Pantoney's Crown

We bailed from Sydney on Friday night around the 7pm mark, heading straight out past Wallerawang power station and on towards "long swamp track". Using the (now very out of date) topo maps I started worrying about how long the track seemed to be. The only information I had about the walk and this track was from other people's trip reports, and they weren't explicit enough for me. The only TR I found this road mentioned in referred to them having to rescue the car from a frigid puddle in the dark using a jack and a lot of pushing for an hour.
Luckily, no such trouble befell us and we managed to get to the end of the road with only one bottom-out and a few slow sections over "big speed humps" (of sorts). We came to a fork in the road with a little fireplace. To be sure we were in the right place, I attempted driving further down the road another 20m, but found only darkness, and the tree canopy suddenly at our eye level. "You'll know you've reached the end of the road when it looks like you're about to drive off a cliff!" Andrew said, referring to the sudden need for a heavy-duty 4WD. With such a drop it could only be the place, and we were soon sleeping at midnight.
I awoke to my alarm in the darkness at 5:15am. We had planned to head down the other branch of the fork to attempt to get a view of Pantoney's Crown in the rising sunlight. With no food and only my camera and a map we headed down the road. After 15 minutes we peeled off the road and into the bush, the sky quite bright by now, sunrise was getting close. I figured that we'd be somewhat close, so a typical, gardens-of-stone national park rock-pagoda was climbed. Upon reaching the top we could see nothing that resembled Pantoney's crown, nor anything on the map around it, for that matter. With only the map of the 10km around the crown we had no idea what area we were looking at. The sunbeams reached us while we were trying to make heads or tails of the map, so with no hope of any sunrise photos, after posing for a quick photo (or 10) we headed back to the van to start the walk to the real deal, so much for it being easy to find...
We ate and were on our way at 7:40am, down the "cliff-line" of sorts. It certainly was 4WD-only territory, with massive ruts and channels, metre-high rock ridges and a loose sandy surface. The packs weren't too heavy, with only 5.5 litres of water (that point comes back to haunt me) and minimal other gear, including a tripod for the camera. We didn't go the usual way via Baal Bone Gap and the pressure reducing station. As mentioned, I'd only read about this walk on trip reports so I picked what I thought would be the best way based on the maps. We headed along Moffit's Trail before turning north and making our way to the cliff-line. By doing this we inadvertently missed "the big boot" rock formation, and ended up doing a bit too much bush-bashing for our liking. Next time it will be via the Gap. Regardless, almost two hours out from the car we burst out of the bush and onto the cliff-line, with near panoramic views to the crown, back to BB Gap, Pt Cameron and far into the distant Capertee Valley. We took the happy snaps we needed and walked on, following the cliff-line towards Baal Bone Point (which was incorrectly marked on the ... 70s topo map).
The ridge edge is not as straight as imagined and we often had to head directly west to get away from the cliff edge and onto decent walking pads, but the closer we got to Baal Bone Point, the closer we ended up to the cliff edge regardless. The track comes within 2m of a 50m (or more) drop, more than once, in the final 1-2km before the point. Some chossy cliffs above us had disintegrated, leaving a fine dusty chalk of various colours at various points. Perfect for aboriginals to create art with, it seems. We continued along the track and ended up arriving at Baal Bone Point before midday. It was getting quite hot by this point and we were drinking a fair bit of water, something the meaning of didn't really hit us yet, so we sat in the shade and had lunch, gazing out towards the Crown and back along the  cliff where we had come from, taking happy snaps all around.
After Ans had a short 15 minute snooze we clambered out along the final ridge before doing a 180deg turn at Anvil rock and down a steep chute and off the ridge proper. The track that took us away from Anvil rock and towards the crown was obvious enough, but very steep and loose! When we neared the bottom of the saddle between the two rock features it became apparent exactly how hard this walk was going to be. Pantoney's Crown seemed miles away, and what was worse, seemed miles higher than where we were. We plodded on regardless, losing and regaining what track(s) was around to get us to the base of the crown. We merely headed for the most southerly point of the crown and when we finally hit the cliffline we found the ascent gully right in front of us. It looked quite exposed, towering some 50m above us.
