Explorer’s Tree to Cox’s River, return

The start

The view west

Cox’s River

Date: Sunday 28 October 2017

Weather: Hot and still, maximum 30 degrees C. An occasional breeze on the ridge tops, but humid in the doldrums.

Access: Kerry gave us a lift to and fro, bless her heart! It’s a bit difficult to access this walk if you don’t have a car, and we we don’t. Generally speaking, I don’t miss owning a car at all. I’ve considered taking my mountain bike on the train to ride to these out of town starts, which would be do-able but it would be a bit more of a rigmarole. , and it would make a long day longer still.

Duration: Ten hours, including morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea. About 32 km.

Who: Peter, Diana, Kerry, Joe, Pete, Vicki and Britta. All except Peter and Diana were doing this as training for a 12 day trek in Nepal. Peter and Di are not all sure why they were doing it!

Track: There’s an 800 metre undulating descent to the stairs down the face of the escarpment, all 1000 of them! (Though I may have lost count). There seem to have been many more stairs climbing back out at the end of the day!

From Nellie’s Glen, the track wanders for a couple of kilometres, through pleasantly damp, shady bush to the floor of the valley, then follows a dirt road for about three kilometres through farm country. This part of the track has been recently replanted with beautiful flowering natives. I especially liked the expansive ground cover Grevillea and the Isopogons. There were also boronia, bacon-and-egg and a few lovely, tiny yellow orchids.

We then turned off the road and traversed open, rolling, hilly farmland, crossing on stiles over several boundary fences, before crossing a bitumen road at the 8 km mark, where we had morning tea.

From there, the track is still pretty exposed for the next few kilometres, tending generally downhill, until it skirts a creek leading down to the Cox’s River. For the last three kilometres or so, the sound of river rapids can be heard and occasional glimpses of this delightful river are to be had.

Finally, we emerged, after 16 km, at a swing bridge, which we felt obliged to traverse, one at a time, and scrambled down to the rocky river edge for lunch.

The journey back was, not surprisingly, uphill pretty much all the way, and the heat had become a bit oppressive. Despite carrying 3 litres of water each, we all ran out. Ascending the stairs at the end proved not quite as difficult as we had recalled, but we stopped frequently and were glad to have it over.

Comments: Kerry is an excellent and experienced walk leader (and she also knows the best places to go for breakfast and dinner, before and after the walk!) Our other companions were new acquaintances, with whom we hope to share lots of future walks.

It was the sort of weather in which we expected to see a snake (and hence carried snake bandages). Lo and behold, on the way out we came across a small tiger snake which had been killed by a kookaburra and on the way back Diana nearly stepped on a brown snake.! He didn’t seem particularly perturbed, but it’s always a bit of a worry getting too close to such a potentially deadly creature!

This walk is a very good workout, and two days later, writing this, my legs are still aching, though that may have something to do with being of advanced age.

Lunch at Cox’s River

Kerry

Lunch

Tiger snake killed by kookaburra

Diana

Unknown tree blossom

Lizard

Skink

Swing Bridge

Brown snake

Heading home

Cox’s River

Porter’s Pass, Colliers’ Causeway

Date: Saturday 22 July 2017

Weather: A crisp, clear day, with not a wisp of cloud . The overnight minimum had been minus 3 degrees Celsius, and it was still only 6 degrees when our train arrived at 10.30 am. By midday the temperature had got up to 12 or 13.

Access: We caught the 8.18 train to Blackheath from Central Station, which takes about 2 hours 15 min. On the way home, we could have just made the 2.14pm train back to Sydney, but opted for the 3.14pm, to allow time to have a beer and a pie in Blackheath and enjoy the mountain air. Getting to Central Station early is a good idea, to be sure of a seat. Coming home, there’s not much of a problem getting a seat at Blackheath, but it’s standing room only further down the mountain. Our down-train was packed with Sydney Swans football fans.

We repeated the walk we’d done in May last year, starting at the end of Shipley Road, but left out Fort Rock at the end.

Duration: Three hours, including a morning tea break.

Who: Peter, Diana, Christine, Nancy, Julian, Anne-Marie

Track: The track was crowded with rock climbers along Wall’s Ledge, near the top of the ridge, and this section of the track has been extensively rebuilt with shaped sandstone. The further we descended, though, the more of a scramble it became, with plenty of muddy sections to boot, just from run-off down the mountain, not from rain. In a shady grotto not far into the walk, the hanging ferns were encrusted with ice. It would have been surreally beautiful, had we been first down the mountain, but most of the icicles within reach had been destroyed by excited children by the time we got there.

Comments: A beautiful, pleasantly strenuous walk, well worth having revisited!

Rare Blue Mountains Crimson Frog

Little Zig Zag and Wilson’s Glen

Date: Sunday 5th March 2017

Weather: Overcast, warm (after heavy rain).

Access: We drove to Mount Victoria, but this walk is one which is easily accessible by train. After an early start, we had breakfast at the rather wonderful Anonymous Cafe, near the train station. The track begins at the end of Kanimbla Valley Way, which is an easy walk from the station (or cafe).

Duration: 2 hours

Who: Peter, Diana, Julian, Nancy

Track: This is a loop walk, starting and finishing at Pulpit Rock, a short stroll below the end of the road. Aptly named as it may be, note that this is not the more famous Pulpit Rock near Govett’s Leap.

The Little Zig Zag track, originally a bridle path, descends to the left. After about half a kilometre, follow the signposted path up to the Bushrangers’ Cave, which may, in fact, have been used by escaped convicts or bushrangers 200 years ago.

The track continues to descend in a fairly leisurely fashion through a woodland largely composed of eucalypts and banksias. At the bottom this gives way to lush ferns, bracken, and acacias. There are some splendid tree ferns, and not a few leeches.

After ascending back to the base of the cliff-face, a side path to the right leads, 100 metres or so along, to a slender waterfall plummeting through a cleft. Judging, however, from the spectacular erosion of the rock wall, there must at some time have been a torrent erupting at this point. Return to the T-intersection and continue up the face of the escarpment back to Pulpit Rock.

Comments: Considering the easy accessibility of this walk and the fact that it’s not particularly difficult, it seemed to us to be little travelled. The views out over the lush, green Kanimbla Valley, offered at every turn are quite inspiring! After two hours of moderate exertion, we found ourselves looking forward to another round of coffee and a bite to eat, back in town.

Shoal Bay, Mount Tomaree

Gun emplacement

Gymea lily

Orb-weaving spiders

View from Mount Tomaree

Ascent of Mount Tomaree

Angophora

Mount Tomaree

Tree shaped like a Dutchman’s pipe

Nelson Head

Port Stephens

Date: Sunday 15 January 2017

Weather: Fine, hot, still.

Access: We began our walk at Halifax Park, at the eastern end of Nelson Bay township, and cut across a small patch of bush, inland from the Nelson Bay lighthouse, to emerge at Shoal Bay, then walked the length of the beach to Tomaree Head. We then ascended to the summit of Mount Tomaree (160m elevation), from which magnificent views were to be had. On the way back down we detoured via the WW2 gun emplacements, put in place to protect Newcastle steelworks and Williamstown airbase. We then proceeded back to the car through the narrow strip of coastal bush and the back streets of Shoal Bay township

Duration: 3 hours

Who: Peter, Diana, Christine

Track: This is a semi-urban walk, more parkland than bush, with very well made paths. Steel ramps and stairs make for easy going up Mount Tomaree and there are several excellent suspended viewing platforms at the summit. The total distance was about 10 kilometres

Comments: Not really a bush-walk, but a very pleasant coastal stroll with wonderful views. There were plenty of birds; gulls, pelicans, cormorants, rainbow lorikeets, galahs, corellas, magpies and mynahs, lots of copper skinks and the bush at the summit was full of orb-weaving spiders.
The trees and shrubs were strikingly beautiful especially the tortuous branches and vivid colouration of the angophoras, like burnt sienna. There were numerous other slender, tall white eucalypts, banksias of various kinds, grevilleas, a few lambertias and occasional kangaroo paws (imported?) The Tomaree National Park is remarkably unspoiled. It warrants further exploration.

