Dunphys Pass ~ 5 June 2005
Party: Jacqui Knox, Richard Gray, Gisella, James Bevan
The usual shittyrail punctuality saw us riding away from the locked gate on narrowneck a bit later than expected. By 10 we'd stashed the bikes near the fire tower. We then headed off the road along a scrubby ridge.
Recent fires meant progress wasn't as tough as it once was. However, after passing through a saddle we headed into some rather bushy, unburnt banksia scrub. We pushed on and eventually arrived at the cliffline and some tremendous views of the wild dog mountains and kanangra-boyd wilderness.
Richard and the wild dogs
Our decent gully
After some more scrub bashing we descended a fern-filled gully and traversed around the base of narrowneck, passing a nice cave and some would-be waterfalls. A short downclimb completed dunphys pass and then some steep sidling took us around to the base of glenraphael head from where we quickly descended a spur to the fire trail.
We left the fire trail after a few minutes, and headed down glenallan spur. It was a pleasant open, grassy ridge and concluded with an interesting scramble (ie jump) down to breakfast creek.
Upper Breakfast Creek
After a short walk downstream we followed a spur up onto faithful hound ridge. At the end of the ridge we enjoyed a late lunch with fine views over breakfast creek.
Faithful Hound Ridge
Views from Faithful hound ridge
More views from Faithful hound ridge
Traversing along the cliff top, we found a pass through a conglomerate crevice before sidling back to the main spur.
Richard in the pass
A short descent had us back at breakfast creek to rehydrate before heading up lyrebird ridge.
Back at the firetrail, daylight was fading rapidly. A short climb up carlons chains was completed in the last of the fading light. Then (some of us :) donned torches and headed back to the bikes. The track fizzled out towards the end so we made a quick scrub bash towards the fire tower. Jacqui, Richard and Gisella rode back with torchlight. Back at the gate by 7, we headed quickly for the grandview to unwind after a good day out.
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