Mt Diamond. 27.07.08

An easy walk, with a waterhole full of clean crisp clear water and only 20 minutes from Moresby. How cool is that?

There was a two hour walk there and back in Kunai grass and lowland sclerophyll forest but this added to the enjoyment as we negotiated a few stream crossings on route to our destination. And this was despite a few issues regarding land owners and the original track we were planning on following, but a lesson learned for next time.

The young students from the local High School acted as our guides and lead us into temptation before negotiations lead us away from the Lion’s Den and onto a path more prosperous. The amount of trekkers was huge with over 30 of us in total (including guides) trekking to our final destination; the Kiri kati falls. What a gorgeous location so close to town and really should be zoned as a National Park by the powers that be, if only such infrastructure existed…

Those of us with new walking boots for the Kokoda Track were able to test out the waterproofness, those of us with new digital cameras were able to test out their new equipment. Especially with the bird life on route to the waterfall and certainly the butterflies that flew around the falls themselves.

A great, easy day out.

Varirata. In July 2008.

The First Journey.

The POM bushwalkers arrived at Varirata on a pleasant Sunday morning with some cloud cover and cool temperatures. The freshly conceived plan was to circumnavigate the Park in a clockwise direction. We started out all keen as Mustard as we left the Park in order to find the re-entry point to our lap.

It wasn’t long into the walk where it was discovered that footwear was important as was trekking fitness, yet we all supported each other and survived to tell the tale. The first leg of the journey is a comfortable descent to a creek in which we rested up briefly. The dry season was well underway and the track surface was relatively dry.

From the creek, we headed up into the clouds and discovered a bit of rock scaling and a fairly steep technical ascent, before heading ever upwards towards Gare’s Lookout. From here it was decided to break up the group as one team would continue along the Boundary track and the others would descend back down to the team vehicles.

I chose to guide the crew back to the cars and it was here that we would head along the flatter part of the course to head off the rest of the walkers. We rejoined all together again, and returned to the cars.

About 7-8kms in travel meant for a good hit out for all concerned.

The Second Journey

A week later, around lunchtime, it was decided that a small group of Kokoda aspirees would head back to Varirata for a quick lap of the lookouts. Hastily we gathered up everything and headed east into the Sogeri plateau. At Varirata, we motored around the lookouts, firstly heading along the 30minute then left up to Gare’s and then back down to the vehicles.

The track was dry, yet there proliferated many fungi and again the cloud was heavy in the air.

A quick 6km loop of the track was a good tonic for a lazy Sunday arvo.

The Third Journey; Remembrance Day.

Remembrance Day fell on the happiest Wednesday of them all this year, and it was decided to honour the diggers by recreating our own little Kokoda by traversing the mud of the nearby Owen Stanleys and what better place then Varirata.

The Rangers of the Park must have known that a PNG MP was visiting on this day as they left the gatepost abandoned and were busy on brushcutters cleaning up the bottom lookout. They did a good job of it, long overdue but the outcome was decent. Not quite Bomana standard, but who am I to judge.

Anywho, the walk was fantastic, we left the carpark, headed for the bottom lookout, and then followed the track all the way around the boundary back to the Park entrance some 7kms away. We then turned around and retraced our steps making for a 15km total with some seriously technical climbing and descending. The Eastern side of the Park was considerably slipperier and tougher than the usual lookout loop.

After 6 hours of bashing around, a few moments chatting to aforementioned MP, a discovery that another POM bushwalker had been spotted in the park and admiring the longevity of the POM twitchers we left the Park satisfulled of a good decent walk.

And we spotted a few more fungi.

Bomana to Mt Erima. Another Reconnaissance. 6.7.8

Upon return from cooler climes down south, I awoke on a bright sunny warm Moresby winter's day and contacted a friend who I was hoping would get me up the western face of Mt. Erima, as I have previously (with the POM Bushwalkers) walked up the Northern steps and was keen to see if it could be done. At the end of the day, I am sure you can walk up the western face but my guide today decided we would stick to the track and circumnavigate the large rocky outcrop not far from Moresby.

We departed Bomana and straight away, the track went uphill, along a dusty and often ash covered rocky escarpment. Up and down we trekked and slowly got closer to the base of Erima. The ash and dust was sticking to the sweat and sunscreen on our exposed skin, and the sun was in its normal Moresby mood, sending down its bright hot rays. The shade of Mt Erima was a welcome respite.

But then, instead of making our way up the western face as I had hoped, we followed a small track around the base which ended up along the water treatment fenceline where once I have trekked before from PAU. So, we then trudged up the sunbaked track slaloming around the steel posts which lead to the beacon on top of the rock. On the top, we all stopped and rested, before heading back down to the road and then back to the Bomana community.

Only 2.5hours in length, but it could be lengthened to make a decent walk for the POM bushwalkers, or could be used on those days when people need to return to Moresby early???