Bushwalk Australia

Doing a Mt Solitary traverse in a few weeks, anyone know what the water is like at either Chinaman's Gully or Singa-jingawell? Most notes say don't rely on it at these two places - probably depends on the recency of rain etc. Just wanted to know if anyone has been that way recently as it's been pretty dry west of the mountains.

If you follow the creek down Chinamans gully to near where it drops off the edge you may get a puddle or two. Another creek enters just near there and it is more likely you will find water after it. Generally a lot of leaf litter in it but filters OK. Check Katoomba rainfall figures for a better idea and unless the person giving advice has been there in the last week then it is not worth much. I would not rely on the water at either and prefer to filter it over any other type of treatment mainly because you have to get it out of puddles or small holes.

Best not to rely on water being there. It's also not that clean in my experience. Too many people doing Mt Solitary Traverse and not cleaning up after themselves. High chance of contamination. Carry your own water in my opinion. Other than that, the walk is sensational. We did it in reverse in a single day last year - see write up https://getout-adventures.com/2016/04/3 ... olitary-2/

Have fun.

Thanks guys.

Absolutely agree with Bushtucker. I do trust my MSR Miniworks and have used it in some pretty manky ponds including Mt. Solitary. The Kedumba river on the other side is also contaminated. This time of year your body will not require as much water as you walk so it may be possible to carry the entire load.

Thanks again, I'm just going to carry I think - I've been buying up lighter weight winter gear lately so I should have some spare capacity. I tend to use the most water at camp and for breakfast, might have to reduce the coffee intake this time.

For overnighters where water is going to be scarce I often take a tinned dinner so I can use the water Ihave for drinking etc.

Tinned dinner? Like those 'Stag' tins or something?

I usually go for a flat bread + tinned protein of some sort, but, it's a wee bit cold so I'll probably still have my pasta and chicken mix on this trip and avoid the 3-4 coffees I usually have.

Chunder fuzz wrote:Doing a Mt Solitary traverse in a few weeks, anyone know what the water is like at either Chinaman's Gully or Singa-jingawell? Most notes say don't rely on it at these two places - probably depends on the recency of rain etc. Just wanted to know if anyone has been that way recently as it's been pretty dry west of the mountains.

I camped at Singa-jingawell the night before last. (Tuesday 11th July). There was no flowing water in the creek and 90% of the creek bed (within 50m from the camping area) was dry.

I did see one solitary, very dark and nasty looking pool in the creek bed, which was within a couple of metres of a significant deposit of loo paper. That wasn't a very appealing option so I relied on the water I carried up with me.

I didn't check Chinaman's Gully for water.

Along the route to ruined castle there was clear water coming down at a fast trickle from a narrow neck water course. (aprox 800m-1km from the landslide) I filtered water from that, tasted good and Im still feeling fine. There was also tank water at the ruined castle camp site (Ive no idea how much is left in those tanks, they refill from rainwater. Keep in mind if a largish group or three comes through before you they may use it all).

I carried up 1 litre as camp water. Which was enough for a tea in the evening, a coffee in the morning and 300ml or so to dump on my small fire before bed. (its fairly cold up there in July, so a fire is nice). Id had a hot breakfast so a cold dinner of salami, cheese and crackers, washed down with hot tea worked fine, as did the chocolate afterwards

One thing that was a bit frustrating was Scenicworld. They advertise spring water on their site https://www.scenicworld.com.au/experience/scenic-walkway/ "taste pure Blue Mountains water straight from Marrangaroo Spring" so I only took 1 and 1/2 litres down Fubar steps expecting to be able to get more water at this spring. (i have capacity for 4L) Despite the spring marked on the scenicworld map near the bottom, it doesn't exist or atleast was beyond my ability to find it. (I also asked several people). I do remember 5+ years ago getting water near scenicworld bottom station so I assuming they have removed the pipe (as I recall it was) that was feeding water from this spring.

Cheers wildwanderer, didn't even know there was a spring at the bottom of scenic world...which there isn't. ha. Annoying though if you were expecting water.

I'm fairly happy carrying all my water but needed to convince a fellow traveller that it'd be the better/best option. We'll be going from Kedumba pass or wherever we can get a car parked along there. Somewhat like what bushtucker did but going to furber instead of golden stairs, this is mainly due to some time constraints on the Sunday (others have a 5hr trip home after the walk), I'd liked to have done the Kedumba Valley back and up the Giant staircase as it is on wildwalks but just means I might do it again as a Solo overnighter .

Sounds like the walk is quite nice, my main focus will be testing out a bunch of cheap 'lightweight' gear that I've bought recently - 1 person tent/bivy bag/sleeping bag/clothing from a mix of Aldi/Aliexpress. See how uncomfortable I'll be or not.

Chunder fuzz wrote:.....Sounds like the walk is quite nice, my main focus will be testing out a bunch of cheap 'lightweight' gear that I've bought recently - 1 person tent/bivy bag/sleeping bag/clothing from a mix of Aldi/Aliexpress. See how uncomfortable I'll be or not.

Its a great walk, amazing cliffline views and the rain forest walk to the ruined castle is spectacular if there is sunlight filtering through the trees.

Re lightweight gear testing in cooler conditions.

That was one of my goals for the trip also. Managed to get my base weight down to 6.5kg which made a world of difference comfort wise. I was happy that it did the job and was durable enough during the Koorowall minor scramble. Though definitely don't skimp on the cold weather clothing. It got down to about 1 to 2 degrees C in the early hours of the morning...and even during my 5pm cliff top dinner it was about 5 degrees. I bought a down jacket, winter sleeping bag, beanie & thermals and required all of them to be toasty up on Solitary in a 3 season tent. I do tend to sleep quite cold though.

I've got more layers than an onion, thanks for that, what I've planned on taking is much the same so good to know it was ok with that. Not quite as cold overnight as I was expecting, I'm on the central tablelands and have been hitting 0 to - 6 overnight, makes the night time dog walks here interesting and a frosty car in the morning a right pain in the a9#$...

Haven't weighed everything yet, job for the weekend I think, can't start a walk and not know how much each others pack weighs can we.

There is a spring that the mountain runners use at the bottom of the Furber Stairs - where it meets Federal Pass.

I was on Narrow Neck today - and there seemed plenty of water around. So I would expect there would be plenty of water on Mt Solitary (if you know where to look).

Dave

Nice walk, if a bit overused, went in via Kedumba Farm and out up Furber. Decided on carrying all my water, 3L, which was more than enough. Some other campers seemed to be getting water at Chinamans Gully in one of the above mentioned puddles, and there were streams/water from Ruined Castle back towards Furber Steps.