1. Preparation and Planning
Since moving to the Blue Mountains in 2017, I've been longingly staring out from Echo Point in Katoomba at the Ruined Castle, wishing I didn't have a dodgy knee so I could hike down to it.
Ruined Castle seen here to the right of Mt Solitary.
My yearning occurred both day and night.
Approximation of Federal Pass route to Ruined Castle, Gundungurra Country.
I put the hike down as my New Year's Resolution in 2018, 2019 and 2020. Also, when I blew out the candles on my birthday cake at work.
In shit-tastic 2020/2021, bushfires and pandemic aside, I was bedridden for a long time before and after my spinal surgery. I thought I might never make it to the Ruined Castle except in my imagination. Then the pain I'd been living with actually went away.
Carpe diem.
There are four ways down into the Jamison Valley. They are (from east to west): The Giant Staircase near the Three Sisters, The Furber Steps near Scenic World, the steep railway at Scenic World, and the Golden Stairs at Narrow Neck. I knew I couldn't manage to climb any of those staircases, which meant I would have to use the steep train and go across the Giant Landslide.
But I also knew I couldn't make it the 7-odd kilometres from Scenic World to the Ruined Castle and back again in between the first train (9.30am) and the last train (4pm) of the day.
Which would mean I'd have to camp overnight. Hadn't done that since doing the Milford Track with Action Man on our honeymoon back in 2007. Because of my knees.
Then, like a beam of light shining through rain curtains onto the Ruined Castle, my highly athletic employer, Nina, who is training for this year's 100km UltraTrail trail run, offered to carry my pack down the Golden Stairs and drop it off at the campground.
Mum agreed to be my hiking buddy, carrying her own pack and bringing a personal locator beacon. She had last trekked out to the Ruined Castle and back in a day with her Cronulla cousins (the Iron Man Dillon cousins) sometime around 1977.
About time she went again.
We set a date.
The hike was on!
Then it was off? The plan kept having to be altered. Scenic World closed. It rained. The cliff edges of Narrow Neck, devastated by bushfire, were unstable and the Golden Stairs were closed by landslides.
Scenic World reopened with new COVID rules, normal hours at first.
Months later, we were still getting above average rainfall. The Giant Staircase was temporarily closed by landslides.
Scenic World temporarily closed due to landslides.
One week before we were due to walk, Scenic World rules had changed again; the steep train would only be running on the Friday (planned Day 2), not the Thursday (planned Day 1). UltraTrail Nina agreed to carry my pack down the Furber Steps (all 951 of them), and from there along the Federal Pass to Ruined Castle Campground.
I decided I would take the risk of strapping my knees and going down the Furber Steps as well (much more slowly), so long as the train would be running the next day to carry me and Mum back up.
It had already been raining for a week straight. The weather forecast was for more rain (35mm – 100mm), fog, and potential flooding, but I worried that if landslides closed the Furber Steps, the hike would be postponed indefinitely. We had no choice, we had to go!
Let the fulfilment of the New Year's Resolution begin!
Me and Mum, at home on Thursday morning, still dry.
The difference not carrying a pack makes. Having said that, Mum has elected to bring some luxuries, including olives and lentil soup. There is a rockmelon in her pocket.
Action Man laughing at us setting off in the rain. Small One too busy on the computer to take much notice.
Drop off at Scenic World. A dude came out to tell us it was closed and not to park there.
I'm so excited. We're really doing this!
(I'll try to keep the photos in order but they're a mix of mine and Mum's).
2. Day One. Furber Steps to the bottom of Scenic World, to join the Federal Pass.
I'm pretty scared of what the Furber Steps will do to my knees, but we can't stop grinning.
Mum hauling that huge pack with a spring in her step.
Rain running off the rock smacks our raincoat hoods and turns the sandstone steps into little waterfalls.
Juliet's Balcony lookout is supposed to provide a view of Katoomba Falls and the Three Sisters. The roar of water is amazing, but the mist is impenetrable.
Mum pointing with her walking poles at the flooded walking track. At this point she still has dry feet.
Fifty steps down, nine hundred and one to go!
This cave is our friend. We stop to text Action Man, while we still have reception, to reassure him we have not yet slipped and fallen off a cliff.
The rainforest is incredible in the rain, as always.
This part is terrifying. We're exposed on the cliff face, we can't use our poles, and the railing is really slippery.
However, if you use your imagination, you can see Katoomba Falls! (150m, two main stages). There is so. Much. Water. in it.
More steep zig-zagging down the cliff. My knees are giving me warning pangs.
