Anyone ridden through the Wollemi NP

fatdude

Likes Bikes
I came across this post on a bushwalking forum about walking from Dunns Swamp to Putty Rd. The thread is worth a read but the post by simonsurf is the relevant one: http://bushwalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=26061&p=330683#p330675
Definitely don't think there would be much of a track to follow now.
Sorry for the redigging of a very old thread (again) lol, but I did that ride with simonsurf from near Dunn’s swamp to the airstrip on Gospers Mountain (the easy part of the trip) on day 1 and then followed the old Wirraba trail the second day. Wirraba trail was almost completely overgrown and was more of a hike a bike than a ride. Rocky climbs and descents thrown in occasionally for good measure. We actually ran out of water as it was unseasonably hot the second day and we ended up making our way through to private property in the middle of the night after bush bashing our way out due to the track being completely wiped off the face of the earth on the putty end. I’d be super keen to do the Dunn’s swamp to Gospers part of the trip again but the old 4wd track we took still haunts my dreams .

P. S. I came across this thread trying to track where we actually rode that weekend because the bug is biting to get back out there.
 

Comic Book Guy

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Fatdude. Thanks for the information. No need to be sorry, always good to get a first hand account of what an area is like.

Cheers,
CBG.
 
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cokeonspecialtwodollars

Fartes of Portingale
There's not a lot of Strava activity going on in there, only one or two faint traces and that's usually a good indication on how passable a trail is these days. Just read simonsurf's post in the link to the bushwalking forum and that said they did it around 2010 so I'd guess there would be a lot of machete work to get through.

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cokeonspecialtwodollars

Fartes of Portingale
Actually if you zoom in on the Heatmap even the Hunter Main Trail is showing almost no use and the couple of activities that ventured down army Rd. stopped well short of Gospers Airstrip.

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EDIT: Wow that image got somewhat compressed, that's terrible.
 
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Comic Book Guy

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Pretty sure I have seen that before. Some good history in that thread.

I had a look through my old digital maps and found that the Wirriba Trail is on the version of the Gospers Mountain and Wirriba topo maps that I have.

First image is of where the trail leaves the Army Road just north of Gospers Mountain and heads east towards Wirriba.

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Second image is the continuation of the trail towards Putty Rd. I have also added in the location of Holland Park.
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Edit: Sorry about the image quality. Had to redo them as thumbnails. Image seems to come out closer to the original.

If you have Oziexplorer the above topos can still be obtained from here: https://www.maps.festy.org/downloads/ozi/NSW/NSW_25k.html . You need the 89311N__gospersmountain and 90314N__wirriba.

Google map link to location of Holland Park (Long Weeny Creek trail) gate on the Putty Rd: https://goo.gl/maps/oS7XELZpXM62 .

Cheers,
CBG.
 
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fatdude

Likes Bikes
How long ago did you do your trip @fatdude?
^^^ This!

And did you GPS-track the adventure so we can share in the awesomeness?
Yeah as mentioned it was a long long time ago, as for GPS tracking, Simon had his GPS that we were using to navigate and I’d say he logged the trip, I’ll have a chat with him and see if he still has the file somewhere. My son was only a little baby when I first did that ride and now he’s almost a teenager and is keen as to do the ride with me if I ever go out there again, that’s how long ago it was
 

Comic Book Guy

Likes Bikes and Dirt

DaGonz

Eats Squid
Someone asked me about this the other day, so for prosperity sake (because I closed my old blog) here are the GPS routes from glendavis to wollembi through wollemi


The original PDF is attached but also in the link from @Comic Book Guy

I used water points at Glen Davis camp ground, a creek/river at 47.94km in on the 47443449 file, a spring in the middle hunter main trail somewhere, and the water tank at sheepskin hut.

Towards wollembi, I refilled at a creek just past the howes trail gate, but didn't drink it because well, it was full of cows.

The trip through hunter main trail between the gates is hard going. There were a lot of trees down (big ones you couldn't get around, only under or over) when I did it, and it was very undulated. Though it was day 4, I was very fit at the time and found it very hard work. It is most certainly not all downhill from the gate. It looks like it took me ~4hrs to do the ~30kms between gates.

That being said, I found the trail amazing. There was a stark contrast in vegetation as you went from one side to the other.

Pseudo rainforest like this on one side:




More scrubby bush on the other.

Photos from the full trip are here:


Hopefully those links stay a little longer.

Note, this was 10 years ago now. I'd suggest you review the route and talk to the NP office before contemplating it for yourself. I'm not here much but I'm sure you can seek me out. Always happy to answer questions. Memory is fading but I still remember details, like the burnt out sign hopefully now repaired on the way to sheepskin hut.

I should also note the trail up through Glen Alice took in some private property that was considered part of the BNT. I explicitly sought permission before crossing. Check the BNT books (book 9 I think) for further clarification.
 

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