Mt Gower

Another early start today. The Mt Gower expedition party was to meet at 7.20am at the end of Lagoon Road. We chose to save the $20 per person bus fee and ride our bikes the 5 kms.

Our expedition leader was Jack, a 62yr old, 5th generation islander and 3rd generation mountain guide. He has ascended Mt Gower easily1500+ times so we were in good hands! There were 9 in our party - our family with both girls choosing to come and two other couples both in their 50's / 60'splus a biosecurity officer and her dog called Curly. The walk is listed as grade 5, 14km in length with 850 m climb and generally takes 8-9hrs return.

Given my knee has limited me for the last 18 months, I was quite apprehensive about this adventure. The Goat House Cave walk was an excellent tester and the knee seemed to go ok so I was somewhat hopeful.

The trail began with an easy fire trail 1.5km to Little Island. From there the trail took us into the forest and up giving us a taste of the first of many rope lines! Close to the top, we donned a hard hat to protect our noggins as we traversed along the cliff line. A short distance later we gathered together for a breather and to listen to Jack talk about climbing palm trees and then demonstrate how it was done!! No one was brave enough to have a go.

Continuing on we reached the Lower Road, a narrow grassy ledge with cliff face on one side and a steep drop to the ocean on the other. We had spotted this part of the track from the boat during yesterdays trip out to Balls Pyramid. The sheer drop was unnerving but luckily this section was only about 500m long. Leaving the hard hats in the bushes, we turned the corner into Erskine Valley.

 

The trail was rocky at first before levelling out and weaving through lush beautiful palms. Loved this part of the trail.  Jack would pause, casually chatting about the vegetation or history while the party regrouped. He was very clever at this making sure no-one was left behind.

Our next stop was at Erskine Creek where we refilled our water bottles and took a breather amongst the long limbed pandanas trees. We had been walking for 2.5 hours at this point, climbed around 250m and covered about 3.5km. The hard part was still to come!

The next section up to the saddle was steep and rocky. The group spread out quite a bit with Curly taking the lead. The girls were close behind, like mountain goats nimbly ascending. I certainly was not nimble but gradually grinding my way up. The views that encompassed Mt Lidgbird and the northern end of Lord Howe were spectacular and it was nice to have time to soak them up.

The Get Up is definitely the hardest and most exposed section - a rocky outcrop negotiated with rope while trying not to think about the precipitous drop. Back within the lush forest and feeling protected, the ropes climbing continued. 

It was still tough going with the final kilometre having around 400m of climb! Soon though I found myself alone - the girls, Andy, Curly and his handler off in the distance and the older couples plus Jack behind. I had entered the cloud forest section - it felt straight out of a movie - mossy dripping from oddly shaped trees, ferns galore and so many shades of green. Eventually I could hear voices and stumbled across the front group in a clearing. While waiting for the others, we discovered leeches taking advantage of a new food source and spent the next few minutes constantly picking them off our legs!

Jack and the rest of our party caught up. He urged us to continue on further to the lunch spot. The trip to the summit had taken 5 hours (including the many stops) - pretty good going according to Jack. Unfortunately the cloud had come in (that's why it's a cloud forest) and obscured the views from the top. We sat and ate lunch with the woodhens checking us out and listening to more of Jack's stories and a few of Curly's adventures too!

It was midday when we began the descent. In some ways it was harder although the ropes were extremely helpful in slowing one down or catching yourself. Curly and his handler left all of us including our girls for dead. Our family found ourselves surprisingly at the head of the pack. We had longer rests at the various meeting up points.

Both girls had a go at climbing the palm tree on the way down without much success. Finally we said goodbye to the last of the ropes - I think my arms were aching more than my legs! The final fire trail was long and hot. Andy, Katy and I had a quick dip to cool off. I was so eager that I dove in with my phone still in my pocket! Ella surprisingly refused to go in keen to get back home.

Taking 7+ hrs, we were all happy to have survived the Mt Gower walk and can confirm it definitely earns it's reputation as being one to the most beautiful day walks in Australia. Having said that I'm unlikely to go back :)