I need a break, but here Mum demonstrates how there's nowhere to sit except to plonk your butt directly on the steps and let the freezing waterfall enter your butt crack.
I'm smiling but my butt is wet.
This is Witches Leap, the fattest I've ever seen it. You can normally cross Witches Leap Creek in 1 or 2 big steps.
This one probably doesn't even have a name. Many spontaneous waterfalls have poured on our heads and we're not even a quarter of the way to Ruined Castle.
Vera's Grotto.
I love this picture of Mum. So reminiscent of pictures I've seen of her in Canada hiking with Girl Guides. She looks like she's in her 30s, not her 60s. Her spirit of adventure will never die!
The bottom of the Furber Steps. It's here that Nina, dancing like a nimble mountain goat over the treacherous stones, catches up and passes us. She has her intrepid husband, the Reptile Vet, along for the fun of it.
Nina expects to be at Ruined Castle Campground in a couple of hours. Mum and I expect to get there in five or six hours.
An entrance into the labyrinth of mining tunnels and shafts under Katoomba. In the 1880s, the steep railway used to be part of a whole tramway system connecting Katoomba train station to the coal and oil shale mines in the Jamison valley below, including the mines at the Ruined Castle, and, via Rennie's Tunnel under Narrow Neck, to the Megalong Valley mines as well. (see these cool old photos)
The Furber Steps were cut where the old Gundungurra path down into the valley used to lead. Gully people used the path to get into the Burragorang Valley, before it was flooded to form Lake Burragorang. To get into the Megalong Valley, they'd use the path from Narrow Neck though Devil's Hole. Don't think I'll ever manage that one.
Action Man does not want me going through Rennie's Tunnel, even though it has bats. But the mine entrances make me want to write Future Katoomba Zombie Apocalypse stories. I am a little bit obsessed with them.
Arriving at Scenic World.
At this point, the Reptile Vet reappears, unaccompanied, and I panic. He's going to tell me the track is closed and we have to go back! But, no. He has come to offer to carry Mum's pack to the campground! We are thrilled. (Mum keeps the rockmelon in her pocket).
We don't take any photos of Scenic World because we have a bajillion already and we're trying to make sure our phones have enough charge to call Action Man for a lift when we walk out on Day 2.
But here's one I prepared earlier, in March 2020, when the whole track was closed by floods and landslides. Complete with Miner's Hut.
3. Scenic World to western end of Giant Landslide
Signposted start of the Landslide. Dangerous, try not to die, yada yada.
From the Sydney Morning Herald, Monday 4th May 1931 : "THE LANDSLIDE: DOG FACE ROCK COLLAPSES. Result of Heavy Rain. The large hanging cliff-face of the Dog Face Rock, near Katoomba, crashed hundreds of feet into the Jamieson valley about 2 o'clock on Saturday afternoon. Although this menacing cliff had been one of the main attractions for tourists and sightseers, only a few people witnessed the great landslide. There having been no warning, a fall was not expected, and the occupants of the regular bus service were astounded when they arrived a few minutes late, and saw the great clouds of dust rising from the valley."
Mum isn't scared because she's never had to climb over the bastard before. I know what's coming...
...and it's way slipperier than normal!
Infamous tiger leech, with yellow stripes, blurred by movement, casting around desperately for the source of vibrations. The Reptile Vet is an advocate for waterproof socks, but how can I douse waterproof socks with RID until they are 10% merino 90% DEET?
(I scrape at least 50 leeches off my shoes during the two days of the hike, but none manage to get past my Socks of Chemical Destruction to attach. Mum has half a dozen leech bites by the end but is very relaxed about the whole situation.)
I think of this bit as "the coal chute". Aww, just like Newcastle and Singleton.
As the track turns under Malaita Point, you normally get a spectacular view of the valley.
Look, fog!
Yet again, the track is the waterfall is the track. Beautiful but treacherous.
4. Western side of Landslide to Ruined Castle
On the west side of the Landslide, the Federal Pass turns south towards the Ruined Castle, and we're surrounded by ancient rainforest again, sheltered by the sheer cliffs of Narrow Neck.
We can hear waterfalls all around us.
And then we begin to have to cross them.
Whee!
Another almost-blocked mine entrance, between the Landslide and the bottom of the Golden Stairs.
The mist teasing us with almost-views.
This mini-landslide looks like it's from March 2020, and there's a detour in place.
