PAU – Mt Erima. December 16th, 2007.

This walk was undertaken on quite a hot morning, and in the middle of the festive season. So needless to say, what appeared to be a reasonably easy short wander around PAU, ended up being a fairly brutal climb to the top of Mt Erima. By all means not a tall Mountain, not even a tall Hill, but just a rocky outcrop at the very base of the Owen Stanley Range. But thanks to an early baking sun, the climb rewarded those who made the effort.

The start of the walk was fairly relaxed as the group of us left the PAU markets, walked past the veggie and banana gardens and across a small shallow creek. From here we wandered around the corner of a small hill, and then it was decided to go straight up the edge. The odd occasional scraggly tree was a refuge as we all realised that the sun was up and cooking. After some time climbing, we stopped and looked up at the tower that crowns Mt Erima, it looked a bit daunting as our guide said that was to be our destination. Those who had climbed the mountain before gave us a degree of confidence by saying that they were going to stay at base camp and watch us suffer from afar.

But first we had to get to base camp. It looked like a simple walk down the valley, up the other side, over the spur, and across to the fence that surrounded the water treatment plant. Well the spur proved difficult as we found the group having to use hands and feet in order to maintain grip on what was soon becoming a vertical rock face. And crumbly rock too. You could feel the heat radiating off of the rock face, making every pore sweat.

But finally, we made it to the shade of base camp under a mango tree. There were those of the group who decided to rest awhile and then there was the few of us who decided to scramble up the sun-baked climb to the tower. The rocky track to the top was near vertical in parts as we had to scramble with hands and feet to get to the top. But the views at the top and the shade on the darkside of the mount were a relief from the sun. After sometime spent relaxing in the shade, we then slipped down the track back to base camp.

From here, it was a steep walk down into a grassy meadow area and then a flat walk along the creek and back to the Market gardens. The creek crossing was deeper on the return and the cool water felt good on hot and tired feet. All in all a good fun short walk and a good introduction for a few of the first time walkers.