It's about a quarter past 10, and I am sitting here on a rock at the end of Mt Dingo at Splendour Rock, over looking some of the most spectacular wilderness that you will ever see. There is not a cloud in the sky, the views just go on forever. But, I am getting ahead of myself; let's wind the clock back a ways...

Basic Walk Information

One Way Distance: 14.75km's
Time One Way: 345 minutes (5 hours 45 minutes)
Starting Altitude: 623mtrs
Highest Altitude: 937mtrs
Lowest Altitude: 581mtrs

Directions on how to get there

There are a number of different ways to get to Splendour rock, but, it is more on how you actually get nearby than to the actual location, there are 3 ways up that I know of, I have only done one, there are at least 4 ways to access the area, again, I have only done the fire trail bash from Carlons farm in the Megalong Valley, so I will describe that departure point.

Head to Blackheath and cross over the railway line, taking a hard left as you cross then follow the signs down into the Megalong Valley. Continue through to basically the end of the road which is Carlon's Farm and you will come to a T intersection, turn left and go a short way up and the National Parks camping / picnic area will be found on your right, at this point, you can go no further by vehicle. Look on the map at our starting location for more details.

The Walk

Sat, 18th Feb, 2006, 7:00pm, Wingnut and I have just finished setting up camp at the rather good camping area that National Parks have provided just past Carlons farm and we are watching the spectacular lightening storm that is pounding the Wild Dog ranges, a place we are heading off to tomorrow morning. The sky is so black, hardly a breath of wind, that is, until the storm started to head our way then within seconds, we had a wind that was stripping leaves off trees and then the rain started. The tent survived, which is more than I can say for some other campers that were here as well.

There are two ways of accessing the Wild Dog mountains from here, the fire trail bash through the gate to the east and up the hill, or, right near the camping area there is a gap in the fence where you can take the more adventurous route that takes you down into the creek system and up the ridge not that far from Mobbs Swamp. This route is often covered in stinging nettle, is shorter but has more ups and downs.

I remarked to Wingnut, that this does not bode too well for tomorrow, and that if it is like this when we get up, forget it, I ain't getting out of bed. Set the clock forward a bit, it's 3:30am, I had not slept much at all, nervous energy, rain and wind, who knows. But, we awoke to a patchy sky, a moon that was lighting up the area, and it was still, no wind at all, just magic conditions. We set about making final preparations and packing away the tent etc, by 4:30am, we were on our way, up a rather steep and slippery fire trail.

After walking up and down hills in the dark, we arrived at the 4th firetrail Gate at about 6:15am, the sun was just now coming up and we were now able to see quite well without head torches. We had a short break here and then walked the last 900mtrs to where the walking track started. Wingnut stashed his return water supply near here and off we went, the track to Mobbs Swamp is well defined all the way, lots of up and down and around and around skirting mountains and ridges etc. As it was still very early, and nobody had been through, by the time we got to Mobbs Swamp at around 7:40am, I looked like I had been wrapped from head to toe in spider silk. Mobbs swamp is a popular place to camp and has a semi-reliable source of water. We had a 30 minute break here, removed a leach or two, let our socks dry a bit, then, we bashed straight up into Warrigal Gap to pickup the track that traverses the Wild Dog Mountains.

It did not take too long to make the saddle and then we followed the track that then climbs up through a bit of a tunnel section to the top, it was here we finally got some clear views of where we had been so far today. The views were excellent and very clear as the sun had not started to generate that blue haze the mountains are so well known for. We walked a bit further to where the top flattens out and there are millions of wild flowers and large flat rocky areas. We had phone coverage here so a couple of phone calls were made home to update them on our progress. We were still about 2k's away from Splendour rock at this point and the sun was starting to really warm things up.

The traverse across the tops of the mountains was not too bad, a climb down and up here and there and we were finally at our intended destination, and weren't the views worth the walk! I signed the bush walkers log while Wingnut looked around, many photos were taken from this amazing vantage point with views down to the Coxes river and up to Mt Cloudmaker. To get to this point, according to Wingnuts GPS track log, 14.75 k's to get to this point. On the way back, as we were descending the saddle of Mt Dingo, we thought we might drop down off here and head straight down to the walking track below. A rather large black snake was blocking that route so we headed back the way we came which is not really all that hard.

When we got back to Warrigal Gap, we thought we would try and find the actual main rote that is used to get up here, we found it and it was a shocker, very steep, loose and not much fun, and then, it ended in a wet swamp. We arrived back at Mobbs Swamp, a bit foot weary and had a rest and something to eat. I wandered off to check out the camp cave here and signed that log book as well, that's a pretty cool cave, quite large, though, rather dusty.

Once again, we shouldered packs and trudged our way back to the fire trail, once we retrieved Wingnuts stashed water, we stopped for 20 minutes to take account of damage done so far, a blister here, a blister there, let the socks dry out once again, eat something etc. At least the walking from here would be smooth along the fire trail, just a long ways to go - 8kms, still with lots of long sustained hill climbs.

At about 90 minutes from base camp, my right knee finally gave out and could not bend it, no fun, right in the middle of a really sunny shade-less area of the road, it was hot and it hurt like hell! I was already walking with a stick to help support that side, and it took about 15-20 minutes of hobbling to finally free it back up enough to walk normally. About an hour out from camp, my water finally gave out; we were just at the second creek crossing, so Wingnut used his filter pump to filter 2 ltrs of extra water for me which I really needed.

Once we reached the final turn off towards camp, we could not have been happier, it was nearly all down hill from here on in, only 1.4k's to go! We were most happy to see that camping area and the car through the trees once again and taking those boots off was just pure bliss! We had taken 12 hours exactly from car to car, with many stops along the way, we weren't out to break any records, we wanted to get there and get back in once piece, and we accomplished that!

A challenging walk to do in a day but worth it for the views.

Elevation Profile