Salkantay trail and Inca Trail to Machu Picchu

Date: 28th June to July 3rd 2016

Duration: Six days (5 days walking, 4 nights camping, 5th night at Aguas Calientes, 6th day tour of Machu Picchu and travel back to Cusco.
Overall distance between 70 and 80 kilometres, with about 3500 metres of climbing and 5000 metres of descents.

Who: Peter, Diana, Carrie, Siobahn, Julie, Mike, Brad, Ashok and Cherry, Drew and Anne, Andrew and Fiona, Trish and Chris, John, Geoff, Pepe, our guide and two junior guides, a cook, porters and horse-drivers.

Access: We flew from Sydney to Lima, via Santiago, then on to Cusco, five days later. Five days in Lima is about three days too many. Not for nothing is it called “Lima the Grey”.

It’s a sprawling city of 10 million, cloaked in smog and choked by traffic, sitting on a coastal desert, with an annual rainfall of 6mm. The soil is barren grey grit or clay, and plants struggle to survive.

That said, we enjoyed a couple of magnificent meals, at Astrid y Gaston, and Malabar restaurants, and visited a couple of excellent museums, particularly the Museo Larco, a private museum with beautiful sunken gardens.

We also walked around the Huaca Pukllana, an adobe temple complex used by the Lima and Wari cultures, dating back to 200 AD (presumably still there because it never rains), and Pachacamac, a massive adobe temple complex dedicated to the Pachacamac, the god of earthquakes among other things, dating also back to the second century AD.

An interesting distinction between the various ancient Peruvian cultures is that The Lima people waited until a girl had given birth, thus proving her fertility, before she was sacrificed, whereas the Inca sacrificed virgins and young warriors (the losers in ritual combat). The Wari sacrificed babies to accompany the spirits of important adults in the afterlife.

Unfortunately, Diana fell foul of the Lima water and had 48 hours of intractable vomiting, culminating in her spending her first night in Cusco in hospital.

Street sculpture in Miraflores

Kennedy Park

Lima

Museo Larco

Lima: graffiti

Skeleton of decapitated girl sacrificed at Huaca

Huaca Pukllana

Mummy at Huaca Pukllana

Pachacamac: Sun Temple

Shrunken heads: Museum at Pachacamac

Pachacamac: Temple of the Virgins

Pachacamac

Cusco (3400 metres) is a wonderful town, of about half a million people, mostly poor, but the city is thriving on tourism. It is the ancient capital of the Inca culture, and many original Inca walls survive, often built over by the Spaniards, who conquered Cusco in the 1530s. Our hotel in Cusco was a 16th century stone hacienda, once a private home. We were fortunate to be in Cusco for the annual Festival of the Sun, a ceremonial reenactment of the the rebirth of the Inca king at the winter solstice. Spectacular pageantry! It is greatly to the credit of the Peruvian people that they generally maintain their ancient animistic religion, even those who nominally converted to the catholic religion of their Spanish conquerors.

Cow at school, outskirts of Cusco

Dying alpaca wool

Traditional weaving

Festival of the Sun

Peruvian girls in street

Festival of the Sun

Festival of the Sun: Inca Queen

Festival of the Sun

Festival of the Sun: the Sun King

Roast guinea pigs

Cusco: Main plaza

We also visited Saqsaywaman, above Cusco, probably the second most significant Inca archeological site after Machu Picchu, called by the Spaniards “The fortress”, but actually a palace and temple. It once had towering 30 metre walls, with 10 metre deep foundations! It was to here that the Inca royal family retreated from Cusco and were slaughtered by the Spanish. On the same day, we visited Pisac in the Sacred Valley, still a highly productive farming area, and drove up above the town to an ancient Inca town with beautiful intact terraces. There is a popular misconception that the Inca crumbled before the Spanish invasion, but the truth is that they fought a war of resistance for 75 years!

Inca settlement: Pisac

Pisac

Saqsaywaman

Visiting school

After six days acclimatising in Cusco, we set off by bus at 5am on the 7th day up to Soraypampa (elevation 3900 m) to begin the trek.

Day 1: Soraypampa to Humantay Lake, Soraypampa to Salkantaypampa.

Our intended campsite for the first night was under snow, so we tacked on an extra walk in the morning, up to Humantay Lake, a glacial tarn, ascending 350 metres over 2 km from Soraypampa, (to 4220m) and return. It was a uniformly steep ascent, across alpine meadow, with a creek crossing, finishing with a steeper climb through the moraine to the lake. Very pretty and very cold. A group of young ladies and one fellow, from another party, braved the water, but we felt no compulsion to do so! The descent, of course, went much faster, unpunctuated by the stops we’d had to make on the way up to gather our breath.

We then walked 3 km up to Salkantaypampa (4100m), where we’d intended to have lunch on the first day, and camped there. This, unfortunately, would add 2.5 km of climbing to an already long second day. At that stage we were accompanied by mountain ponies to carry tents, gas bottles etc, with their drivers running beside them!

Again it was a steady ascent, crossing and recrossing iced-over streams, quite tiring, nevertheless, given the altitude at which we’d started, 500m above our acclimatisation level of 3400m at Cusco. The sun disappeared early and a frigid cold descended. At dinnertime, our cook produced the first of many delicious meals, in miraculously short time!

Our tents and bedding kept us warm, though the tents were covered with ice in the morning.

Soraypampa

View from Soraypampa

Ponies carrying gas bottles

Walk to Lake Humantay

Lake Humantay

Beginning of Salkantay Trail

Camp at Salkantaypampa

Day 2: Salkantaypampa to Pampacahuana

Our second day began, as did each morning, at dawn, with a porter scratching at our tent flap, bearing coca tea, and then hot water to wash our face and hands. We packed up our bedding and belongings ( a 7kg duffel bag for the porters and a day pack each). A hearty breakfast appeared in the mess tent, and we were off to an early start.

The morning brought with it the daunting task of climbing through ice and snow to the Salkantay Pass, (4860 metres), over 5.5 kilometres. Di and I took over four hours to reach the top of the ridge, though some younger members were a fair bit quicker. I commented to Di at the top “If I die here, just leave me to mummify and carry on!”

After waiting for the stragglers, (including Trish on a pony), we set off down the very steep, icy, zigzag descent. This was more difficult than it might sound. I fell half a dozen times. It took a couple of hours to get below the snow-line again and we were offered a late lunch, though I, personally, was too exhausted to eat it. We then had about a three hour walk down to our campsite at Pampacahuana. (4000 m), (15 or 16 km total walk). Di, still not recovered from her hospital episode, rode the last kilometre on a pony. We crawled into our sleeping bags and slept until dinner, ate, and then crawled back in again.

Dawn at Salkantaypampa

Salkantay Pass

Salkantay Mountain

Ascending Salkantay Pass

Summit of Salkantay Pass

Descending Salkantay Pass

Day 3: Pampacahuana to Llulluchapampa

Day three began with a beautiful 8.5km descent of 800 metres to Paucarancha, passing small subsistence farms and skirting a tumultuous little river, which had been converted in stretches by Inca stonework over 500 years ago to a canal, channelling water down to the Sacred Valley. They even had a system of locks! Footnote: The Inca carried soil, by hand, from the Sacred Valley to fill the agricultural terraces of Machu Picchu!

At Paucarancha (3200 m) was an archeological site, a fortified Inca way-station, and a little village where we had to clear all the requisite paperwork, including passport checks, to continue on to the Inca Trail proper (though the Salkantay trail is and was an Inca trail, just not made into a granite road). Here our horses turned back, (not allowed on the Inca Trail), our bags were weighed (occupational health and safety!) and we picked up a dozen more porters. These guys are absolutely amazing, carrying huge loads and running with them! The oldest porter, we found out later, was 77 years old!

