Lockley Pylon

Location: Blue Mountains National Park, NSW
Date:  28th December, 2013
Distance:  7 km
Time:  2 h 15 min

We picked this hike as our first hike of any substance in the blue mountains as the Dalys suggested Lockley Pylon 'should be on the must do list for every visitor.' What I failed to notice, however, was their preface indicating the road is very rough in places and not suitable for conventional vehicles in wet weather. Well, it was far from being wet weather, but we certainly had fun getting our little car through the 8 km or so of dirt road to the start of the walk (luckily there weren't many other vehicles around or the steep sections could have gotten a little hairy).

Somewhere under all that dust lies a car

Lockley Pylon is rated 'easy,' and while the walk in itself was not particularly difficult, the conditions certainly made it tough. It was exceedingly hot - apparently 3pm is still too early to begin hiking in December - and the track was almost entirely exposed. And for some reason the closer we got to the Pylon, the more flies appeared, until, weight for weight, there was more fly than human.

Nevertheless, the views throughout the walk were amazing. The track follows the top of a ridge so there was always something to look at. The pylon itself is just a smattering of rocks on top of a slightly rounded hilltop  - but with 360 degree views.

A viewpoint about halfway to the Pylon was apparently an ideal spot for Emily to break out into a little dance.

Spectacular views.

Standing on top of the Pylon. We would have stayed for longer but Emily has just spotted the flies
about to initiate a fresh swarm.

We realise now why they're called the Blue Mountains - when we looked east, everything was normal, but when we looked west towards the sun... all we could see was blue haze.

Getting down off Lockley Pylon. Somewhere through the blue haze is Govetts Leap Lookout and our camping ground

For some reason the flies loved Emily much more than me

Aside from being a useful guidebook, Take a Walk in the Blue Mountains also served to ward off the twin
 enemies of sun and fly.

Back at the car! Little did we know it would be another hour before we left...

Both very hot, sweaty and tired, we were pretty keen to be getting back to Blackheath for dinner. Unfortunately, our car had other ideas. We hadn't made it more than a few metres before steam started hissing out of the front bit ('the bonnet,' I've since learnt, is the technical term for it). And not just some pissy little stream of gas, this was like a volcano erupting from inside the car. My first thought was that the car was going to explode so I jumped out pretty quick (luckily I wasn't in the driver's seat - Emily at least had the sense to turn off the engine before getting out).

Evidently the car was protesting for being dragged along this great dirty road and left to swelter in the hot sun. Because my knowledge of cars extends only as far as the bare minimum required to operate one, I stood back while Emily got stuck into diagnosing what was wrong. She poked and prodded and opened a lid that resulted in green ooze splurting out (apparently that is a good sign). Somewhere in the metal labyrinth under the hood, she spotted a missing valve lid. Meanwhile, I'm hesitant to stand within a few arm's lengths, still half-expecting the car to explode at any moment.

Fortunately my phone had one bar left, so we got a hold of Emily's dad and decided that it was probably the air con that went. So after waiting for things to cool down again, we risked turning it back on and, without any obvious signs of further emergency, headed home. It was now almost dark and all those steep sections we came DOWN before, now had to be driven UP. "What if some half-mad 4WD comes screaming down the other way?", I thought. "All the driver will see is a small mound of dirt slowly moving towards him." This obviously didn't bother Emily, however, who seemed to enjoy the drive back more than the actual walk. Although the air con was busted there were definitely less flies.