Wild Dog Mountains:
Narrowneck to Splendour Rock

Friday

After surprisingly good traffic for an Easter Friday, we found time for a pie stop in Leura and a quick drink in the Paragon, and got away from the Golden Stairs car park around noon. It can be a bit of a bash along Narrowneck, but we had good weather for it - overcast with the occasional spattering of rain - and I had fun taking photos.

We were planning to camp on upper Breakfast Creek, so after the descent of Tarro's Ladder we took a short cut, going straight down the hill from Clear Saddle, under the power lines, instead of doing four kilometres of track and road via Medlow Gap. This was steep and scrubby, and we came across some leeches near the bottom. That freaked Camilla out a bit, though Tony was the only one actually bitten.

Hitting the road we turned left instead of right and had to go back to find the creek, and the campsite 50m past that. I put up the fly as well as the tent and slept under that; it was dry overnight.

Saturday

We had decided to camp somewhere in the Wild Dog mountains, so I loaded up with three litres in my water bag before we set out. At Medlow Gap we set off on a side-trip to climb Mt Mouin. Camilla and Megan stopped at the end of the old firetrail, while Tony and I scrambled up the hillside. We couldn't find an obvious route through the cliff-line at the top, however, and didn't have time to hunt for one, so we turned back there.

There were only scungy puddles of water at Mobbs Swamp, but a little creek a kilometre further on had a much cleaner little pool, from which we took extra water. After a brief confusion finding the track -- there's a huge cairn and a clear track junction! -- we climbed up to Splendour Rock and camped just behind it, with time to enjoy the splendid 270 degree views and a superb sunset. Tony had been here before but this was the first visit for the rest of us.

Next: Knights Deck, Breakfast Creek, Carlon Head