We walked on to lunch at Wayllabamba, then continued climbing to our campsite at Llulluchapampa, (3850 m), making 14km for the day.

Setting off from camp

Snow-melt

Peasant farm

Inca canal

Mountain stream

A beautiful descent

Paucarancha

The Inca Trail

Day 4: Llulluchapampa to Phuyupatamarca

Day four was billed as our longest day, ascending Warmiwanuska (Dead Woman’s Pass), (4200 m), then dropping 600m to Pacaymayo, ascending another pass, Runkurakay (3900 m), down to Chaquicocha (3600 m) for a late lunch, then up and down (Inca-flat!) to our fourth camp at Phuyupatamarca (3600m), loosely translated as “the camp above the clouds”. Again, about 14km, I think.

All this was along the Inca Trail, a granite roadway, made for foot travel (they had no horses, didn’t use llamas as beasts of burden and didn’t have the wheel), built more than 500 years ago, and still intact! It’s all the more amazing to look over the edge of the trail and see 10 or 15 metres of stonework supporting the road! Inca runners (“foxes”) ran in relays, two miles each, averaging 11 minutes, it’s thought, for each leg. They had no written language, so messages were passed orally from one runner to another. So efficient was the system that it was said the Inca king in Cusco could eat fresh fish in the evening caught on the coast in the morning! The Inca built 40,000 kilometres of such roadways!

After the snow and ice of Day 1, and the cold , barren, treeless upper pampas, it felt extraordinary to have descended into jungle, with bamboo, ferns, bromeliads, orchids, spongy mosses and myriad flowers! Hummingbirds flitted about and we saw falcons, but no condors.

Dawn at Llulluchapampa

Beginning Day 4

Top of Dead Woman’s Pass

Inca Trail

View from Inca Trail

Inca Trail

View from Inca Trail

Inca trail

View from Inca Trail

Day 5: Phuyupatamarca to Machu Picchu

We had a more leisurely start to Day 5, (ie the sun was up). After breakfast a ceremony was conducted for the tipping of the porters. These guys are all farmers, with no cash income other than working as porters, and it’s highly sought-after work. Siobhan started a slightly outrageous trend by kissing her designated young porter!

We broke camp and began a long, steady descent to Winaywayna (2650m), a mightily impressive Inca agricultural centre, with acres of steep terracing and beautifully preserved buildings (granaries and houses), where we had lunch.

We then continued, across “Inca-flat” terrain, and regrouped at the top of a long climb, where Pepe said mysteriously, “the next section is a gift for you from the Inca gods!”

We turned a corner to be confronted by a near vertical stone stairway, which we struggled up, to arrive, quite unexpectedly, at Intipunku, the Sun Gate (2745m), offering our first view of Machu Picchu! After an extended photo session, we continued downhill, to Machu Picchu itself (2400m), though we weren’t allowed into the city on that first afternoon.

We took a 30 minute bus ride through endless switch-backs, to Aguas Calientes (2050m), scrubbed ourselves under a hot shower, dressed in our last clean clothes, and adjourned to the bar!

Dawn day 5

Porters and trekkers

Peter and di at Phuyupatamarca

Last view of Salkantay

Steep descent

Valley floor

Orchid

Llamas

Winaywayna

Machu Picchu from Sun Gate

Peter and Di at Sun Gate

Machu Picchu from Sun Gate

Machu Picchu

Day 6: Machu Picchu

We were mustered at 6am to catch an early bus up to Machu Picchu, to watch the sunrise, and beat the main influx of tourists. Pepe proved to be a very knowledgeable tour guide, and the early start meant that stray tourists didn’t intrude too much into our photos.

The majesty of Machu Picchu is breathtaking! It sits in the saddle of two mountains, in the most impenetrable mountain range imaginable. Until relatively recently, the only access was the Inca Trail. which had been lost in the jungle. Machu Picchu was never permanently inhabited, but was a royal palace and temple complex. The stonework is nearly all “royal inca”, massive stones, each finished on the wall, joined without mortar and polished in place, so perfectly that you can’t slip a piece of paper between them. Amazing to consider that the Inca had only bronze chisels and stone hammers. A chisel had to be replaced after 20 blows! Some individual stones weigh 6-10 tonnes, transported on cut logs by human labour (no wheels, no beasts of burden!) Doorways, windows and niches are trapezoidal, with huge stone lintels, and all of the walls incline inwards at about 7 degrees, thus conferring remarkable stability against earthquake. When the 16th century Spanish cathedral in Cusco was extensively damaged by earthquake in the 1950s, the Inca Temple of the Sun, which the Spaniards had partially demolished and cannibalised for their own structure, was revealed, essentially undamaged! Machu Picchu would certainly not exist as it does today if the Spaniards had found and plundered it, as they did virtually everything else from the Inca period.
Incredibly, the remarkable architectural heritage of the Incas and their 40,000 kilometre road system were all built in only a hundred years!

(bottom of picture) unrestored section of city

Houses and granaries

Waynapicchu (“Young Mountain) in background

Houses and granaries

Temple of the Sun

King’s bedchamber (note stone bed)

Public plazas

King’s tomb (possibly)

Public plazas

Temple of the Sun and altar

Looking towards observatory

Temple wall showing subsidence

Temple of Three Windows

Sundial

Nobles’ homes

Public plazas, Waynapicchu.

Temple of Three Windows

Temple of the Condor

Natural rock, set to mimic mountains

Slanting sun over Machu Picchu

After lunch at Aguas Calientes, we caught the little train (The Machu Picchu Choo Choo), out of the mountains, then transferred to a bus back to Cusco. Next day we embarked on a 34 hour return journey to Sydney.

Valley of the Giants

Jarrah (left) and Karri (right)

Fungus on forest floor

Moss on Tingle

Anne and Tingle tree

Fungus on log

Fungi on fallen log

Date: 6 June 2016

Weather: Fine, cloudy, (just beat the rain).

Red tingle tree

Access: This walk was on private property, so only accessible by invitation, but there are many other beautiful coastal and forest walks in the area.

We have a farm in south west Western Australia, in an area known as the Valley of the Giants, for the fact that it is only in this area, over a radius of about 10 kilometres, that the magnificent eucalypt known as the red tingle (eucalyptus jacksonii) exists. These towering trees may grow to 70 metres and reach a girth of 20 metres! This walk was on our neighbour’s farm.
The Valley of the Giants is near Walpole in the Great Southern region, on the south coast of Western Australia. I heartily recommend it to anyone who would enjoy unspoiled forests and a rugged granite coastline, with extraordinary biological diversity.

Duration: 3 hours

Who: Peter, Anne

Anne on karri stump

Track: There was no made track. We started from my neighbour, Anne’s farmhouse and headed up the hill across her paddocks, where the monumental stumps of giant eucalypts still stand, like tombstones for the primeval forest cleared 100 years ago by the first settlers in this area.

Peter and karri stump

The graveyard

We paused to stare in shocked awe at what Anne calls the graveyard, site of an old bush timber mill, now littered with massive slabs of jarrah, karri and tingle, offcuts from the mill.

We then picked our way down through a dense growth of mostly jarrah and marri (red gum), with an understory of ti trees, banksias, casuarinas and below that sword grass, bracken, and vines, well-nigh impenetrable, had the kangaroos not beaten a meandering path through it. This area had never been cleared, but had been selectively thinned by the early farmers. Amazingly, in the middle of all this was a small dam, made to water cattle, now a shady, cool refuge for the native animals.

Red tingles (foreground) and marris

Soon we came to a working paddock, in which stood, like ents, half a dozen huge ancient red tingle trees and marris, left standing by the early settlers. We crossed this to enter an extraordinary area of virgin red tingle forest, never logged, never farmed, absolutely pristine.

