Bushwalking In The Budawangs

Bushwalking in the Budawangs is a good overview of walks in Morton and Budawang National Parks. It is aimed at slightly more experienced walkers, but has enough easy walks to appeal to just about anybody.

The book starts with a relatively brief introduction, including information on gear and techniques. Normally I would regard even this brief amount as unnecessary in a track notes guide, but a lot of the information is specific to the Budawangs, and potentially useful.

Before the track notes begin there is a map of the Budawangs. Unfortunately this has no tracks marked and the fact that it is black and white only makes it hard to read. Other than giving a very general overview of the area it is nearly useless. A decent map of the general area would be very useful here.

The walk notes follow. The general format is summary information for the walk, a preamble telling you what to expect, and the notes themselves.

The summary information is very good, including as it does the attractions of the walk, as well as the usual things such as time, distance, difficulty and ascent/descent. The preamble contains an overview of the walk, and in some cases interesting facts or history.

The walk descriptions themselves are reasonable. One drawback is that they are written in the first person plural, and for some reason this tends to make them lack a bit of inspiration that is present in notes by some other authors. However, they do include some flora information, as well as map references, and other interesting things such as side trips are noted. Overall the quality tends to be on the good side.

There are thirty-three walks in the book. Of these, twenty-two are day walks and eleven overnight, which is a nice balance. In addition, a number of the day walks are long and can easily be converted to lazy overnighters. There is also a good range of difficulty in the walks, from easy track walks to off track walks with fair amounts of rock scrambling.

Overall this is a very good book for the experienced bushwalker. The Budawangs are an attractive area for exploration due to the remoteness of many of the areas they cover. The variety of walks and regions covered in the book makes it an excellent introduction to those who haven't walked there before, and there will almost certainly be new attractions for those who have.