Mushrooms! Did not get photos of the red ones, pink ones, purple ones, and even bright blue one that I saw. Nor of the waxy white ones with the fluoro yellow tinge which are the glow-in-the-dark ones. The gleaming fungi were nicely complemented by the yellow and scarlet pink triangle slugs, which crossed the track at leisure, the benign buddies of the invertebrate world.
Cannot get enough mossy boulders. Mossy boulders for everyone!
Lichen on the trunks of coachwood trees.
Inside rough tree fern bark.
Starting to see some areas affected by 2019-2020 bushfires the further south we go.
As Mum is spreading out her leech-proof (?) blue tarp on a log for us to sit on and eat dried fruit, UltraTrail Nina and the Reptile Vet come smilingly back the other way.
They have safely delivered our packs to the campground! Huzzah!
But Reptile Vet has a warning about some fallen trees ahead. Especially one Massive Tree (TM) that has fallen down the slope and completely blocked the track.
"Don't go downhill," he warns. "You can't get over it that way. Go up. A long way up. I've placed a log on the track to show the spot where you need to go up."
Cool. This is important for us to know. When we see the log marker, we will go up.
A couple of hours later, we come to the Massive Tree (TM) and stop at the thoughtfully placed log marker.
I look to the left at the downhill slope. The bulky, spreading crown of the tree is there. Ultratrail Nina and the Reptile Vet were right. That way looks dangerous.
I look to the right. The steep, mulchy, muddy bank is higher than my head.
I can see their springy little mountain goat hiking shoe footprints in it.
Yes, they are very light and skippy, but how have they skipped lightly up this vertical mud wall carrying our packs? I think this is the most impressed I've ever been with other humans.
(Maybe equally impressed, in Cairns, with how our Kuku Yalanji guides, clearly outweighing us two to one, somehow skipped through the mangroves without sinking in the mud while teaching us to spear crabs and keep an eye out for crocs simultaneously?)
Back to Ultratrail Nina and the Reptile Vet.
I can see plainly with my eyeballs that this is the way they have gone. We must learn from their wilderness savvy and go that way, too. Mum shoves me by both buttocks up onto the bank, where I grab prickly vines that break, and grip rocks that pull free from the mud, in an effort to defy gravity.
It isn't pretty. A leech sucks onto my hand while I'm hauling on a tree fern trunk, kissing charcoal from some burned tree that toppled off Narrow Neck, desperate to keep some upward momentum.
Eventually we are able to get "up. A long way up."
Yeah!
We slide into a little gully and there's a gap under the trunk.
It's wide enough to duck under. Woo!
This is the marker on the other side, for our return journey.
Looking up at Narrow Neck.
So green! I love.
Leaving the rainforest now. Heading into more eucalyptus-y sclerophyll-y forest.
Goodbye fungi! Hello...more fallen trees too new to have been cleared.
Contemplating the best way across.
Birb-friend helps.
Mum takes a selfie with my giant butt in-frame. Thanks, Mum!
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
Equidistant between the Ruined Castle and the Ruined Castle Campground, now. It's still daylight. We agree to get as far up the Castle as we reasonably can without breaking anything!
I love the contrast of the black trunks with the epicormic shoots and the golden, new bark of trees doing their best to survive.
More stairs. What is it with these "mountains" and their "stairs"?
Just when it seems like we'll be completely surrounded by fog and there's no point going any further, a gust of wind unveils the rock turret of Castle Head, which sticks out of the side of Narrow Neck to the west.
Mum's photos of the mist curling and uncurling around Castle Head.
I leave her sitting on a log and go a little further.
Water falling off Narrow Neck.
Castle Head.
Waratahs coming back from the dead.
Look! Castle Head on my head! Hur hur.
The waterfall we crossed earlier in the day, and the Southern Escarpment. The clouds are hiding Katoomba, though, which is sad. I want to stare back at Echo Point, across the valley, the same way I've been staring at the Ruined Castle for so long!
Big rocks are cool, but I don't want to hurt myself if I'm not going to be able to see anything. After a little more trudging through the mist, I turn back and reunite with Mum.
I love this tree.
Also, I love waratahs. But I won't be here to see these ones flower. It's time to go down to the Campground.
5. Ruined Castle Campground
I bet the campground has a really good view when it's not raining!
The rain has been constant, but it miraculously stops, just for thirty minutes, as we arrive.
Moss! Golden trunks!
Our packs, lovingly arranged by Ultratrail Nina and the Reptile Vet, are waiting for us under the rain-collecting shelter. We are so grateful. I figured my through-hiking days were over, and yet because of the kindness of others, here I am.
