The Peninsula – Day 01

This geographical feature in the Blue Mountains that I call the peninsula has fascinated me since I read about it… It is about 250 m long and 60 m wide and 60 to 80 m high and is located at the confluence of two creeks. 

Attempt 01 had been cancelled last year due to rain that did not eventuate. The weather for attempt 02 was worse! Sunny, but windy and cold on Saturday. Strong winds, cloudy, rain and snow above 800 m with a maximum temperature of 5C was the forecast for Sunday! We decided to go ahead, the forecasts in the upper Blue Mountains having been unreliable lately.

After a quick discussion, we did a car shuffle to have an option of doing a loop. We set off on a fire trail and after a quick tea break, were in dense vegetation. Things eventually improved vegetation-wise, but there were no views: just trees and shrubs.
We arrived to a flattish area with blobby rocks, a possible camp option. After lunch we started the descent towards the peninsula and found a better campsite in the lee of the wind.
Near the peninsula we had our first views of something, in this case the deep gorge cut by one of two creeks. The slippery leaves and sand made the descent dow the cliff line a bit nerve-racking. A small land bridge linked the “main land” to the peninsula. We were faced with an 8 m cliff wall that turned out to be easy enough to climb. A large cairn was on top of the wall.

We set out to explore the top of the peninsula. The amount of vegetation was surprising: tall tea trees, casuarinas and trees; I had expected knee-high grass. Some tessellated pavements provided some respite from the vegetation. And the walk with no views continued! We arrived to the cliff edge but there were too many trees to see anything. We followed the edge back to the climbing area where we could to see something. A hand line saw us down safely and we returned to where we had left our backpacks. Mission accomplished!

The next order of the day was setting up camp. John and Matt went to a neighbouring creek line to find water carrying goon bags (a new word for me)  while the rest of us set up our tents. We had a nice evening talking about nothing and anything, including the latest developments in the mushroom trial… before turning in. We could hear the wind during the night but we were well protected…