Royal Enfield Club of Australia

Himalayan Camping Trip – Yengo National Park

8th and 9th May 2021

By Paul Selwood and Craig Katen

After a few day rides in the State Forests and National Parks around Sydney’s North West we decided to organise an overnight trip. Part of the idea was to test out our new Himalayans with all the gear required for bush camping as well as exploring some new areas.

We had ridden before in the Watagan State Forrest, located near Wyong, which is easily accessible from Sydney and the Central Coast due to its proximity to the M1 Freeway and it attracts a lot of four wheel drivers to the many free camping areas. The fire trails are also quite busy on the weekends and we didn’t feel like putting up with a bunch of P-Platers drinking Bundy and playing Doof-Doof music so we spent some time on Google maps and came up with an alternative.

The areas west of the Watagans are the Yengo and Dharug National Parks. The two are divided by the Wollombi Rd which you can get to from Wisemans Ferry via St Albans on the mainly dirt Settlers Rd and then onto the Wollombi Rd which is dirt all the way almost to Bucketty where, back on the tarmac, we would follow the Great North Rd to Laguna to access the Yengo National Park. This route would give us the best options east or west of the main road to find both trails and a camp site.

We advertised our intentions on the Hunter Valley Himalayan Riders Facebook group, hoping to attract some local knowledge and company and John Giffney, whom I had met at the Royal Enfield Australia ride day to the Central Coast, said he would join us for the Saturday ride but couldn’t camp.

We planned to meet John at Bucketty as he was coming from the coast. I will use some of Paul’s post to the group to explain the mornings events in more detail below.

Paul met me at my house at 630 and before we got two blocks away I realised I had forgot to pick up my Camelbak and did a quick U turn and collected it whilst Paul waited and then headed towards Wisemans Ferry on the Old Northern Road. We stopped at Glenorie at the Bakery and had a half-cold pie as we were a tad early and they had only just opened.

Here’s Pauls account of the next section from his Facebook post.

We rode to Wisemans Ferry, then on to St Albans and up to Bucketty, checking out a couple of camping spots along the way. We got to Bucketty where we were supposed to meet John Giffney, I’d messaged him to tell him we were running late but, we actually weren’t too bad for time in the end.

While we were waiting a walker came up to us and said, if you’re looking for a bloke on a Royal Enfield he’s gone. We thought maybe John had popped up to Laguna for a coffee and would come back, so we waited 10 minutes past the new meet time then decided we would head for Laguna, we rode there and no John, Craig went back to the Finchley track turn off and I went to Wollombi pub, but he wasn’t to be found, I went back to Craig and we were just thinking he must have abandoned us, when along came John from Bucketty, the walker had told him we had left. So now we met up we went to Laguna for a coffee, while we were there 4 of the new Harley Davidson Pan Americas turned up, they were journalists or something on a ride, they actually sound really good, nothing like a Harley, and very comfy to sit on, but very expensive and VERY ugly from the front!!

We then headed off road, John hasn’t done a lot of riding and is still on his P’s, but he rode very well, mostly we sandwiched him between us, but he hardly slowed the pace at all, and we were happy to go at his pace anyway, we rode up to Finchley trig then carried on towards Howes Valley, stopping about halfway, we then turned back and went to Finchley campground.

I didn’t like it, it was mostly mud, we carried on looking for a spot as we rode, because Craig and I were camping the night, we had a look at a couple of possible sites but in the end decided to go back to a spot we had seen about 10km south of Mogo campground, with that decided we pressed on to get back to the seal, I was leading and this time Craig was following me, every few minutes I’d slow to make sure both guys were behind me, then I lost them, I waited for a bit then turned back and about a minute later met Craig coming the other way, he said John had fallen, a few seconds later John turned up and I gave him a thumbs up and he said he was good, we should probably have kept John between us but he was riding so well we kind of didn’t think about it, apologies John if I had you pushing outside your comfort zone! He was all good though so we carried on and got onto the sealed road.

I lost the guys again a bit later and eventually Craig caught me up to say John had turned off – I thought you were going to Bucketty John, and I was going to say goodbye and thanks there – so apologies again!

Craig and I continued to our camp spot and set up the tents, cooked dinner and had a great night with a quiet couple of drinks, in the morning we were going to explore another couple of camp areas but it started to rain so we decided to just call it a day.

All up a fantastic weekend!