Marri

The tingles themselves, though enormous, were not as big as some in other areas nearby (they may live for 400 years). There were also venerable jarrahs and huge red gums (they always amaze me by their trunks being bent and tortuous, with their massive upper branches, often nearly as thick as the trunk. I wonder why they don’t fall over).

Azamia palm (cycad) and Kingia australis (right)

Interspersed were tall, straight, smooth white karris, and numerous smaller trees; a host of banksia grandis, casuarinas, karri hazel, acacias, lots of azamia palms (cycads, dating back to the time of dinosaurs) and the tallest (hence oldest) Kingia australis grass trees I’ve ever seen.

One Kingia had fallen, then continued to grow up at a right angle to the fallen trunk, with a new crown, like a hula skirt of tough filamentous leaves. The fallen trunk was about 5 metres long, by which I would estimate the tree was perhaps five hundred years old! When I say fallen, you should not imagine a a Kingia fracturing at its base and crashing down. When a Kingia is pushed over, since the trunk is made of the stems of centuries’ growth of leaves, radiating from the centre, it appears to wilt like a giant flower, and generally will continue to grow!

Can you see a kangaroo’s or rabbit’s face in the centre of the moss?

Ancient fallen trees were covered by thick lime-green moss and encrusted with plate fungi. Numerous different curious fungi were pushing through the leaf litter, growing in the moss or on fallen timber. We also found a rocky outcrop covered with rock orchids, though not in bloom, and spider orchids, ditto. (Memo to self: go back in spring!).

Patchwork pattern on karri

This area of forest is remarkably open, with clear views to appreciate the grandeur of the colossal old trees. On the far side we clambered down a steep slope to a soak (area of wetland), which we crossed by hopping from tussock to tussock, then up through an airy thicket of casuarinas, Kingia and azamias, coming out finally back in Anne’s home paddock.

Comments: I’ve pretty much made enough comments, I guess. I might add only that, if you’d like to know more about this very special part of the world, click on this link to have a look at my other blog about our farm, Faraway. https://farawayproject.wordpress.com/

PS: If you fancy a good long walk, try the Bibbulmun Track, 1000km long, from Perth to Albany, almost entirely through bushland and national parks. It passes very close to our farm.

Mount Banks, Banks Wall

Julian and Nancy

Fire trail

Ferny grotto Mount Banks

Escarpment edge Banks Wall

Grose Valley

Banks Wall

Diana, julian, Nancy

Grose Valley

Mount Banks from south

Serious bull-ant

micro-flora

Julian and Nancy

Grose Valley

Lunch spot

David Crevasse

Caterpillar orgy

Banksia

Old picnic table, Mount Banks

Peter

Summit

Julian

Nancy

Burnt hakea

Date: Sunday May 8 2016

Weather: Rain was forecast, but we only had a few spots during the actual walk. Being overcast made for pleasant walking. We realised how lucky we’d been, when it rained all the way home. We chose to walk from the Bell’s Line of Road, because Sydney was smothered in smoke haze from hazard reduction burns around the townships along the Great Western Highway. We were fortunate again, in that a north-westerly wind blew the smoke away and allowed us magnificent panoramic views of the Grose Valley.

Access: There’s no option but to drive to do this walk. Head out of Sydney through Richmond, and pick up the Bell’s Line of Road. The Blue Mountains Botanic Gardens, at Mount Tomah are about 40km out of Richmond, and the turn-off to Mount Banks is 9km past there. Follow the gravel road for about a kilometre to the parking area. It’s a bit bumpy, but firm and navigable by normal passenger cars.

Duration: Four hours, including picnic lunch, lots of oohing and aahing over the magnificent vistas and plenty of selfies.

Who: Peter, Diana, Julian, Nancy

Track: From the car park, you can go straight ahead, along the ridge up to the summit of Mount Banks, or you can go left along the fire trail, that skirts around Mount Banks, and proceeds out to Banks Wall. We chose the latter, which made for easy walking on the way out, and after 4.5km found ourselves teetering on the edge of Banks Wall, peering into the vastness of the Grose Valley, carpeted by a wilderness of forest, with meandering streams at its base.

We continued along the fire trail, until it petered out on the lip of David Crevasse, where we sat on a little promontory and ate our picnic lunch. I’m informed by our friend, Roger, who’s knowledgeable about these things, that it’s possible to descend the crevasse to the valley floor, but I find that prospect rather intimidating.

On the way back we took the marked left turn off the fire trail to huff and puff our way to the summit of Mount Banks. This track was harder going, steep, narrow and a bit overgrown, with occasional fallen trees to negotiate. We felt a certain sense of accomplishment in reaching the top, though the view is largely obscured by trees. We then descended, steeply at first, down a slippery path on the north side, towards the parking area. The last part of the walk, along the ridge, with beautiful views west into the valley ensured a very satisfying finish to a splendid walk.

Comments: We started off thinking it was a bit inauthentic to be marching along a broad fire trail, but the going wasn’t all that easy, with loose rock underfoot and lots of ups and downs. The further we went, though, the better it got, as we wended our way under high rock walls, out towards the edge of the escarpment. Looking out from Banks Wall over the majestic wilderness of the Grose Valley is just breathtaking.

The best thing about the walk was that we didn’t see another soul all day, which made the isolation all the more splendid, and, of course, the splendour all the more isolated.

Scrambling up the summit of Mount Banks satisfied our inner masochist, and left us feeling we’d had a proper bush walk after all!

Conveniently, it was just a short hop down the road to Mount Tomah for coffee and angel cake, then a wind-down stroll through the magnificent gardens.

Porters Pass, Collier’s Causeway

Diana and Christine

Eastern escarpment

Banksia

From Collier’s Causeway

Porter’s Pass

Overhanging rock wall

See-through tree

Moss

Climbing to Burton Street

Escarpment

Ferny grotto

Forested valley

Buttress in Kanimbla Valley

Diana. A well-earned rest.

Megalong valley

Stream on Bundarra Street exit

Amanita muscaria

Megalong Valley

Track profile

Date: Sunday 1 May 2016

Weather: It had rained earlier in the morning, but by the time we started, at 10am, it was fine and mild. The track, however, was muddy in places. By the time we emerged at the top, there was a stiff westerly breeze, swirling the fallen autumn leaves around us.

Access: As we generally try to do, we used public transport, travelling by train from Central Station to Blackheath, a very pleasant way to pass a couple of hours, chatting, admiring the scenery, doing the crossword or reading. On the return journey, of course, after a strenuous walk, you can snooze. No road rage, no risk of breaking down or crashing your car (we don’t actually have one), so quick and so cheap!

From Blackheath Station head south along Station Street, then right onto Shipley Road. After about 800 metres turn right again onto Centennial Glen Road. The track begins at the end of Centennial Glen Road, on the left, behind a locked gate. There’s car parking for those who drive.

You can complete the circuit walk, back to your car or, if travelling by train, you can take a pleasant shortcut through the bush from Fort Rock, up towards Blackheath Station, via Bundarra Street. By so doing, though, you miss out on walking through Centennial Glen.

Duration: Three hours, with frequent stops to admire and photograph the ever-changing views.

Who: Peter, Diana, Christine.

Track: At first the track meanders southward along the ridge, through shrubby heath, with spectacular views of the Megalong Valley then, looking southward, of the eastern escarpment, before dropping down to the left.

You’ll pass a little creek and a waterfall, to find yourself then on Collier’s Causeway. This takes you for about a kilometre below steep rock walls on your right, a favourite place for rock climbers, and with the Kanimbla Valley on your left.

The track rises and falls at intervals, then, at Porter’s Pass, drops steeply down rough-hewn staircases, skirting a waterfall, before climbing steeply upwards again. After another steep descent and climb, it passes through a rugged, ferny, forested valley, before continuing the long ascent to the Burton Street side-trail (by which, if you preferred, you could enter and leave the circuit).

