It was another sunny cloudless day in paradise when I met the rest of the group at the intersection of Turpentine Road and Braidwood Road west of Tomerong at 9.30am. There were the usual familiar faces that included Peter & Robyn F, Jock F, Julie D, Kynie E, Mary W, Ian & Linda P, Yuriko B, Paul B, Chris B and Ulladulla Jim. We now drove westward, turning off onto the Monkey Gum Fire Trail We drove north on the fire trail for about 4kms until we reached a familiar intersection and parked our vehicles. As we signed the walk register form I was surprised to learn we would be doing this walk in reverse to how we normally go. We would be walking in an anti-clockwise direction. I've only ever followed the walk in a clockwise direction.

We followed the Monkey Gum Fire Trail north for several kilometres until we reached the intersection at the ladder and turned right. Within 100 metres we had reached the large rock that featured the familiar wooden ladder and we climbed up onto the plateau where we would have some good views of the Boolijong Creek Valley while we enjoyed morning tea. When we descended the ladder afterwards, we headed east along the Monkey Gum Fire Trail and it soon dawned on all of us why the leaders were doing the walk in this direction - we would be cutting out one humungus ascent near the end of the walk as we carefully descended a slippery dirt trail littered with loose rocks. At the bottom of the hill the track turned north and we followed it for some distance until Peter took us onto a faint trail as the Monkey Gum veered south on a bend.

However, it was soon apparent this was not the correct trail as it soon vanished into nothingness in the forest. We now had 17 Shoalhaven Bushwalkers standing around in a trackless section of forest, wondering what to do. Peter & Jock organised a search party that included myself and Paul B to go looking for the proper track and we soon located it east of where we had stopped. Peter admitted he had turned off the main track too early, but there had been no problem finding the right track and no panicking. We called the rest of the group down and continued following the track northwards through the forest. This track was once a quite wide vehicular road, but has narrowed over the years to become nothing more than a well defined foot track, and that is only due to the presence of the recreational trail bike riders.

The track now turned in a westerly direction as it made its way around the northern cliff lines of Sandiman Head. As the track turned to head south we headed into the Burrawang Palm dominated scrub to climb to the top of Sandiman Head to have lunch, though 3 members of our group chose to remain on the track rather than take part in the climbing. We quickly ascended through the open forest once we were out of the Burrawangs, but the slope was steep and we took a breather stop halfway up before continuing. Nothing like a little extra cardiovascular exercise to get the blood pumping. As we reached the base of the cliff line you could see plenty of gaps in the rocks where you could ascend to the cliff tops, but Peter had a well trodden  route just around the next outcrop and sure enough we had no problems climbing up to the top to take in an expansive view of the Yarramunmun Creek Valley as it cuts its way through the Morton National Park south towards Yalwal. Unfortunately many of the better viewpoints were tree interrupted. We all grabbed suitable spots in the sun to enjoy our lunch.

After lunch we descended back down to the foot track to meet up with the rest of the party. Now we had the long drawn-out trudge back to the cars, at least 8kms of track through the forest high above the unseen Yarramunmun Creek and just below the cliff line of the plateau that ends in Sandiman Head in the north. It took us just over an hour to reach the first intersection. The track to the east would take up back up to the ladder. After everyone else had caught up we continued south on the track below the cliff line. The track seemed in better condition than I remembered it in from a walk we did in early April, though there were a few difficult spots. Again we can thank the trail bike riders for keeping this track in passable order and it wasn't long before we arrived at the next intersection. As I had been in the lead, I waited for all the rest of the party to come through before heading eastwards and the climb back to the cars. I was surprised that some of the group thought they had to continue on the track in a southerly direction, so I guess it was lucky I decided to wait for Peter at the back of the group.

The ascent to the cars really isn't that steep, but there are sections where there are so many loose rocks and large holes in the road that a tank would find this trail impassable. The one highlight here was the shapes of the rocks in the cliffs as we passed through them. It was just before 4.00pm that we arrived back at the intersection we had started from this morning.

In July 2011 I did a reconnoitre of this track with Jock in preparation for a future walk he was leading. We found not only was the access road in very poor condition, but the track itself was continually blocked by fallen trees. In the end Jock decided it was time to move on and has decided to put a different walk on.