The tanks are overflowing. I feel like the worst kind of horrible person for putting water in my pack.
There is cake!
Stairs to my glamorous private pit-toilet.
During the 30 minutes of non-rain, we whack the tent up using my hiking poles. It's an ultra-lightweight tent, only about one kilogram, and the Cuban fibre feels so flimsy, as if I'll tear it by tightening the guy-ropes.
But, no. It's no tissue paper tent. It's tough, even though the coming storm will put it to the test.
Soggy raincoat goes on the makeshift line.
Lentil soup for dinner! Spicy and hits the spot. Yum.
We are going to die in this plastic shopping bag of a tent! Also, why didn't I bring more clothes?
Tent selfie.
And then, not only is it raining again, but it's suddenly very dark, and the flooded dirt all around the tent, as seen through the mesh layers in the corners, is three or four centimetres deep. Our bathtub floor holds up amazingly well...
...but it is cold. This is the first time I've ever cracked out an emergency space blanket, and Mum, too. About twenty minutes after unfolding them, we are toasty and warm.
This is laughter to stave off fear. At about 2am the wind comes up, and we can hear the terrifying crack and smash of falling trees, very close by.
Maybe a tree will fall on us, and I'll be in the Blue Mountains Gazette under the headline: Local Vet Dies Because Too Stubborn To Postpone Hike, Gets Mother Killed Also.
Or will it just be that we can't physically get back out of the valley?
We both dream about not being able to get back out.
Mum dreams that the waterfall we crossed is now as big as Niagara Falls and we have to tie our climbing poles together and pull one another through.
I dream of mudslips as wide as football fields, and of trying to throw my pack up over a boulder at the Landslide but accidentally throwing it off a cliff instead, and then having no pack.
Local Vet Throws Expensive Tent Off a Cliff.
Yet we wake to a dawn chorus, not of butcherbirds and currawongs, but whipbirds and lyrebirds.
It is utterly enchanting.
And no trees have fallen on us. Good little tent! So thin you can see leaves through the roof, but it kept us snug.
We don't want to get out of bed, and yet...
6. DAY 2: Ruined Castle Campground to Scenic World
...this whole 6 hours of walking has the least number of photos because we're rushing to catch the train.
According to the Scenic World website, the last train leaves at 3pm.
Plus, today we're both walking wet and also CARRYING OUR OWN PACKS!
*shudder*
None of the clothes on the little clothesline have dried. My sad face is because I have been forced to put my cold, clammy fleece jacket, my cold, clammy raincoat and my cold, clammy trousers on over my nice, dry sleeping thermals.
But, as if the lyrebird spirits are granting us a wish, the rain stops again, just for 30 minutes, just long enough to pack up and stow the wet tent.
The puddle where our tent was.
Setting off!
Tally ho!
Please let the track be passable!
This is not my photo of a squirrel glider. This photo is (c) CorwinCaelin from gobirding.com.au
- but the photo is here to represent the squirrel glider that I spot in the rainforest near the foot of the Golden Stairs!
So.
It's gloomy under the towering coachwoods.
A stream rushes over the inky leaf litter; a stream that wasn't there yesterday.
I'm about forty metres ahead of Mum when I see a pale grey, extremely fluffy tail twitch into an upright position.
A little fluffy animal is drinking from the stream!
"Mum!" I say, scaring it like an idiot.
The tail curls just like a squirrel tail, and it's so fluffy, and I'm confused. Is there a feral squirrel in the National Park? How? Then it streaks away from me. I see a dark patch on the grey head as it turns. I see skin membranes, connecting its little pink-soled possum feet, stretching as it runs.
In the blink of an eye, the little fluffy animal has vanished up the closest coachwood tree, but I saw it. My first glider in the wild! Woohoo! I don't think it was big enough to be a greater glider, and its ears were smol. I think it has to have been a squirrel glider.
Later, there are lyrebirds. They are beautiful, too. They are always beautiful.
We don't make any stops. I gnaw dried nectarines and Mum smuggles olives out of her pocket. We force ourselves to stay hydrated even though we dread having to pee and lower our bums into the tiger leeches. Still, we're tiring. Even without the initial hurdle of the Furber Steps, it's a long way and it's tough getting the packs on and off every time there's a fallen log or an embankment to toss them over.
Our tossing muscles hurt.
We reach the western side of the Giant Landslide and – oh, crap. Mum's blue tarp has come loose. It's missing.
We are not. Going. Back.