When you reach Burton street, take the fire trail immediately off to your right. Turn left onto Cecil Road, then right onto Kanimbla Road. At the entrance to the Gateway Christian Community School, continue along the fire trail to the left of the gates to Fort Rock.

We departed the circuit here and took the track up to the Bundarra Street exit, towards Blackheath Station. Otherwise, head down to your right, down some stairs to Centennial Glen, and on to the starting point at Centennial Glen Road.

Comments: This track is one of the oldest walks in the Blue Mountains, dating back to 1888, and it’s certainly one of the most satisfying, picturesque walks I’ve ever done. It’s quite strenuous, so not for beginners or young children. We could have done the walk considerably more quickly, but for being constantly awestruck by rounding a bend to discover yet another delightful vista, a new botanical delight, or just one more pleasant place to pause and enjoy the ambience.

I highly recommend the pies at the bakery, just across the highway after you cross the railway lines on Bundarra Street, and the coffee at Anonymous Cafe was very good.

We’ll most certainly go back to do this walk again in the spring, and take in Centennial Glen next time.

Florabella Pass

Monolith

Descent from Warrimoo

Florabella Creek

Sandstone window

Looking down to Glenwood Creek

Leaning angophora

Rock wall near Blaxland

Date: 25th April 2016

Track: A well made track, rocky, with lots of stairs. It passes through Florabella Pass, heading east along Florabella creek, which it crosses twice. Florabella Creek later meets Glenbrook Creek, which can only be accessed, however, by scrambling up and down a steep side track. If you do so, there are some pretty swimming-holes. Otherwise continue along the left bank of Glenbrook Creek, under the brow of the ridge, until you reach the Ross Crescent exit up to Blaxland. Follow Ross Crescent and Taringha St to the highway and turn right towards the shopping centre and railway station.

Weather: A fine, mild autumn day.

Access: By far the best way to get to and fro is by train to Warimoo Station, then train back to Sydney from Blaxland Station. Cross the highway on the overpass from Warimoo Station and turn right along the highway, then left into The Boulevarde. Turn right into Arthur St, then first left into Florabella St. The track begins with a steep descent at the end of Florabella St, down to Florabella Creek.

Who: Peter, Diana, Christine.

Duration: Two and a half hours, including getting a bit lost temporarily and several breaks to just sit and enjoy the view. We started at 8.15am, so couldn’t justify a lunch break, but if you started later, there are several nice spots for a picnic.

Comments: Not a difficult walk, if you don’t mind stairs. Fairly well trodden (we bumped into people walking dogs and families with young children at the Blaxland end). The track passes through a very picturesque valley, with lots of weather-sculpted sandstone overhangs on the side of the track that borders civilisation. Across the valley rise steep conical hills with rugged rocky battlements protruding between tall eucalypts. There are plenty of magnificent angophoras and abundant banksias. Autumn’s not the best time to see flowers, but we passed some nice Lambertias, hakeas and acacias. Sadly, from an aesthetic point of view, unbeknown to us, there had been a recent prescribed burn along the town side of the track, so we tended to walk looking to the right. The burn, however, did reveal the rock formations we were passing under to advantage. We’d planned to have a leisurely lunch in Blaxland before catching the train back, but were well advised by a Blaxland local to go one stop down the line to Glenbrook for some better fare.

Patonga to Wondabyne

The water taxi

Patonga

Cabbage tree palm

Morning tea stop

Aboriginal spear rubbings

Sundews (carnivorous)

Rock platform

Natural bonsai garden

Crazy-paving pattern in rock platform

Burl on angophora

Waterfall

Diana

Reflection

Mottled eucacalyptus bark

Big angophora

Date: Sunday 17th April 2015

Track: For the most part, the track follows the old Great North Road. It’s hilly, and rocky or sandy mostly, sometimes muddy, partly along dirt roads. The total length is 18 kilometres. There are some very well made sections, with wonderfully wrought stairs. Mostly, though, it’s a rough going, with some high step-ups and step-downs. Many sections cross broad, fascinatingly patterned rock platforms. It’s a steep, scrambling descent to Wondabyne Station. Overall grade medium to hard.

Weather: Overcast, around 20 degrees C for most of the day. Very humid. Rain for the last hour. Just as the rain started, we had the wits scared out of us by a lightning strike somewhere close to us. The bush all around was suddenly suffused by bright shimmering light, followed immediately by a horrifyingly loud, prolonged peal of thunder!

Access: Diana and I travelled by train to Hawkesbury River Station, where we met up with the others who had driven to Brooklyn. We had booked a water taxi to take us across the Hawkesbury and downstream to sleepy Patonga, a 20 minute trip, $120 for the four of us.

At the end of the walk, we emerged out of the bush onto a very picturesque reach of the Hawkesbury, at Wondabyne Station. It’s only one carriage-length long, and you have to flag down the train if you want to get on.

If you want to do the walk the other way, you have to tell the train guard that you want you get off at Wondabyne, or the train doesn’t stop.

Roger and Daniel travelled only one stop, back to Hawkesbury River Station, to pick up their cars. Diana and I rested our weary bones and enjoyed the scenery all the way to Central Station.

Who: Peter, Diana, Roger, Daniel

Duration: About seven and a half hours, with plenty of breaks. It would be hard to go much faster, but the views towards Broken Bay, the rock formations and the diversity of plants, all quite unspoiled make one disinclined to hurry anyway.

Comments: I highly recommend travelling by train. It’s very relaxing, and the line passes through some beautiful scenery. Far better than spoiling a lovely walk by having to negotiate Sydney roads!

Brooklyn is a pleasant secluded township, with a decent pub and good fish and chips! We had an excellent coffee at Patonga before setting out.

The water taxi may sound expensive, but it’s really the only option. It’s cheaper per person for bigger groups: $100 for first 2 passengers, then $10 each for the rest.

Wondabyne Station is just a siding, perched on the bank of the Hawkesbury. A cheerful station attendant was there to greet us (or perhaps just a helpful local), who lived across the river and rowed across to the station.

The vegetation along the track was diverse and constantly changing. at the Patonga end we passed through cabbage tree palms (Livistona australis), tree ferns, grass trees (Xanthorhea) and cycads among the magnificent mature gum trees (angophora and scribbly gum mostly). There were abundant banksias, of various kinds, grevilleas, acacias, lambertia, bacon-and-egg, hakeas, shrubby casuarinas, ti-trees and, of course, numerous plants I couldn’t identify. At one point the track was fringed by carnivorous sundews (Drosera), like sea anemones, sparkling with water droplets on their prehensile tendrils.

At our morning tea stop, alongside a little cascade trickling over a broad rocky overhang, we came across some some aboriginal spear-rubbings. The rock platforms along the ridges are fascinating, pocked and scored with meandering erosion lines, patterned with streams of darker stone, sculpted, rounded and smoothed by eons of the passage of water. In shallow depressions, where silt has gathered and moss has grown, stunted casuarinas grow like natural bonsai gardens.

There were numerous birds, including New Holland honeyeaters, fantails, wattle birds and one brown cuckoo dove. We were surrounded by birdcalls, some identifiable, some not, but the bush was so dense we often couldn’t see the birds. Sadly, we also came across a recently deceased big handsome blue-tongue lizard.

Bundeena to The Balconies return

Date: Saturday 2 April 2016

Track: Sealed road towards Jibbon Beach, then along the sand, through heathland (very sandy at times and boggy at others) and skirting clifftops. Returned along the streets of Bundeena.

Weather: Fine and hot. Maximum 28 deg. C. with a slight sea breeze.

Access: Train from Central station to Cronulla, then stroll to the ferry wharf, which runs hourly on the half hour. Have a coffee at one of the cafes and then follow the sealed road to Jibbon Beach to the beginning of the trail. Either return the way you came or walk back through town. Have a cold drink or coffee while you wait for the ferry (on the hour.)

Who: Peter, Diana, Tom, Chris

Duration: 4 hours, including coffee and cake at the start, an early lunch at Shelly Beach, and getting lost trying to find a way back along the cliffs.

