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Thought I would reflect on what was a superb Fatass run.

10 hardy souls gathered at Woodford railway station on a cold Sat morning (5C) for a long day in the bush. We set off down Bedford road all running together enjoying the fact that we were at last starting to warm up. Not long before we were shedding the extra layers and packing them into our camelbaks. I was running with Kevin and Jan at this point and somehow we managed to miss the turn off and continued down to Murphy's Glen, too much chatting I suspect. We doubled back and eventually got back to Bedford Road and set off for Andersons firetrail. Jan and I broke away from the others and made good progress along Andersons. Jan's stories on his recent Glasshouse adventure were awe-inspiring and helped tick away the kms.

We made our way to the "T" intersection at the end of the Andersons firetrail, which leads to Kings Tableland Road. There was a water dump here (dropped kindly by Kevin the night before), problem was we couldn't find it. So after a quick rest and refuel Jan and I set off (unknowingly) down the wrong trail. After a few kms of descent we stumbled upon a beautiful flowing creek. However there was no trail on the other side but a huge rock escarpment! Hmmm… this can't be right. Back tracked up the winding hill and came to a diversion in the trail, went the other way and came upon heaps of felled tress across the trail. Realising that this too was the wrong way as there was no way Kevin made his way down here the night before in his car, we had to double back all the way to the T intersection. Sure enough we had turned right too early as a little further down the trail was the proper "T" intersection and of course the water dump. Phew glad to be back on track, we had lost a lot of time here but this was a fatass run and that's part and parcel I guess. We had no time goals as such anyhow.

Making our way along Kings Tableland road which undulates almost the whole way to the Queen Victoria Hospital we caught up to Bob Day who was troubled with his knee (?) and would pull out at Wentworth falls. He mentioned that Kevin was a long way in front. We wished him well and continued eventually reaching the hospital; we decided to rest here for a while. Jan was feeling poorly and hadn't eaten much, later putting this down to a rather dirty bladder in his camelbak. Jan decided he would stay for a while and see if he felt better before continuing. I had to go, as I wanted to catch up with Kevin and the others before the descent into the Kedumba valley. I was a little concerned I might not find the trail to Mt Solitary as it was quite "the road less travelled"

I arrived at the Waterboard gates and was delighted to see Kevin sitting there munching away. He looked surprised to see me, I guess the last time he did Jan and I were heading off down Andersons. Stopped and had some nutella sandwiches and rice pudding. Shortly afterwards as Kevin and I were about to make our way down Kedumba Hill Jan arrived after a miraculous recovery. I was not expecting to see him again that day. Great, so the 3 of us set off down the steep descent. At one point the inspiration for this run came into view, the awesome Mt Solitary. Wow I was impressed, gulping at the same time realising we had to first make our way down into the valley and then up and over this beast!! The trail along the Kedumba walls leading to the climb up Solitary was quite good. Kevin's prior knowledge of the course helped too of course. Arriving at the creek we met two guys coming the other way. They had taken 40 minutes coming down Mt Solitary. I thought great that means at least an hour for us to get up there. The climb was a bastard, brutal in every sense. I was feeling quite good but stopped every few metres to catch my breath. The higher we got the dryer the footing got and the steeper the climb got too!

Reaching the top was awesome. I was ahead of the others and missed the place where the logbook was. The views here out to the west and over Lake Burragorang and the Kedumba homesteads was superb. I made my way further along the top and decided to wait for the others. Jan wasn't far behind and we both stopped and rested for a while. Water supplies were good. I had my 2 litre camelbak and a waistbelt bottle with 750ml. Luckily it wasn't too warm. Meantime Kevin caught up to us and off we went. Stopping every now and again on the northern face to take in the superb views of the Jameson valley in all its glory. I could of stayed there all day it was truly beautiful. At one point the three of us were sprawled out on a huge slab overlooking the valley. Jan offered us some jam doughnuts from his pack. Kevin and I quickly accepted, boy they were good. I was in heaven; jam doughnuts and a view to die for…J

The descent off solitary and around ruined castle was slow and tricky. We met lots of campers coming up from Narrowneck and chatted for a while, nice bunch of people. The climb down was quite jarring and my knee was playing up. Not long to go now I thought. We reached the beautiful trail along the foot of Narroneck walls and made our way to the Golden Staircase where Ross had graciously left some water for us. It felt good to throw some water over our faces here. We decided to climb out here and make our way along Narrowneck back to Katoomba.

11hrs5 mins we had made it. A taxi to Katoomba Station where Jan had his car parked but not before we stopped at a café recommended by our taxi driver. We pigged out on pasta, soup coffee and mmmilkshakes! The look on Jan's face after 2 milkshakes was worth it; he'd finally gotten his appetite back ;-) Jan gave us a lift back to our cars at Woodford Station and we set off our separate ways.

Thanks Kevin for setting out in the wee hours the night before to drop off the water. Thanks too to Ross Yates for the Golden Staircase drop off and Jan for his company.