Up Shit Creek in the Budawangs
The Budawangs, NSW. A region with a reputation that well and truly precedes it. A place rightfully deserving of its status in bushwalking guidebooks and blogs and travel guides as a must-see destination, one that snatches the attention of tens of thousands of hikers a year who, just like me, come in search of luscious, pristine rainforest, stunningly shaped rock outcrops, and jaw-dropping vistas of rugged gorges.
But when I finally stepped foot in these esteemed lands for the first time earlier this year, I wasn’t expecting those first steps to nearly be in an actual pile of poo.
Yes, you read correctly. There I was, wandering through the fern-clad rainforest of the Monolith Valley, having just been mesmerised by the Green Room—an oasis-like mini canyon decorated with vibrant emerald-coloured mosses and contorted Ent-like tree roots—when I saw it.
In the middle of one of the most spectacular pockets of beauty, barely off the track and a mere metre away from a babbling brook, was a mound of human excrement. It was smothered in about a third of a roll of toilet paper, with a single fern frond thrown on top for good measure.
s, I thought to myself. How on earth could someone take a dump practically a waterway? Granted, sometimes a digestive switch flicks and grants you only a few seconds to avoid a disaster—I’ve found myself in these sloppy situations more frequently than I’d like—but for crying out