Comments: A very well known and popular walk. Pretty exposed, so lather on the sunscreen. On Shelly Beach, Tom found what appeared to be a turtle eggshell, which seemed totally out of place. Perhaps a lizard or snake egg? There were a remarkable number of flowers, considering it’s Autumn, including various banksias, fringed lilies, isopogon, grevillea, leptospermum, darwinia and lambertia. At one stage we walked through a long section of mallee-sized eucalypts covered with gumnuts, ready to blossom. Just after we left Shelly Beach, we passed through a large area of devastated ti-trees, which can only have been blown over by a mini-tornado. The elevated walkway to view the aboriginal rock carvings was a highlight of the day. Another was my tearing the arse out of my trousers! There were spectacular views to be had north and south along the coast from The Balconies, (not walking behind me though!)

On the ferry

Christina and Tom

Jellyfish, Jibbon Beach

Shelly Beach

Eggshell of unknown species

Shelly Beach

Torn trousers

Aboriginal rock carvings

Banksia

View from Water Run

View from The Balconies

Sandstone patterns

Leptospermum

Banksia

Isopogon

Banksia

Gecko

Fringed lily

Skink

Unknown flower

Angophora

After the walk

Curra Moors to Otford Gap

Curra Moors to Otford

Date: Sunday 20th December 2016

Track: A wide, well-made trail across Curra Moors to meet up with the track between Garie and Wattamolla. Turn right onto a narrower, rutted track leading to a steep uneven descent to Garie Beach. Walk south along Garie Beach, then along the cliff base behind the tessellated rock platform to Little Garie. Carry on through the squatter’s huts up a steep hill and across to North Era and South Era beaches in turn, then on to Burning Palms beach. Ascend from there, via Palm Jungle to Otford Gap. Lots of stairs, some awkwardly high, but overall not a difficult climb. Overall about 16 kilometres.

Weather: Very hot and humid. Maximum 38 degrees.

Access: Two cars required. Enter Royal National Park via the Helensburg exit from the freeway or Old Princes Highway. Drive to Otford Gap car park, just north of Stanwell Tops (where there’s a really good cafe that sells home-made apple pie and ice-cream). Leave one car there and drive north along Lady Wakehurst Drive and Sir Bertram Stevens Drive to the Curra Moors car park, a little north of the Garie Beach turn-off. At the end of the walk drive back to Curra Moors and carry on through Audley, if you’re returning to Sydney.

Who: Peter, Diana, Julian, Jeff and Roger Rigby.

Duration: We made rather a longer day of it than we’d planned or needed to have done. In all, it took us nine hours, but this included stopping for a swim at Garie Beach, a long smoko at Little Garie, then lunch, another swim and a snooze in the shade above Burning Palms Beach. We were only about twenty minutes from the finish when Roger realised he’d misplaced his camera, and went back to look for it. We waited for an hour, then back-tracked, looking for Roger. We did find Roger, shirtless, hot and bothered, but the camera remains lost.

Comments: Don’t do this walk on as hot a day as we did. A windy day in autumn or spring would be nice, and if there were a big surf running it would be exciting. The coastline is spectacular, and the trail sticks very close to the sea until Burning Palms, then during the ascent (about 900 feet) offers beautiful views of the sea down through the angophoras, tree ferns, casuarinas and gymea lilies. The Palm Forest is lush and shady and, soon after leaving it, just past a rocky creek crossing with a magnificent old angophora straddling a boulder, there’s a rock platform with a splendid vista southwards. Being a summer Sunday and Christmas holiday time, the track was very busy, with numerous groups of young, fit, somewhat under-dressed young men and women (except the large, happy party of young muslims who shared our lunch spot). We overheard conversations in Chinese, Indonesian, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Swiss-German, Arabic and occasionally English. Overall, despite being uncomfortably warm, and drinking all of my three litres of water before the end, the walk was wonderful. It was visually, botanically and geographically splendid, the ocean was refreshingly cold and clear and the passing parade of fellow walkers quite fascinating! We shall definitely return!

Royal National Park

View south between Garie and Wattamolla

Di and Julian

Garie Beach

Seagulls at Garie

Julian

The Rigby brothers

Little Garie

Smoko at Little Garie

View back to Garie

Little Garie to North Era

North Era

Tessellated rock platform

Semi-detached Head

View north near Burning Palms

Lunch spot at Burning Palms

Di snoozing

Palm Jungle

Angophora straddling boulder

View south on ascent

Hot and bothered

Orchid

View north from Otford Gap

Grose Valley: Pierce’s Pass to the Pinnacles

Grose Valley

Date: Saturday 28th November

Track: Track head off Bell’s line of Road near Rigby Hill. A gentle stroll to and from Rigby Hill. Down Pierce’s Pass, (pretty steep), then along Hungerford’s track, following the Grose River, to Bluegum Forest. Hungerford’s track is an amazing feat, originally built by two men nearly a century ago, and still in good condition, albeit now modified and maintained by National Parks. The trail diverges off Hungerford’s track to follow the river down to Bluegum Forest. Very pretty but less well formed. Ascent via Du Faur Buttress (horribly steep, with big jump-ups) and Railway Steps to Lockley’s Pylon, then across Lygon Plateau (beautiful heath) to the Pinnacles. All up, (and down), about 16 kilometres.

Weather: Very misty and cool at the start, so we were unable to see the promised magnificent view from Rigby Hill. It warmed up, but stayed humid along the valley and started to rain not long after lunch in the Bluegum Forest. The ascent was in steady rain, and there was a stiff, cold breeze blowing across the plateau at the top, which made for spectacular swirling patterns of mist.

Access: This walk is logistically difficult. The finish point at the Pinnacles is 11km along a rough dirt road from Leura, where one or more cars must be left, before proceeding around to the starting point off Bell’s Line of Road in one or more other cars, depending on the number of walkers. Then, at the end, the car(s) at Pierce’s Pass have to be picked up.

That said, it’s well worth a bit of running around to be able to do a very special walk. We stayed overnight in Katoomba to rendezvous at 6.15 in Leura, but others got out of bed in the wee small hours and drove up from Sydney. If you stay in the mountains the night before, I can recommend the Two Birds IPA and the crocodile pizza at the Railway Bar and Woodfired Pizza in Katoomba!

Who: Peter, Diana, Julian, Roger and Jeff Rigby, David Matheson

Duration: About 8 hours of pretty steady slogging. We weren’t sure how long it would take, and budgeted 9 hours. The pace was comfortable down Pierce’s Pass and Hungerford’s track, just steady along the river to Bluegum Forest, but then, with the rain and poor visibility on the ascent, we pushed reasonably hard. On a fine day it would be nice to allow 10 hours, to enjoy the scenery more. We’ll definitely have to do the walk again sometime!

Comments: Where to start? Roger Rigby organised the walk, and what a privilege and pleasure to have his company, especially seeing that Roger and two friends rediscovered Hungerford’s Track in 1960, having found it marked on a military survey map dated 1938. The track had been long unused and lost to memory. Rigby Hill is named in Roger’s honour. He and brother Jeff have been walking for over fifty years, and have a wealth of knowledge to share.

It was wonderful to be able to pass through some largely unspoiled country, little travelled by day walkers and, even through the filter of fog and cloud, to appreciate its pristine magnificence! The walk was moderately physically challenging, and I had sore, stiff legs for a couple of days afterwards, but then I do admit to being in my sixties.

I was disappointed with not having had my trusty Canon camera (at the repair shop), because the quality of the photos I took on on my much-touted iphone 6S left a lot to be desired.

Rigby Hill

Jeff, Di, Julian

Smoko

First sight of the Grose River

A rocky crossing

Bluegum Forest

Lunch

On the ascent

At Du Faur Buttress

Narrabeen lagoon

Date: 7 November 2015

Track: Well made, sometimes sealed, close to roads and houses. This is an urban walk. Two bridges cross the lagoon to enable the circuit of 8.5 km.

