About a minute later we had reached Dunphy’s Campground. There was an overwhelming sense of relief. I saw that I had missed calls from Ewe’s mum (although it may have been earlier; I can’t remember). I tried calling her back but had no luck.

We saw other people setting up camp and asked if we could get a lift back and offered to pay them. They were quite reluctant so Ewe asked if he could borrow a phone to make a call due to my lack of reception.

I lay down just off the road at the entrance to the campground whilst Ewe made the call and spoke to his mum. She told him about how she tried to call me but I didn’t call back and Ewe told her about us being in Megalong Valley.

When Ewe came back he told me that his mum was going to pick us up, but that we had to start walking out. I think I said something along the lines of “Are you serious?”.

I got up and we began walking toward the road we thought lead to the exit of the valley.

We saw some kangaroos and reached a crossroad that lead to a lot of uncertainty about where to go, but we once again chose the right road to go along.
Despite lingering uncertainty that continued after, this was confirmed once we walked past a sign that had “Welcome to Blue Mountains National Park” written on the side that was not initially visible to us.

There was a cool air as we walked along and the area was at this point nicely shaded. There were a couple of gates that we needed to open and we saw some animals due to someone running a very small farm in the area. It was a nice, refreshing change.

We ended up going uphill for a brief period and stopped at a corner. Ewe said that it would be easier for his mum to stop the car there as there was enough space, but we weren’t certain that she would be there soon, or that we were on the right road. It had been a long day and it was hard to remain confident in our choice of direction. However, we were once again shown that it was the right one when we could here the sound of Ewe’s mum’s car which was soon followed by its appearance.

Other than my thinking that I lost my phone only to unveil it shortly after, the ride back was mostly uneventful. There was a lot of gratitude directed at Ewe’s mum.

We stopped off at the Katoomba Police Station, I hobbled in and dropped off the epirb, hobbled back out and then we went back to Ewe’s mum’s place to get the rest of our stuff.

Soon we were back at the train station and then soon after that we were on a train.
Whilst we knew we were fine once we were picked up by Ewe’s mum, it probably didn’t completely sink in until we were on the train.

There wasn’t much talk on the train back. We were pretty tired. We were glad to not be going up or down a mountain.

Ewe hopped off at Central and I continued to Town Hall.

When I left the station and saw my bus, I ran for it which turned out to be unnecessary.

Other than hearing the term “boutique record store”, the rest of the trip home was not noteworthy.

—–

When I think back on the trip, I don’t think there’s anything that I would change.
It was difficult as we had accidentally prepared for a different trip without realising. We went the long way around and then had a bit of a difficult time getting out. I almost completely gave up a few times.

I can say that I would have gladly repeated the whole ordeal as it was worth every moment.

It’s been around seven months since the trip and even now it makes me think about the strength of friendship as well as how far someone can push themselves when they are determined to see something through to the end.

I don’t think I would have been confident enough to do it with anyone else other than Ewe. I could have attempted it by myself, but with Ewe I had more trust and conviction in our chances than had I done the walk with someone else.

It also makes me think about the magnificence of the Blue Mountains (and by extension, the Australian bush) and how epic (in the true sense of the word) they can be; something of which I am reminded whenever I am bush walking around that area.