Budawangs Camping Rock Ravine Camp
31 July - 3 August 2012
Led by Ian
Report by Ian : Photos by Ian and Jared
Most of the Budawangs is a large dedicated wilderness area of at least 70,000 hectares within Budawang and Morton National Parks. It hosts a number of spectacular geographic features, many well known such as The Castle and Monolith Valley, some much less so. The established tracks through the wilderness are well used, visiting many of the area’s features, but a side trip to nearby features usually involves extensive bush bashing through thick vegetation.
A forensic survey of 1974 aerial photos at a scale of 1:15,840 has focused on an area very seldom, if ever, visited and it subsequently attracted the attention of five Batemans Bay Bushwalkers for exploration.
Camping Rock Ravine is in the northern section of the wilderness. It is known on the old 1960 Budawangs bushwalking map as Crevasse Canyon. It is aptly named, a highly dissected 250 hectare maze of broken rock laced with mesas, buttes, pinnacles, crevasses, canyons either side of a series of parallel narrow rock ridges on the southeastern point of Island Mountain. Few of these features are discernible on available maps.
It is only on the rocky ridgetops one can avoid the dense vegetation. The rest is clothed in a very thick blanket of scrub and litter which not only slows a bushwalker’s progress to a half kilometer per hour but severely restricts visibility, making it very difficult to detect the very few passes and saddles which allow progress from one valley to another. It is not a place for the faint hearted.
On this occasion the Ravine was approached from the north along the Folly Point track which had recently been trimmed up by Parks staff. A rugged bush bash westward to a base camp in the Ravine proved to be only a sample of the heavy going we would experience for the next two days. Water was scarce until reaching Camping Rock Creek but a comfortable campsite was found in the gloom of late afternoon.
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| Home sweet home for 3 nights Click on thumbnail to enlarge photo |
Camping Rock Ravine Click on thumbnail to enlarge photo |
Jared peers down a Camping Rock Creek cascade Click on thumbnail to enlarge photo |
Next day’s exploration required more intense bush bashing to the toe of a narrow rock ridge running from Island Mountain and was then easily climbed southwest. The intermittent bare rock areas on top enable faster progress. Above the thickest of the vegetation we were then able to gain our first full views of the Ravine.
At 479983 (Endrick 84 GDA), an old stone fireplace possibly twenty years old was found on the southeast toe of Island Mountain, the only sign in our four days of any previous visitation to the area. We saw no signs within the Ravine.
Having proved the route to Island Mountain we returned to Camping Rock Creek and explored nearby crevasses and gullies. Within the most sheltered, small patches of Coachwood and other rainforest plants survive the bushfires and droughts which historically dominate the plant growth in this area.
Returning to camp from the southwest we paused at 485986 where Camping Rock Creek, laced with potholes, cascades into is a small ferny ravine. The final push to camp was hard and required careful navigation to thread a path between a cliff line and a deep gully stuffed with boulders and logs shrouded in hole hiding ferns and heavy litter.
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| Air photo of the lower Camping Rock Ravine basin showing the massive radial cracking of the bedrock Click on thumbnail to enlarge photo |
Jared, Bronwyn and Wendy lunch above the ravine Click on thumbnail to enlarge photo |
Gazing down into the interesting lower ravine basin Click on thumbnail to enlarge photo |
Our second day of exploration was more productive. A bush bash from the previous day’s track at the cascades navigated us to the foot of the most likely rock ramp back up onto Island Mountain’s rocky southeastern toe. As we climbed through 484983 we were able to gaze down into the Camping Rock Ravine’s lower basin just before the Creek cuts through the last of the bedrock to plunge toward Munnuldi Falls, and ultimately Holland Gorge.
It was an interesting view. Although the basin was, again, shrouded in vegetation, enough monoliths, pinnacles and rock platforms could be seen to suggest more exploration of this small area, with the creek exit through the cliffline, will be high on the agenda of the next visit.
We continued our ascent, again proving a route between Island Mountain and the Ravine. We quickly surveyed the crevasses which southwestwards form a second basin of interesting broken rock. On another day we may investigate this basin as an exit from Island Mountain to the cliffs below. We headed east across flat rock dotted with dry shallow pools and were soon on the main cliffline at 482979.
Directly across from us was an impressive massive rock fall from the main cliff line. It contained house sized cubic blocks spewing down the talus to the creek. Judging the regrowth around it, we guessed the fall to have occurred within the last 10 years, perhaps less.
But it was the view to the southeast which held our attention. Straight down Camping Rock Creek towards Holland Gorge was a semicircular stage containing left to right, the Folly Point cliffline, Castle Head, Byangee Walls, The Castle, Shrouded Gods Mountain, Mount Cole, Mount Donjon, and ultimately into the Angel Creek valley. A hazy Mount Dromedary lay on the coast 100 kilometres distant.
It was a majestic sight. With the warm sun over our shoulders highlighting the colours of the cliff lines, the view enticed us to linger for a longer lunch.
By retracing our route through the undergrowth, taking care not to lose the trail of broken branches and trampled litter, our return to camp was much easier.
On the fourth day we rejoined the Folly Point track and slogged it to the Sassafras car park, exhausted.
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| Camping Rock Creek Click on thumbnail to enlarge photo |
Bronwyn, Wendy and Ian above the lower basin of Camping Rock Ravine Click on thumbnail to enlarge photo |
Jared, Ian, Wendy, Rudy and Bronwyn back at Sassafras Trailhead Click on thumbnail to enlarge photo |
In summary, although daunted by the thick vegetation and relatively slow progress which can be made in this area, we had achieved a number of objectives. As suspected, the area proved to be dominated by rock, heavily dissected by cracking in two directions and subsequently heavily weathered to produce a valley which is chockers with interesting formations, but unfortunately largely hidden in the mystery of thick vegetation.
A short route into the lower Ravine via the Folly Point Track was established. It is quite possible others have been to this area but apart from the fireplace on Island Mountain we saw no evidence and found no records or literature suggesting past visitation.
Camp sites with flat ground and permanent water (all seasons, all years) are probably confined only to Camping Rock Creek, but flat ground is often limited. Possibly the best in this area near permanent water is at 485989 but others may exist. We found no significant overhangs but some could have been used in an emergency for a very small party.
A route from the lower Ravine onto Island Mountain is available via the two rock ramps described above. A descent southwest from these ramps into the second interesting basin is not yet proved. The view south from the southeast tip of Island Mountain contrasts sharply with the heavy bushbashing required to get there.
The lower basin and exit of Camping Rock Ravine deserves further exploration of its monoliths, pinnacles, crevasses and clifflines. To enjoy such an exploration, it is possibly best done 1-2 years after the next large bushfire through the area.
Thank you to my complying, uncomplaining companions – Bronwyn, Wendy, Rudy and Jared.
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