Weather: Cloudy, humid, threat of rain.

Access: We drove to Narrabeen and parked in Narrabeen Street. This walk would be dfficult to access without a car.

Who: Peter, Diana, Christine

Duration: 2h 3o min (dawdling)

Comments: Narrabeen Lagoon is an urban oasis. Principally, the lagoon circuit trail functions as a godsend for local people to walk, run or cycle in a picturesque, peaceful, environment, and enjoy an occasional encounter with wildlife, (well, domestic ducks).

Trackside sculpture

Nine ducklings

Sulphur crested cockatoos

Trackside sculpture

Cape Naturaliste to Sugarloaf Rocks return

Date: 18th October 2015

Track: Rather too easy. I feel a bit guilty claiming this as a bushwalk! Cape Naturaliste to Sugarloaf Rocks is the first little bit of the famous Cape-to-Cape trail, which would be a fairly arduous undertaking, but my walk was a pleasant 7 kilometre ramble on a sealed path.

Weather: In a word, hot, and made hotter by the effect of sun on bitumen. It’s heath country, so there’s little shelter. I dawdled and took three hours over it, long enough to appreciate the water I carried, and to get sun-burned.

Access: Drive along Caves road and Bunker Bay Road to the Cape Naturaliste lighthouse. The track begins at the carpark. You can also drive to Sugarloaf Rocks.

Who: Peter, solo. I returned though, the following day, with Steve and Sally, to walk down to the whale lookout at Cape Naturaliste.

Duration: Three hours, at a very leisurely pace.

Comments: Superficially, the heath landscape looks like a green, leafy ocean, with here and there withered, bleached limbs of dead ti tree, melaleuca or banksia poking through like the hands of drowning sailors, and bald granite outcrops bulging out of the sand. On closer inspection, there’s a spectrum of greens, made up of the foliage of dozens of different shrubs and stunted trees.

At this time of year, everything seems to bear flowers, and crowding between, underneath, around, through the bigger plants are myriad small wildflowers; pink, purple and yellow daisies, pimelia, conostylus, milkwort, enamel orchids, various acacias. Colour is everywhere! At one point I diverted off the track to investigate an interesting rock formation, and found a carpet of tiny daisies, trigger plants, mosses, lechenaultia and other unidentifiable things.

When I reached Sugarloaf Rocks, I encountered a wedding party. Nice place for wedding photos! Turning back, I looked up from the plants and realised that a pod of dolphins were surfing in the waves below me. As I photographed one group, a whale surfaced behind them.

I was frankly surprised not to come across any tiger snakes, having seen them there before, but there were some nice big skinks, and when I walked down to the whale lookout the next day, immediately below the lookout, resting on a tree trunk, was a splendid south western carpet python!

Cape Naturaliste

Crows

Sugarloaf Rocks

Rock formation Cape Naturaliste

Hibertia?

New Holland honey-eater

Pimelia and acacia

Pimelia

Pimelia and grass flower

Enamel orchids

Trigger plants and spider web

Trigger plants

Daisies and Lechenaultia

Daisies

Trigger plants

Whale: Sugarloaf Rocks

Dolphins: Sugarloaf Rocks

Butterfly and daisies

Bacon and egg plant

South western carpet python

Cowan to Brooklyn

Date 30 August 2015

Track Part of the Great Northern Walk. A well used trail, though difficult in parts, with big step-ups / step downs. A couple of steep climbs. Great views and a profusion of spring wildflowers.

Weather A beautiful warm day.

Access Train to track start at Cowan Station. Train from finish at Brooklyn (Hawkesbury River Station) back to Cowan or Central Station.

Who Peter, Diana, Roger, Daniel

Duration 5 hours, with plenty of stops.

Comments

It’s a very relaxing 50 minute train ride from Central Station to sleepy Cowan, and the track starts from the train platform. We descended gradually then to the shore of Jerusalem Bay and followed this along for a good distance, with wonderful views across the water.

Then came a steep pinch back up to the top of the ridge , but easy going from there through beautiful eucalypts and banksias, hakeas and casuarinas. There was a profusion of flowers under the trees, especially boronia, eriostemon, hibertia, purple flag iris and different types of grevillea. There were myriad yellow pea flowers of several forms, including Bossiaea heterophilia, acacias and later in the walk, hovea and some lambertia, as well as dusky coral pea (Kennedia rubicunda). Ti tree blossom (leptospermum) was everywhere. Several flowers I was unable to identify.

We stopped on a rocky platform, looking down over the Hawkesbury River, for a picnic lunch at midday, before descending to Brooklyn, just for the pleasure of having a meal in the bush, rather than the other option of fish and chips at the end, (though we did drop in at the pub, since we just missed the train and had to wait for an hour.)

It takes all of ten minutes to travel by train back to Cowan, where Roger and Daniel had left their cars, as opposed to a pretty comfortable 5 hour walk going down. Di and I, on the other hand, dozed and read for an hour on the train back to Central Station.

A lovely way to spend a balmy spring day, easily accessible and very diverting flora along the way.

Jerusalem Bay

Morning tea

View towards coast

View over Brooklyn and Hawkesbury River

Roger

Angophora and climbing rungs

Isopogon anethifolius

Bossiaea heterophilia

Grevillea

Boronia

Boronia, Eriostemon, scribbly gum

Boronia buds

Comesperma ericinum (Match heads, pyramid flower or heath milkwort)

Grass blossom

Caterpillar on Hovea

Yosemite Valley: Merced River

Date Saturday 6 June 2015

Track A well-trodden path along the banks of the Merced River. Very picturesque. Just a pleasant ramble after a strenuous week.

Weather Fine and warm

Access Drive or shuttle bus

Who Peter, Di, Ashley, Sophia

Duration 2 hours

Comments

Don’t forget your camera. Take a picnic. Watch out for mountain lions!

Half-Dome from Merced River

Half -Dome from Merced River

Merced River

Spider web

Yosemite Falls

Date Friday 5 June 2015

Weather Fine and hot in the morning. Rainstorm in the afternoon.

Track Relentless ascent / descent. Never levels out. Total ascent 749 metres. Slippery gravel in places. Spectacular views. From the cliff-top climbed down a perilous stairway to a lookout on a ledge on the the cliff-face, to look down on the whole cascade of the falls. Very scary!

Access Drove to base of climb. (Bus is available).

Who Peter, Diana, Ashley, Sophia

Duration About 5 hours

Comments

I was very pleased throughout the ascent that the views were so impressive, so that I could legitimately stop often to take a photo! Otherwise it was pretty hard on the legs. Awesome!

Yosemite Falls

Lookout on ascent

Yosemite Falls

Half-Dome from Yosemite Falls Trail

Valley from top of Yosemite Falls

Pines on bald dome

Pines on cliff edge

Redwood at top of falls

Lower lookout

Falls from lower lookout

Stairway to lower lookout

Ashley on ascent

Yosemite: Tenaya Lake to Clouds Rest return

Date Wednesday 3 June 2015

Weather Fine. Cold start. Hot later.

Track Steadily uphill. Mostly well marked, but a bit confusing at times. Begins at 9,000 feet and climbs to 9,900 feet. A few steep pinches.

Access An 80 mile drive from our accommodation at Tenaya Lodge, or about 40 miles from the valley floor (4,000 feet).

Who Peter, Diana, Ashley, Sophia

Duration About 8 hours, including lunch and a lie-down at the summit.

Comments

We were up at 4.30am and on the road by 5.00am to drive up to the start at Tenaya Lake. After some confusion about finding the trail head it took 4 hours to hike up, and 3.5 hrs down, with a half hour break for lunch. I suffered a bit from the altitude when the going was steep, but the others didn’t. The view from the summit was magnificent. Looking down on the ant-like figures strung out on the Half-Dome ascent, I was very glad we’d missed out on the ballot to climb it. The total distance was 24km, and pretty exhausting at that. Ashley spotted a garter snake by a little lake where we stopped for morning tea, and we also saw several marmots, squirrels, chipmunks and a sage grouse cock.

