Budawangs questions

[bernieq]

Just thinking of a return to the Budawangs and doing a bit of forward planning.

Camping up on Byangee Walls has been a loose idea for a while - how does water availability compare with up on the Castle? The Castle has lots of rock holes that, after relatively recent rain, is a good source. Is it the same for Byangee?

What's the gap between Mooryan & Shrouded Gods like? I've been in and out via Nibelung Pass but not ventured into Mooryan Pass (yet).

What's the state of the Western Distributor Rd these days? I know a bridge was washed out a couple of years ago - fixed?

[Huntsman247]

I've camped on byangee a few times. I've always carried water. It's not the longest walk so it's not that bad. Just fun during the last scramble when you have all this extra water.
You may find a rock pool or two but it'd be meagre.

As for the gap between shrouded and mooryan. I've done it once. Can't remember if it was pre or post fires. But it was very overgrown at one point. I found remnants of a footpad and it was relativity clear. But at some point it got very scrubby. Id assume it's gotten worse given the state of the entrance to the monolith valley.

The road was closed 6 months or so ago. Had to go the back way. Haven't been back since from yadboro.

[bernieq]

Thanks for that. I can't find any closure alerts (that were there after the washout) but I remember reading about a long detour having been put in place. I guess I'll just come in from the coast, to be safe.

The vague plan atm is, from Long Gully, to go up to Castle Gap, sidetrip to Byangee then down to and along the Clyde, up Holland to Angel then up to Mt Cole, back through Monolith, side-trip up Shrouded God, out via one of the Passes (maybe up to camp on the Castle) then back down & out to Long Gully.

What's it like down on the Clyde these days? Open walking on the bank? mostly in the river? or horrendous?

[Huntsman247]

That sounds like an epic. But id recommend planning for it to take longer than you think. The scrub is pretty bad these days. Lots of fallen trees covered in vines and scrub make it pretty hard and slow going. Hollands seems to be ok walking still but getting to is the hard part.

I walked up to tinga clearing couple years ago along the Clyde and it was properly over grown. The word clearing I suppose is quite misleading these days. Haha. Lots of scrub along the way. Maybe some of the heavy rainfall has cleared a bit of it or made it worse. Hard to say.

[bernieq]

I've just read a trip report by Stephen Davies (thanks for the notes, SS). From Byangee, they went down into the Clyde in Sep 2020 and found the treefall & regrowth along the river to be very hard going and turned back. Given they were a group of 2 (and we will be 5+, therefore slower) and they were just 9 months after the fires (I suspect it would be worse now), I'll rethink the plan

I'd welcome any recent condition reports but I doubt it will be an 'enjoyable stroll along the Clyde' for the next few years at least.