BLUE MOUNTAINS NP – 3-4 June 2025
Mt Hay Road > Rocklily Ridge > Flat Top Brook > Urella Ridge – I’d always wanted to investigate Rocklily Ridge so when Nicole B suggested a trip out on the ridge to check out an interesting geological formation, I was in! John G, Trish M, Jim C and Matt O’K joined Nicole and me.
It was 6ºC when we arrived at the locked gate at 9.30am and the forecast was for high winds and the possibility of rain and snow on the last day.
We were all rugged up in puffy jackets, gloves and beanies when we started and whilst it warmed up once we started walking, it was still really, really cold and didn’t get much better. Plus, the wind was wild and I was quite nervous about falling trees, particularly when we camped for the night.
John and Jim did a car shuffle so we would have a vehicle at the end of Urella Ridge. We set off at 10am on a pretty good fire trail and walked for about 4 or 5k.
We stopped for morning tea at a convenient log, just beside the fire trail.
Then headed off into the bush for our off track adventure.
An Angophora which was growing over a rock clinging on like an octopus, it actually had “legs” coming out from the base, just like an octopus.
The walking was much easier when we got to the top of the ridge, we decided on this sunny spot for lunch.
After about 1k of off track ridge, we headed down to our destination – a peninsular of cliff, about 300m long and about 50-100m wide, an unusual feature surrounded on 3 sides by creeks.
Looking out to the cliff on the side of the peninsula. We dropped our packs here and headed down to the saddle.
From the saddle we had to climb up about 20m, there were plenty of foot and hand holds (me following Jim’s route – photo Nicole.
Looking down from the top, Trish and Matt in the background (photo Nicole). Most of us, knowing that we’d be doing a lot of ascents and descents took our helmets.
Once on top, we walked to the end of the peninsula. There were a couple of rock platforms (tessellated rock), and then lots of casuarinas, both Nicole and I had expected a much different area, more heath and more rock platforms, not so many trees. Can’t believe the size of the trees given that they’re growing on rock.
More of the tessellated rock. We walked to the end of the peninsula and couldn’t see much because of the trees. There was no negotiable route down, and no negotiable route to the bottom of the cliff. I had been hopeful that we’d find a sheltered overhang to camp in, but looking at the topo map there was no way we’d be able to get to the base of the cliff without backtracking for a few hundred metres and even then, no guarantee that we’d be able to negotiate around the cliff.
On the peninsula, looking down into Flat Rock Brook and in the distance the ridge that we would walk out on. (photo: Nicole)
Back to the saddle and down the cliff. John set up a hand-line for me to negotiate down, it was easier than it looked, but I appreciated having something solid to hold onto.
Whilst this photo doesn’t look blog worthy, it is, these are John’s new gaiters, his previous ones must have been 20 years old, but he couldn’t replace them until he found some red ones – most gaiters are black or gray LOL.
We picked up our packs and then started looking for a flat area for our tents. We had hoped for a sheltered overhang but weren’t lucky. Just before our lunch stop we decided on a fairly flat area. We cleared away all the ground cover and started a fire. John and Matt headed down to a creek and picked up water.
It rained a little during the night, around 2am and I laid in bed listening to the gale force wind – worrying about trees falling on us. In hindsight, we should have camped closer to some rocks, that way if a tree did fall on one of our tents, the rocks would some them obliterating us. I’ll remember that next time LOL.
At 9am next morning we retraced our steps from the day before until Nicole identified where we’d drop down into Flat Rock Creek, the route we would take back to the cars. (photo: Nicole checking out our route).
Fairly easy route so far, but I expected it would get quite steep.
Yep, it was steep, and quite overgrown.
The grade was so steep that at times we had to descend on our butt. (photo Nicole)
After avoiding cliff-lines we eventually arrived at Flat Top Brook, a 200m drop in elevation. When looking back to where we’d dropped down, with cliff lines either side, it was amazing that we found the route, mind you Nicole had a Lidar image which showed were the cliff lines were.
We found a flat rock (or two) in the creek LOL.
We headed up the other side of the creek, fairly easy to begin with – looking back at where we’d come down.
Again we had Nicole’s Lidar to give us an indication of where we could get through the cliffs.
Trish on a small climb up. Looks easy but it was quite challenging (note we take our back packs off when necessary).
The final steep section that would get us onto the top of the ridge and a fire trail.
It was about 200m to where we expected the fire trail to be, but it was quite thick vegetation.
And then we were on the old fire trail – we would be walking on this fire trail for about 3.5k.
That last 3.5k was challenging for me, after the descent into Flat Rock and then the ascent the other side I was getting a bit tired. However, when we estimated the time we’d get back to the vehicles (around 3pm), we were pretty much right on the estimated arrival. I’d taken a few Panadol but that didn’t help much, my left hip was annoying me. Bless his heart, about 200m from the end of the fire trail, John was walking down to Trish and me (behind the others) and took my pack from me for the last 200m. I don’t usually let someone take my pack, but on this occasion, I was really grateful.
When we got to the cars, the outside temperature was 2ºC – and the wind was incredible, no-one stood around saying goodbyes, it was too damned cold.
Thanks also to Trish, Matt, Jim and John for joining Nicole and me AND a big thanks to Nicole for putting this walk on – it definitely exceeded our expectations and everyone’s keen to see what Nicole’s next walk will be.
Looks like a very challenging walk but excuse my ignorance but what is a Lidar?
Hi Denis, in the scheme of things wasn’t that challenging, LOL. Lidar is a “map” that shows you contours but they are coloured, white areas are almost flat, pale yellow areas are negotiable orange areas may need a rope to assist climbing up/down, red areas are full on cliff lines. I don’t know how you get these Lidar maps, but they are amazing in areas where there are lots of cliff lines. You can basically look at the map and can see the way through a cliff line.