Walk becomes 13-hour ordeal

A group of local bushwalkers were tempted to use an emergency beacon after one of the group members came close to collapsing, when an afternoon walk became a 13-hour ordeal.

However, in the event, the whole group managed to walk to safety.

Leader Mr Matt Emery said that the group had become stuck when the track they were following between Broken Bay Recreation Centre and Rocky Ponds, became non-traversable.

The group began the walk at 2pm on Wednesday, February 6, and made it out of the bush at 3am the follow morning.

"This was an unexpected survival situation.

"We climbed out of the bush exhausted and beaten at 3am after 13 hours of climbing and walking," Mr Emery said.

"This track is very dangerous, as it has not been maintained, and for most parts it just ends in unexpected places.

"This is particularity concerning because the track is advertised on National Parks and Wildlife Service brochures and other places.

"My advice is: Don't go there."

Mr Emery said he had contacted the service following the event, and was told the track was no longer maintained.

"Things seem to be going fine until, approximately one hour before dusk, we came to a dead end just opposite Dangar Island, which effectively left us trapped in the middle of the bush," Mr Emery said.

"Not long after that it started raining, and became dark, windy and cold.

"We all knew that turning back the way we came was far too dangerous, because of the rough terrain we had crossed during daylight.

"So we decided to push on through to Rocky Ponds and then to Woy Woy tip.

"We had to fight our way through sharp thick scrub, and avoid plummeting over the treacherous sandstone ridges.

"We had head lamps, compasses, a Global Positioning System (GPS) device and had studied maps of the area before taking this track on, but the tracks had simply disappeared due to lack of maintenance and so all we had to guide us was a basic knowledge of the direction we had to go (north).

"Battling through the scrub slowed our progress down to a crawl, but there was nothing we could do about that except grin and bear it."

Lyle Stone, 8 Feb 2008 Interviewee: Matt Emery, Caveman Power website