The tarp lives here now. It has escaped into the World Heritage Area. Mum vows to tell the National Parks office about it so they don't spot it from the air and worry that a person or a dumped body has come to rest at the bottom of the valley.
*sigh*
Just don't chuck your pack off the cliff, Thoraiya, you numpty!
It's about here that we cross paths with a hiking couple. Actually, as we're resting in the middle of the track (again) they kindly wait, saddled up with their own packs, for us to move.
They're headed for Mt Solitary, hoping to find a dry cave up there to spend the night in. They ask what the view is like from the Ruined Castle and we tell them mostly foggy. I ask if they'll go down the east side of the mountain to stay a second night at Kedumba Crossing Campground, but they say the crossing is flooded and there's no access to Kedumba Pass or escape from the valley that way.
I totally forget to tell them about the Reptile Vet's log warning across the path. I hope they didn't go down instead of up.
Mum forgets to tell them about her escaped rogue tarp that they can have for free!
We are very tired.
In the distance, a travelling beam of sun makes dazzling patterns as it moves over the trees.
Momentary billowing fog shows us the Ruined Castle from whence we came.
I haven't even chucked my pack off the cliff. Win!
This red cooking pot is a reminder that there are 4 big boulders coming up. The yellow-painted poles with reflectors on mark the path across the Landslide. If you go back through the photos, you can probably spot more. The pot also reminds me that we haven't tested out the rehydratable waldorf salad that I got. I wanted to document the hilarity of its inevitable disappointment! Oh well.
OMG, can it be? The eastern end of the Landslide?
HUZZAH!
By now we're both pretty wrecked, and worried about the time. Even though logic tells us we don't have to be. It's 1.30pm. The last train doesn't go until 3pm. We're fine, right?
This part of the track runs above and parallel to the Scenic World boardwalk. We hear clean, well-dressed people mutter to one another, "how does one get up there?"
There are several more logs across the track that we have to chuck our packs over and then bear hug. Mum can't pick up her feet any more, and so finds creative, alternative ways around the logs. I help to keep her spirits up by singing such inspiring classics as "Campfire, Campfire Burning" (composed by the Small One, Age 4), "Tall Trees That Reach The Sky," and "Livin' on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi.
Have we missed the last train?
We get to the Scenic Railway bottom station just before 2pm, just in time to watch the train itself taking off, leaving us behind.
Barely able to move, we shuck our packs and rain gear.
Only then do we start noticing signs that say: Scenic World is closed today. A single train will depart at 4.48pm for safety.
Mum points out that we're both soaked and we'll get hypothermia if we have to sit there getting cold for three hours. I think that the signs have been left like that from when Scenic World was closed last week. Besides, didn't the driver see us as the train was leaving?
He'll come back, right?
Didn't we just see pooncy Sydney people looking at Sculptures on the boardwalk? How long ago was that, anyway?
Anyway, look, the fog is lifting. It's the Three Sisters!
Where's that bloody train?
Here it comes, I can hear the cables. Happy days! I call Action Man to tell him we're at the bottom station.
When the train arrives, it's totally empty. Shit, do they park it for the night at the top or the bottom? It's not fair, the website said 3pm!
I jump up and tell the drivers that my mother is injured and needs a ride to the top, can they please take us up? Young Driver says it'll be $28 each or whatever. I'm all, We're Scenic World Annual Pass holders, so then Older Driver is all, Then You're Family, We'll Take Care of Ya Love, Do Ya Need Ambos? Lucky You Made The Last Train!
(THE LAST TRAIN???)
I tell him I'd love it if they'd carry Mum's pack when we get to the top.
We are supposed to buy COVID masks for $2 each because the Scenic Railway counts as public transport. Young Driver gives them to us. We put them on our wet faces. It's pretty funny.
Then we're being winched up the steep railway to the top station. 415 metres in just a few minutes. Sheer bliss.
And we can relax, we're not going to die. We're doing it. We've done it.
We've hiked to the Ruined Castle.
(THE LAST TRAIN??)
Young Driver goes to carry Mum's pack for her, but Action Man is ready and willing at the top station. Nobody made him put on a mask. He escorts us to the car.
It's rainy and foggy in Katoomba, like we never left.
But everything is different.
When we arrive home, it's to discover that the Blue Mountains National Park has been closed.
I'm SO GLAD that we went! We got in and out just in the nick of time.
(What about that couple we met on the Landslide, though?!?)
Today, three days later, the National Park remains closed. All the campgrounds are closed.
But I know that somewhere down there, curled up in a tree hollow, is a little glider with an extremely fluffy tail.
THE END