Dates: 03/02/2021 - 04/02/2021
Participant: My neighbour and I
With one month left of holiday before uni started again, I decided to do a mid week trip to the Kedumba valley in the Blue Mountains with one of my neighbours who also was in uni. It was also the perfect time for me to test out my new sleeping set up.
The drive to Kedumba valley track was very pleasant, with only few cars going the same way. There was an enormous gate and sign at the car park, indicating that we have arrived at the beginning at the track.
Greeted some park rangers driving into the track, we filled our water bottles and headed down.
The track quickly turned into a steep descent down to the valley. There were plenty of gates that were said to prevent wild boars.
Flowers could sometimes be seen on the side
Although the clouds didn't look too friendly, the beautiful cliff heads of the Blue Mountains surrounded by blue hazes emitting from the blue gums below created a romantic atmosphere.
A creek which led to the Kedumba river
We quickly descended to an open area, with a noticeable abandoned hut. That was the Kedumba Slab Hut, or Maxwell's Hut. William Maxwell was the man who explored and resided in Kedumba valley and his son, William John, built the hut and lived with his family here. Sadly, we couldn't go inside.
However, right after that, we arrived at the valley.
There were three signs that recognised the importance of the site for the Aboriginal people. As it appeared in the ancestral story that the place was carved by Gurangatch, a gigantic eel - part fish, part reptile. It also said that Mount Solitary was called Muumu which was importance to the connection of the past and present in the Aboriginal culture, while for us, the prominence peak looked "solitary". I tried locating all the key points according to the sign, it was very easy but it took me quite a long time to find Waterfall creek as it was not very obvious.
We also noticed the campsites (and there was nobody besides us! Yay!), which had picnic tables, fire pits and there was also a very clean and new toilet.
We quickly chose a site and I was eager to tried out my new set up, using only a tarp as cover and walking poles to hold it up (which allowed my pack weight to be very light). There was only one set back, we could not escape from the build up of condensation, luckily, it took only a short time for me to dry up my sleeping bag.
I wonder if we should chose a place further from the river next time.
After setting up our sleeping spot, we headed straight down to Waterfall creek.
As we arrived at the campsite so early, we spent the whole afternoon at the river. The sound of insects and water flowing added to the relaxing atmosphere.
We decided to walk around a ruins and witnessed a devouring of a wombat by a goanna!
We came back to our campsite after vising Kedumba river to prepare dinner and to our surprised, there were a lot of kangaroo families came to the valley to join us!
One even came as close as the picnic table but most of them seemed to just observe us from afar.
The fire pit
We enjoyed our dinner under the eerie dark sky by our fire pits with the kangaroo families. I enjoyed days when we did absolutely nothing like this, so peaceful.
The next day, we went back up via the same way, more dark clouds rolling up over our heads but luckily, we arrived back at our car dry and safely. After that, we had lunch at Echo point lookout while observing rain bucketing down the area (it was very dry at Echo point so it was very interesting), which made it look like a water curtain. We even saw plenty of thunder hitting down the cliff face!
We encountered a lot of kangaroos on the way out
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