SHOALHAVEN RIVER – NOVEMBER 2015
Long Point Lookout > King Pin Mountain > McCullum’s Selection > Shoalhaven River > Long Point Tourist Track > Long Point Lookout
Sometimes you just have to go back and “do it right the next time” … I’d had a shocker of a trip a few years ago when instead of taking some beginners up the Long Point Tourist track I inadvertently dragged them up King Pin Mountain and by the time I realised that we were in trouble it was too late to rectify the situation (but that’s a whole other story).
Apparently, and I didn’t find this out until much later, the route of the tourist track on the topo map is wrong (see map below). After that ill-fated trip I had determined to go back and do two things, starting from the Long Point Lookout, walk down the tourist track to see where it came out and also do the traverse of King Pin Mountain to see what that track was like. I’d already done the tourist track earlier with my family, and I wanted to get King Pin off my wish list, so I organised an overnight walk with BWOC.
It was such an easy walk, that I decided to make a special event out of it, two groups would start, one group (who were not off track walkers) and then the A Team and me (who were) and we’d do King Pin. We’d take the two routes and then meet up at the River and enjoy a gourmet camp (after all it was a bludge walk, you could afford to take delicacies to enjoy when the walk in was less than 2 hours!).
We all met up at the Long Point Lookout, about 11 of us. As a group we walked down the tourist track until the small saddle just before King Pin, it was here that we said goodbye and the continued down the track and seven of us started climbing King Pin. There was a bit of a foot-pad, not much really, but good enough for our purposes. The route up is really nice, a knife edge spur up to the highpoint and then you walk along the ridge for a while, eventually summiting King Pin. The views were spectacular and eventually we started dropping down. We came to a point 
where it was a big of a climb down (but not all that bad) and I recognised this as the spot where I decided my ill-fated group just could not climb up and over the top, we skirted around (which caused problems on its own).
Anyway, on this day all was smooth sailing, we were up over the top and wandering down the scree slop without any issues. I sustained a nasty stick into the leg on the way down, so we were slowed down a little as Dr Heather treated me, it was a bit like a M.A.S.H. episode with Heather trying to make a steri strip from a Band-Aid, it wasn’t too painful, so we continued on down to McCullum’s Selection.
With a lot of scouting around, we eventually found the other group, not where I expected them, but in a nice campsite a little further upstream. Now that we were all together again, we set up camp and then did a little exploration up Barbers creek. I had remembered this creek as being prettier than it was on this occasion but nevertheless, we had a nice walk that afternoon and wore off a little energy (it had after all only been a 2 hour trip down from the top!). It was a lazy sort of afternoon, we wandered up the creek rock-hopping all the way. I challenged Geoff R and Jeff B to walk around a rocky outcrop, which they did, I was hoping they’d fall in, and then on the return journey, Heather proved that she was as good as they were with a bit of rock climbing (looks easier than it was!).
Back at camp we started preparations for our Gourmet meals. Everyone had outdone themselves with the dinners that they prepared. We had everything from roast lamb & vegies to duck with cherries and a whole range of other delicacies in between.
Heather had convinced Jeff to carry in a bottle of champagne (and she brought champagne plastic glasses), and the party began. There was supposed to be a prize for the best gourmet meal, but really every one had outdone themselves so sparklers were handed around (everyone got a prize).
Next morning we all got up late. My group headed across the river to see if we could get up the other side and maybe make our way to Rainbow Saddle. The river crossing was interesting, one of our group hadn’t crossed a river before so a new experience for him! We then walked a short way upstream, totally missing the gully that we wanted to go 
up and next thing you knew we were going up a very steep spur. We continued up with the intention of just getting to the high point, I saw no point in going all the way up so I waited for them to finish their adventure and then we went back down to the river to start for home.
The tourist track is so easy to find (if you know where it starts), and so we were on our way by about 2pm and were up the top re-grouping with the others by late afternoon.
So, I’d achieved my goal of doing the King Pin traverse, can cross that off the Wish List, although I have to say it’s a much nicer walk down than the tourist track, and so much quicker that I’d rather do that route than the tourist track. Mind you, going up King Pin is another story! Here’s my track log going down King Pin and the route out, the actual track, as you can see, in most places no where near what the map says and it starts around about where my red track log crosses the dotted line below!
