Mt. Keira

Well, today my friends Nick, Nolan, Mera and I decided to tackle the largest mountain in NSW, Mt. Keira. We had heard (though we never verified) that a trail existed from the back of our campus up the mountain. We set out for "uni" after breakfast and walked all around the back side looking for this path. We ended up calling a friend who stayed behind and asked him to find us directions. He told us to head about 40 minutes away from where we were. Disgruntled at being misinformed and upset with ourselves for not looking it up ourselves, we headed in the opposite direction looking for Mt. Keira. The two guys I was with (the same free-spirited ones who thought it would be fun not to ask for directions before we left on how to get there) decided to veer off from our friend's instructions in search of a short cut. We ended up at a dead end on some random person's driveway who happened to be watching us trespass on their property. Only that person happened to be not so random when we explained we were sorely lost and needed directions again. They felt so bad about how far away we were that this women and her daughter offered to drive us to where we needed to go! It turns out we had walked past the pathway not once, but twice!
Already 1.5 hours into the adventure, we were ready for some hiking. Let me tell you, though, I immediately learned what I was in for as we had about a 60 degree ascent right away that lasted for a good five minutes. That was only the beginning. Still without any form of map or direction, we thought the trails would lead us in the right direction. About half an hour later we came to our first fork in the road. And we chose wrong. We began gradually descending the mountain. It took us a while, but we decided that down likely was not leading us to the top of the mountain, and thus it was time to turn around and hike back to the fork. We followed the path the other direction for about another 45 minutes, huffing and puffing through more incredibly strenuous trails. Well, I was huffing and puffing at least. My friends happen to be avid mountain climbers as well as collegiate athletes. After 3 hours, we finally reached a resting point for some much needed lunch. Then we trekked on, conquering more stairs from hell. We soon found ourselves in a bit of a predicament, though, when we failed to see where the trail led next. All we knew was we had to go up, so up we went. Bad choice. What we found ourselves climbing up was a dry riverbed full of boulders. Not rocks, but boulders. We reached a point where it was more scary to attempt climbing back down, though, so onward we had to go. The trail did not get any easier. We made our way up this sucker only to be faced with a vertical cliff. After numerous attempts around it, we found ourselves at a standstill. Finally the decision was to head back down some "paths" and look for a new way. Today was not a good day for these paths, considering it had been raining and all the dirt had turned muddy and the leaves covering the ground slick. On the way down, I slipped, sliding down the side of this mountain. Luckily at the last second I grabbed a tree and spun around the trunk back onto the edge. Talk about a heart pounding experience. The unfortunate part was that the hike back down had merely just begun. We all took our tumbles, nothing serious, and finally found a path out. Or so we thought. We walked down the paved road to a dead end. Yikes. Being the daring hikers that we were now, we decided to hike down the brush of this dead end as it lead in the direction of town. Well we made it...all the way to the freeway! We were lost. With nightfall upon us and no path along the freeway to walk, we decided to scale a brick wall along the freeway and see where the other side lead us. After some boosts we made it to the other side, which as luck would have it, was a fenced in estate! Not just fenced in, but barbwire and security cameras and the whole shebang. Trapped, our only option was to climb the new fence. Once safely on the other side, we found ourselves in a familiar area. The neighborhood where we had wondered when we needed to ask for directions. Thankful we knew where we were, we headed back to uni for a much needed happy hour at the campus pub. Total time hiking: 6 hours. It's time for bed. Can't wait to see what I feel like when I wake up!