After a short break we climbed up. Sure enough the exposure was amazing, but luckily the higher we got the larger the ledges below us were, to stop a fall right to the bottom. We got up to the top with some chimneying skills and pounding hearts, spending the next 15-20 minutes drinking, taking in the views and committing them to digital format. It really was spectacular.
It was barely past 3pm at this stage so we wandered around the top checking out the views while keeping an eye out for a campsite, which was to be found directly east of the summit cairn, a flat rock that we were going to lie on with the stars as our roof. Faffing, reading and writing in the logbook, more photo taking and checking out map features rounded out the daylight, and we cooked some food before heading for the flat spot at 7:30pm. It was dark, there was just the two of us and we really were quite tired - very little reason existed to stay up late into the night.
As we were lying there, quite tired and hot, since the expected drop in temperature never occurred with the setting of the sun, I realised the problem we now faced with water. We were still really parched yet not even two litres existed between the two of us - and there were no puddles in ironstone bands like in all the other photos I'd seen. I tried drinking as little as possible, but at the end of the hot and bothersome night I now had just one litre while Ans had little more than half a litre. Not good. We sparingly used some water for porridge and set off for the northern descent of the crown around 6:20am.
Again, the only information I had (from Andrew again) was "You have to find the hole first". The hole? What hole?? Having gone as far north as possible and not finding any decent descents, we started backtracking. Eventually on the northern end of a shallow gully (that spewed off the east face down 150m+ cliffs) I discovered an 8m chimney. We de-packed and I dropped the 12m rope I had down for Ans to descend in (relative) safety. She hadn't looked around when sitting down preparing to head down as I had suggested, so when it came time for me to nervously attempt the descent I happily noticed the hole Andrew had been talking about to my right, with the start some 2m behind me. I quickly stood up and took the hole option. Ans was a bit miffed she missed it so clambered back up through it and down again. We continued on fairly decent terrain and wide ledges until several steep scrambles landed us at the base of the northern point of Pantoney's crown. Terra-firma! I was quite relieved as I hadn't wanted to have to reverse the Southern end ascent and the northern descent wasn't anywhere near as exposed, but still enough to worry about.
We headed pretty much north down faint tracks that disappeared and reappeared until we ended up at a fairly open camping area with a fire-pit and a couple of big rocks for seats. We were quite far north by now and were it not for a wide, pleasant track heading further north, I really would have started on the south-east bearing we needed to take. Instead I made the dumb decision to follow the track. After a fair amount of walking the folly of my lack of trust in my own judgement dawned on me. It was now around 11am, we were clearly a ridge away from where we were supposed to be, 3km from the road and a further 6km of road away from a supply of water. To make things worse, Ans and I finished all but 100ml of water that we had left. We struggled down into the creek line and back up the other side. The ridge was wide and long enough to prove that this was indeed the correct one, so Ans' mistrust was lost and the world was a better place. Almost. 
At midday we landed on the trail where we rested. We ate lunch and prepared ourselves for the long trudge ahead. We set off at a fair pace, but not even 1km along I realised we were going much slower than I had anticipated and it was clear that, especially with the sun hitting us, we were in temps much higher than the 26 that had been forecast, it was easily over 30. The road continued undulating for another 2km before a steep incline landed us a hundred metres higher again. This continued gently undulating for another 2km before the final kilometre climbed another 200m or so. I was nearing the end of my tether. I hadn't had water in three kilometres, having started partly dehydrated anyway. I hadn't gone to the toilet since 3am and my pace was shockingly slow for someone "fit". Regardless, the final locked gate came into view and that spurred me on up the last 150m of road to the pressure reducing station. Once there I drank a litre of water within 20 seconds, water had never tasted so good! We poured water over ourselves, took shoes off, sat around and enjoyed life again. Filling up with two litres of water we headed off again for the final 2-3km of track back to the van.
Several hours later, when I finally did manage to relieve myself, I was quite shocked at the colour, and concluded that yes, this had been the most dehydrated I'd ever been in my life.
Regardless, it was an amazing weekend with spectacular views. Pictures can be found here.