Donkey Mountain Walk – 28 – 29 May 2016

A second visit to Donkey Mountain in as many weeks? Why not? It a good place to go to, and besides we had some birthdays to celebrate. Jasper was about to turn four, and he was keen to revisit Donkey Mountain. This time he could show his little brother Sebastian around.

DM28May16-2

So a large group assembled at the carpark at the base, and crossed the style and started climbing up to the mountain. The weather was cold and windy. There were rain squalls with sun between them. Little real rain reached us however, and with the cool weather we made good progress up to the top.

DM28May16-1 DM28May16-3 DM28May16-4

On top of the mountain it was quite cold, and we were surprised to see aa snake out – a broad headed snake.

DM28May16-5

We were planning on camping high on the mountain, but given the cold wind, we headed to the very sheltered “Foxes Den” where we set up our tents and tarps.

DM28May16-6 DM28May16-7 DM28May16-8 DM28May16-9 DM28May16-10

We all had a very pleasant evening around the fire eating fine food and enjoying fine wines. The highlights were Burnie’s pavlova that he whipped up during the evening. The chocolate ganache was not bad either!

DM28May16-11

On Sunday morning I got up in time for sunrise. To get good views you need to climb up onto some of the pagodas on the eastern end of the mountain.

DM28May16-12 DM28May16-13 DM28May16-14 DM28May16-15 DM28May16-16 DM28May16-17

It is a bit of a contrast – the beauty and grandeur of the Wolgan Valley and the dramatic labyrinthine complexity of Donkey Mountain while below lies the rather barren starkness of the exclusive One & Only Wolgan Valley Resort.

DM28May16-18

After breakfast, many of us set off exploring some of the cracks and canyons that make up Donkey Mountain.

DM28May16-19

And then it was time to head back to the cars. On the way down we were lucky to post a nice healthy looking wombat enjoying the sun outside its burrow.

DM28May16-20

More photos from the trip are online on my website here.

 

This entry was posted in Blue Mountains, Bushwalking, Gardens of Stone, Photography and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to Donkey Mountain Walk – 28 – 29 May 2016

  1. Hi David,
    Great pictures from the donkey mountain, looks like a must see place! What I wanted to ask you: do have any idea about how easy it is and where best to find water around the camp sites at donkey mountain during summer if I wanted to explore the area for a few days? Thinking of heading up after Christmas.
    Thanks in advance
    Thomas

    • Dave Noble says:

      Best to climb up from the small parking area and stile on the road to Newnes. Its open going at first, following close to an old fence line – but then gets rougher and steeper, and you need to wander around a bit. You head up to a saddle between two towers. From there you can traverse under one of the towers and then up onto the top. This does involve some scrambling and route finding. There is usually no water on the top – except in rock pools on the pagodas just after rain. Plenty of small campsites on the main top area and in some of the crack/canyon areas. You can google search for a set of maps made by a bushwalker of the mountain (although they contain a major error).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *