got back the person has just woken up in the only standing tent, as all others have packed up and continued with their day. Slow packing followed and we started our day at 10am, heading towards The Castle. We left our sleeping gear at the start of the track and started our summit. A few ropes were set up but most of them were not essential. They do speed up scrambling which is good. 

Halfway through we took the wrong way which led us to a very exposed scramble right on the edge of a cliff. We got through and realised there wasn't a way through. It's a steep cliff that drops into a gully with rocks and a dirt slope on the other side. A bit of scrambling is probably possible for those feeling hardcore on the way up to the castle but we turned back and found a proper, rope-guided way up. The Walks Secretary was very unhappy about this blunder as he stares into his Alltrails app and finds a way through. 

Two final scrambles before we reach the plateau for The Castle, both easy scrambles doable without ropes. Chenghan decided to back out right before the final scramble towards the top, which is unfortunate but it's his personal decision. The final scramble was a wiggle between two rocks and the ropes were hardly helpful except offering a sense of comfort. They're far from scary- beginners will be fine with a bit of guidance and support. After that, we got to a wide plateau where we continued in search for a logbook.

It's all short shrubs on top perhaps due to the wind. We have Didthul/ Pigeon House Mountain clearly in profile, where its Aboriginal name means women's breasts. This is quite noticeable being on top overlooking the entire coastline free of obstruction. My Aboriginal lecturer from last year's Aboriginal unit is also from this part of country, where every tutorial is his talk on car camping, shrimp, fishing and his Toyota Hilux. 

We had lunch at where the logbook is. The logbook is full of dumb entries, unlike those in the Alps or NZ where they're always a delight to read. Perhaps it's a normal part of Australia where the country as a whole promotes dumb behaviour. Back in high school our teachers love to remind us how rules are created by you, where poorly behaved people lead to more rules and restrictions being made. That's probably why in Australia, fines apply. We wrote our entry right after the tour group where they made their last The Castle tour of the year. Not a good idea to put phone numbers in logbooks though as people these days can easily sign you up for scams or supply them to preachers/protestors in Town Hall. 

Quick lunch and a few photos before we started heading down. Chenghan has successfully gone all the way down to where we left our stuff, waiting for our success stories. Looking back on the way we've gone up it looked very much like a dragon's back. Soon we collected our stuff and continued down to the carpark. The tour group also summited the castle slightly earlier than we did and went the same way back to the cars. 

We stopped by a tiny waterfall to collect some water for drinking. As we were waiting, the tour group came and the guide offered to take pictures for their client. Poor Trevor was collecting water while the tour guide takes out her smartphone with him in frame, and essentially forced him out of the way for pictures. It's hardly an issue if they asked politely, but the level of aggression demonstrated by a licensed national parks tour guide is unprecedented. It's fair to say that just like taxi and bus drivers, people do lose patience dealing with frequent poor behaviour by some park visitors, possibly reinforcing a “us against them” mentality. Individual walkers and tour groups don't have to be enemies- we respect the groups' need for space and slow-moving groups can coordinate to let fast walkers pass. This mode of mutual understanding and collaboration works everywhere, and it's hard to understand why only in this particular national park aggression has to come first.

Back in our car, we drove out of the dirt road towards Ulladulla for hot food. The Walks Secretary wanted fried rice, so we thought it'd be great to sample Chinese food in regional towns. We got to Ulladulla Chinese Restaurant, one with decent google reviews, and ordered Special Fried Rice with some Mongolian beef. The food is great, fairly authentic and seasoning doesn't feel off. It's genuinely a decent Chinese restaurant if they were to be true to their roots and not use names like Mongolian beef for their dishes. Apparently the restaurant gets unruly customers here and there, as the first sentence of their menu is that those who don't fit into their dining etiquette standards will be asked to leave. The owner, feeling like he's from Hong Kong, offered us fortune cookies giving us weird fortunes. Funny enough the cookies are made by a Hong Kong bakery but they're never sold in Hong Kong.

After a KFC feed we headed towards Jervis Bay for a car camping night. Best part about the campground is its hot shower- much needed after a long walk. We woke up with a few wallabies around our tent, very used to human presence as if they've been tamed. They've probably been fed by too many people where they'll approach people and allow petting like a cat. Quite sad to see but unfortunately animals cannot unlearn behaviours once they're accustomed to them. 

We went to a beach for a swim before heading home with a stop at the town of Berry, a popular road trip stop. We visited the famous donut van which also makes good coffee. Same way back to Redfern as we were dropped off just outside gear locker in uni, organised a few things in Scitech library and returned to our home out west.