Katomba to Mittagong - Day 2
Lake Birrell to Catholic Bushwalker's Hut
- 19.3 km
- 8 hours 2 mins
- Total ascent 684m
- Total descent 943m
This days walk was in 3 parts:
- Lake Birell to Cox’s River
- Along Cox’s River and up Mt Cookem
- Top of Mt Cookem to the Catholic Bushwalker’s Hut.
The walk from Lake Birell started along a fire trail that took us most of the way to the Cox’s river. Once you get near the Cox’s river you leave the fire trail and follow what used to be a track down to the Cox’s river, east of the junction with the Kowmung River. In 2008 there was a track from this point down to the Cox’s. This track is long gone, and we had a steep and slightly thick bush bash to the bottom of the hill. Once we were on the Cox’s River you get good views of the river and the surrounding mountains.
This is me at the point where you leave the fire trail and bush bash down the hill to Cox’s River.
We then walked along the Cox’s River to base of Mount Cookem. My Cookem is a steep, energy sapping, 563m climb. The day had turned warm so I was taking my time climbing the mountain.
While I was climbing Mt Cookem, I was reminising that I have climbed mount Cookem twice before, but on both of those occasions I was dragging a mountain bike and camping gear up the hill. This, in hindsight, seems a pretty remarkable achievement. There used to be a fairly well defined track up Mt Cookem. My current description of the track would be no more than “a negotiable route”. There was some sign of a track but you needed to keep your wits about you to stay on it. Like most tracks up mountains, the track was better define near the top. We arrived at the top of Mt Cookem about 1:30pm in the afternoon and had a quick late lunch, before we started the 9 km walk along a well groomed fire trail to the Catholic Bushwalker’s Hut.
I have stayed at Catholic Bushwalkers Hut before and they have a hut open for bushwalkers who drop in. On this occassion it was Easter and we weren’t confident that we could use their hut. When we got there we were advised the hut was taken, but were were invited to camp on their grounds and use their facilities, which is really nice.
Once we had started setting up our tents, a couple of campers wandered over to say hello. I immediately recognised one as a former PwC colleague.
The Hill profile tells the story. A long descent along a fire trail to get close to the Cox’s River then a short steep descent through the bush. A walk along the Cox’s (the low point) followed by the steep climb up Mt Cookem and then a long downward sloping fire trail walk to the Catholic Bushwalkers Hut.
