The Rock, The Rock Nature Reserve - Kengal Aboriginal Reserve - July 2018

Looking east along the ridge, from The Rock.

Well it’s time to test out my ailing body a bit, I seem to have been suffering from various ailments over the last couple of months. I’ve had a trip up to northern New South Wales to walk the Green Gully Track planned for around the last six months and today was the day I was heading off. After a few hours work this morning I pointed the ute up the Hume Highway and headed north. Now you might of noticed that the post is tilted The Rock and not Green Gully, that's because to break the road trip up a bit I decided to stop and climb The Rock on my way north. The Rock is one of those places that I’ve passed by numerous time over the years on my journeys along The Olympic Way, but while I’d admired it's buttresses from below I’d never actually stopped to climb it, today was the day.

The clouds came in at about the same time I arrived at the carpark to start the walk.

It almost goes without saying that my 4 hour journey up the highway was completed under blue sky, but as soon as I pulled up in the dusty carpark at The Rock the grey clouds moved in and I set off under overcast sky. I had another issue this afternoon too, I’d got stuck at work a little longer than I’d wanted and hadn’t left Melbourne until lunch time so there was no way I’d get up and down The Rock before dark, I was now hoping to climb to the summit for sunset and then descend in the dark. Anyway, locking the ute I picked up the dusty Yerong Track and headed off into the Cypress Pines. For what is effectively a mountain climb the walking starts off pretty flat as the track heads south parallel to the summit ridge.

These Cypress Pines are typical of the semi arid scrub in the reserve.

Looking up towards the summit.

The track is very well defined.

After passing a few information signs enlightening me about the Wiradjuri indigenous history as well as the early European settler history,  the walk started to climb towards the base of the cliffs lining the eastern side of The Rock. I haven’t actually got a good photo of it but from most directions it looks most improbable that there would be a fairly easy route to the summit, from most angles you’d assume that there would be some scrambling involved, but while the track is steep in spots there is no actual scrambling involved. With the track zig zagging and now climbing fairly solidly I arrived at the base of the summit cliffs, the walking from here on is very good.

I guess I'll start climbing a bit more seriously now.

After climbing seriously for 5 minutes or so I arrived at the base of the cliff line.

Once I’d met the cliff line the track follows the base of the cliffs south for awhile through an area of Woolly Ragwort, according to the information sign this is the biggest stand of these plants anywhere in the world. After climbing along the base of the cliffs for a bit, the track eventually crosses the main ridge line and arcs back and continues climbing, now up rock shelfs on the south western side of the mountain. The wide sloping rock shelf made for good walking and the views were now opening right up across the flat Riverina Plains as well as along the lower continuation of the ridge.

Passing through the largest stand of Woolly Ragwort in the world....now that's a sentence I didn't think I'd be uttering on my blog!

Climbing the last rock shelf.

With the track doubling back on itself again I climbed the last few metres, east now up another sloping ledge to the summit, arriving around 15 minutes before sunset…sweet! Once I was on the summit I dropped the pack and explored the summit are a bit, hopping around the rocks trying to find a reasonable spot to watch the sun going down. With the setting sun dropping below a bank of cloud out to the west the scenery was bathed in a golden glow for the next half an hour or so. However with the temperature dropping with the sun, not to mention the fact that it was getting dark I figured that I’d better make a move and start heading down to the ute.

After a fairly full day (so far) I arrived on the summit in time for sunset.

If you use a bit of imagination you might notice that the setting sun was giving everything a bit of an orange tinge.

Looking out across the flat Riverina Plains.

My walk down was still a pretty slow affair, only now I was mucking around taking photos of the full moon that was rising in the east, tonight was the night of the eclipse and the blood moon, although with the eclipse happening at around 4am in the morning I was thinking that I’d be sound asleep somewhere up near Coonabarabran by then. By the time I had to break out the head torch I was down off the steepest section of the walk and to be honest, retracing my outward route through the sparse Cypress Pines wasn’t too bad in the dark, although I’m not sure the local fauna appreciated it as much as me. Arriving back down at the ute it was now pitch black, not that it mattered much as the rest of my night was spent cruising my way north, eventually pulling up for a sleep just short of Coonabarabran in the small hours of the morning.

I managed to get down through the steep bits before it got completely dark.

The views were still pretty sweet.

The full moon probably helped getting back down off the mountain.

The lights of The Rock township were starting to twinkle on the plain below me.

The Dirt.
According to my GPS I walked 6.9 kilometres and climbed 362 metres this afternoon on what I suppose I’d rate as an easy-medium grade walk. The track to the summit is very well defined and marked but once it starts climbing it’s fairly relentless, it’s also a little exposed near the top so keep an eye on the kiddies if you take them up. I first read of this stroll in one of Tyrone Thomas’ old books way back in the day, but this afternoon I used the notes and map out of Ken Eastward’s Top Walks in New South Wales. I’m thinking that the NSW Parks people would probably have enough information online to do this short walk safely. The summit would make a nice spot for a picnic or there is a nice picnic area at the carpark.

Relevant Posts.
Pine Mountain, Burrowa-Pine Mountain National Park, 2016.
Chiltern-Mt Pilot National Park, 2015.
Mount Glenrowen, Warby-Ovens National Park, 2014.

It was time to break out the head torch now.

Here's a map I found at the carpark.