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Riley’s Mountain

Much to Myah’s amusement we discovered a summit named ‘Riley’s Mountain’ – Back home in NZ her best friend at school is named ‘Riely’ so we decided to humor her and go and activate this summit, which of course suited Warren just fine. We headed back out from our home base for the week in Darling Harbor to the Blue Mountains early afternoon arriving around 2pm.

The first part of the walk is slightly off track to the actual summit, which we decided being tourists for a week we would check out – ‘The Rocks Lookout’ Be aware though if you are out there, we went too far as the sign post is nowhere to be found. We did see what looked like the path and possibly and old sign area mounted into the ground but, it appeared to go nowhere so had carried on….turns out we go that one wrong. Spectacular views out into a natural canyon in the mountains was well worth the slight detour, there were even some brave young folks who had climbed the barriers and were down in rock face further down enjoying the sunset together.

The tracks are easy going, a few gentle ups and downs but wide enough to be sure you are on the path, nothing like in NZ where many bush walks you’re out looking for markers in dense bush area’s. It certainly made life easier, especially as we ended up in the bush after the sun had gone down for the day. Luckily we had come prepared and for winter, it was fairly mild which made it a lot more pleasant.

As we reached the side track, which is then a short stroll along a path to the Riley’s Mountain look out the sun was starting to set well and truly and daylight fading fast. It was definitely impressive to be sitting up there in the last moments of the days light and seeing the lights of Sydney’s outskirt townships coming to life in the distance.

With the light fading 7 MHz wasn’t playing ball. So I extended the antenna out further and gave a few calls out on 3.5 MHz. I managed to make 8 contacts on 80 m – 2 of them into ZL which I was very happy with.

The walk out in the dark wasn’t too bad although the creatures that go bump in the forest made the kids jump. I cant confirm or deny if I was the said creature making noises. An enjoyable walk followed by takeaways in Paramata before heading back to Darling harbour.

Details

Summit – VK2/SY-002

Height – 252 mASL (height gain apx 80 m)

Access – From the carpark at the end of Fairlight road follow the right hand vehicle track about 2km until you see a small unmarked track on the left – the GPS was useful in locating this. A short walk from there to the lookout. We set up half way along this track.

Coverage – Mobile coverage OK from the summit.

Summit Marker – Lookout over canyon / Napean river.

Land Access Permission – permission not required.

NB:  Photos are not for use elsewhere, without prior approval.