Wednesday 11 May 2016

Sadly this hut becomes more and more dilapidated as time passes

More overgrown inside the hut than out

Photos by Ken and Karen C

This walk was led by Jill and John and numbered 12 participants including 3 visitors. Conditions ideal, about 21 degrees, sunny and bright. We followed a combination of firebreak roads and bush tracks, a circular itinerary, initially downhill, then uphill on the way back.

The highlight of the walk was the re-visiting of Billy’s hut, where we stopped for morning tea. It is now dilapidated 150-years old stone structure, comprising an old fireplace, where Billy, from County Cork in Ireland, lived a solitary life in the 1840s/1870s. He built the hut himself, using boulders from the creek, and mud. The spot is now overgrown but one can sympathise with the life this recluse might have led, with weekly walks to Nelligen (approx 20 km away) to pick up his mail. The Club has visited Billy’s hut at other times in the past, on longer walks, including the first recorded walk of the Batemans Bay Bushwalkers in 1985.

The walk took about 3 hours, covered a distance of approx 7.5 km and finished before lunch.  Thanks Jill and John for leading us back to this secret spot.

John M