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Published: December 4th 2014
With a hand drawn map and one day of chilling and playing chess in Byron Bay we headed inland through green fields, tall trees and a lovely countryside with Mount Warning as our destination. Mt Warning, or Wollumbin (the aboriginal name for it), was created from the Tweed Volcano, which erupted 23 million years ago. Anyway, before we were going to conquer this mountain we had some other places in the same area that we wanted to visit. First stop was the Natural Bridge, which is a waterfall coming down trough a massive big rock into a beautiful lagoon located in stunning rain forest. All VERY cool. Our friend Omar who told us about it said that you can jump trough the waterfall down into the lagoon but unfortunately now there was a big tree that had fallen into the whole and big signs that said no jumping or swimming… But one little swim wouldn’t hurt anyone?!
Next stop was the Best of all Lookouts. I don’t think I have to explain what it was all about… It was a pretty amazing view! After sucking in the view and taking some pictures we continued to the Springbrook National Park. Here
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The Masterare so many national parks that I think we could spend years just hiking and discovering… In the end we decided to do the 6 km hike to some natural swimming pools that ended up being another beautiful and unjoyful place to spend the afternoon at. After jumping, swimming, running and laughing we continued our tour to Mt Warning.
To get the best view and experience we wanted to be at the top just before sunrise, which meant that we had to start walking around 3.30 in the morning. Head torches and bug spray ready! We arrived at Mt Warning in the afternoon and found a good camp spot for the night where we could cook and get a good night sleep. Our secret little camp spot was about 3 km from the base of Mt Warning so we decided to drive all the way up (from where we were going to start the hike) just to check it out… First thing we saw when we got there were 2 ambulances, firemen and 2 or 3 other rescue cars… and we could hear a helicopter above us. We met a couple that just had done the hike to the
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The Natural Bridge top and told us in detail what just have happened and how well prepared and fit we have to be to be able to do this in the morning. It sounded like it was like running a marathon uphill risking our lives for this beautiful sunrise. Anyway, what had happened was that 2 people had fallen on the way down, 1 broke her leg and the other got a fracture. With this in mind and after talking to the paramedics who gave us some advice (don’t do it in thongs and don’t run downhill – common sence?), we decided that we were more than capable to fulfil this mountain marathon. We rove back to our camp, started to cook dinner and realised that we had no water. Closest water tap? Just around the corner downhill to the official campsite. All good. We jumped in the car, turned on the engine and realised that we almost have run out of fuel… (Which we knew from before but because it was mostly downhill from our camp we could fill it up in the closest town the following day after our mission) ANYWAY, because we didn’t wanted to risk to get stuck somewhere
in the middle of the night and miss our sunrise on the top we decided to walk to the campsite. It couldn’t be that far? We found out that it was a 6 km return walk to the campsite and back… So finally after walking in the dark (witch was pretty fun with all the weird noises and shadows), founding the campsite, founding some water and walking back to our camp it was mid night and really time for bed. A good warm up before conquering Mt Warning! J
With head torches, sandwiches, water and a lot of excitement we started our hike at 4am. Its magical walking in the forest in the dark, its full of life. We weren’t the only one doing this hike this morning. There were some people just strolling, some half running (think there was a speed record involved) and us. I have to add to this story that the right footgear was highly recommended. But if you have lost one shoe what do you do? Mick had one good runner and one skate shoe on the other. Better than thongs at least.
I think it took us about 1 1/5 hour to
reach the top. Just in time for the sunrise. Of course the view was incredible! And sandwiches tasted very good after the effort...
We have now driven a bit more south to the central coast where we are visiting friends from Barcelona, Jim and Jamie. Jamie’s family lives in a giant house in very beautiful surroundings. I get happily surprised and overwhelmed everyday over the nature in Australia. The beaches are like the one in Colombia, but bigger. The mountains remind me about Peru and the countryside sometimes feels the hills in Switzerland.
Today we are going to head to the Blue Mountains. More family to visit, more mountains to conquer and more adventures to enjoy!
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