Lake Tenaya (start)

Lake on ascent

Garter snake

Ascent to Clouds Rest

Final ascent to Clouds Rest

Clouds Rest

View from Clouds Rest

View from Couds Rest (Half-Dome)

Half-Dome from Clouds Rest

Lake Tenaya

Marmot

Squirrel

Yosemite: Glacier Point, Sentinel Dome, Panorama Trail

Date Tuesday 2 June 2015

Weather Fine and hot

Track Pohona Trail easy to medium. Panorama Trail medium.

Access Drove to Glacier Point (7,000 feet). The track-heads for both the Pohona Trail to Sentinel Dome, and the Panorama Trail are near the visitor centre.

Who Peter, Diana, Ashley, Sophia

Duration About 8 hours

Comments

Awesome views from Glacier Point along Yosemite Valley. We walked the Pohona Trail to Sentinel Dome, from which there are again spectacular 360 degree views, stopping for lunch on the way up (We’d got off to a late start). Then back down to the carpark ond a right turn onto the Panorama Trail, which we followed as far as Illouwea Falls. It was a strenuous afternoon. The trail is pretty steep in parts and we were uncertain how long it would take, not wanting to get caught in the dark.

Nevada Falls, Vernal Falls from Glacier Point

Half-Dome from Glacier Point

Nevada Falls and Vernal Falls from Glacier Point

Sentinel Dome

Half-Dome, Nevada Falls from Sentinel Dome

View from Sentinel Dome

Half-Dome from Sentinel Dome

Nevad Falls, Vernal Falls from Sentinel Dome

Nevada Falls, Vernal Falls from Sentinel Dome

View from Sentinel Dome

Illouwea Falls

Yosemite: Vernal Falls and Nevada falls

Date Monday 1 June 2015

Weather Fine and hot.

Track Well made and well marked, like all the trails in Yosemite. Much travelled. Patrolled by volunteer rangers. We encountered several trail-runners. Some steep climbs and uneven descents.

Access We drove to the start point in Yosemite Valley. There is a shuttle bus, if you’re staying in the valley itself. Plenty of accommodation. The Awahnee hotel is magnificent, otherwise there are cabins and camp-grounds.

Who Peter, Di, Ashley, Sophia

Duration About 6 hours

Comments

Our first walk in Yosemite! A tar-sealed path at the bottom gives way soon to dirt and rock, following the river steadily uphill. The route up is aptly named the Mist Trail. As we approached Vernal Falls we had to cover ourselves and our packs, so as not to be drenched by spray. Wonderful standing rainbows hover in the mist at the base of the falls. Onward and upward then to Nevada Falls, very impressive, plenty of water, though not in full spate.

Had we been successful in the ballot to climb the Half-dome, we would have continued on from there. Having later looked down on the Half-dome ascent, I’m rather glad we missed out!

We followed the John Muir trail back down with great views along the valley and towards the falls. The highlight of the day was a close encounter with a black bear, who suddenly appeared about twenty metres from us when we paused for a snack!

Carlon’s Farm to Splendour Rock return

Date Wednesday 15 April 2015

Weather A fine, cool day until evening, then torrential rain.

Track Vague and difficult to follow. Definitely not for inexperienced hikers!

Access Drive to Carlon’s Farm in the Megalong Valley, via Blackheath.

Who Peter, Kerry, Roger, David

Duration 10 hours walking (more with breaks)

This was the most challenging walk I’ve done in the Blue Mountains. I would not recommend that anyone attempt it without an experienced guide. We lost the track a couple of times but, thanks to Roger’s expertise and local knowledge, we were able to bush-bash our way back on course. There were some very steep ascents and descents, a bit of rock-climbing, and we had to move fairly fast to get it done in daylight. The scenery, however, was spectacular, particularly the view from aptly named Splendour Rock. Magnificent isolation.

On the return journey, the weather began to look very ominous. The last 3 km were on a dirt road fortunately, but the surface was very slippery gravel downhill towards the end, and we were doing it with head-torches.

We got back to the cars just as the heavens opened. Had we not begun driving then, I don’t believe we would have got out of the valley. There was an awe-inspiring display as lightning flashes illuminated the valley walls and torrents of water were pouring down the road. When we reached Blackheath, the highway was running a banker, overflowing the gutters!

Explorer’s Tree to Cox’s River return

Date Wednesday 13 May 2015

Weather Cold, fine.

Track 800 steps at start. Well made, well marked, through bush and open country, along river.

Access Drive to Explorer’s Tree

Who Peter, Di, Kerry, Roger

Duration 10 hours

Comments

This walk follows the first 15 km of the Six Foot Track, so 30 km return trip! We got off to an early start for a long day (and a short winter’s day). The eight hundred steps down to Nellie’s Glen got us warmed up by the bottom of the escarpment. Then followed a gradual bushy descent to the Megalong Valley floor and through farmland for a couple of hours. After that we tracked along above a pretty creek to the Cox’s River, and along the river to the swing bridge, where we had lunch. We kept up a cracking pace on the way back, as the day began to close in and get colder. We were very keen to get back up the stairs from Nellie’s Glen before dark, especially as we had to pick our way through a tree fallen over the stairs near the top.

The temperature had dropped to zero by the time we got back to the start, and on the way home we heard that it was snowing at Blackheath!

Sassafras Gully, Glenbrook Creek, Perch Ponds

Date Friday 13 March

Weather Warm, fine

Track Well made, well marked, damp. Leeches!

Access Train to Springwood, walk 1.2 km to start.

Who Peter, Di

Duration 4h 30m (from station)

Comments

A pleasant ramble, apart from the odd leech. Nice creeks and waterholes. Pretty bush.

Wentworth Falls, Undercliff, National Pass, Overcliff

Date Wednesday, 1 April 2015

Weather Fine and warm

Track Well made and well marked. Long ascents and descents. Enclosed steel ladders to reach Overcliff. Lovely sections along the valley floor.

Access We drove, but you can walk from Wentworth Falls railway station.

Who Peter, Di, Kerry

Duration 6-7 hours

Comments

Kerry organised this to give Di and me a serious workout, in preparation for our trip to Yosemite. It was pretty strenuous, but a beautiful walk.

Garie to Wattamolla return

Date Saturday 18 July 2015

Weather Cool and windy

Track A bit rugged up and down the hill at Garie, otherwise mostly easy going. The metal mesh sections can be slippery!

Access Drive to Garie Beach

Who Peter, Di, Kerry Natalie, Roger, David

Duration 6 hours including lunch

Comments

It’s a beautiful drive through Royal National Park to Garie Beach. A few years ago I was riding my bike up from Garie and had a close encounter with a deer! There are change rooms and toilets at Garie, and a big car-park.

Getting up out of Garie was hard work. The trail is eroded and there are some very big step-ups. Coming down that section at the end was harder still. Once at the top, though, it was easier going through heath, across marshy sections traversed by steel mesh (slippery) and over rocky cliff-tops.

There’s a “reverse waterfall” about halfway along, where a creek drops over the cliff edge down to the sea, but the wind blows it back up the cliff face and into the air. Just above the creek crossing is a delightful secluded pool on a side track.

It was a great walk to do on a blustery day, with a big sea running and the wind in our hair. A wonderful way to spend my birthday! Kerry even baked a cake and brought it along!

Six Foot Track

Date Saturday-Sunday 25-26 July 2015

Weather Cold.

Track Well marked and well maintained. Much is a four-wheel drive track. Long climbs. Some steep ascents and descents.

Access Two cars required. Drive to Jenolan Caves, leave one car, return to start at Blackheath.

Who Pete, Di, Kerry, Natalie, David

Duration Two days.

Comments

To do this walk requires a certain amount of planning and organisation. We elected to drive up to Blackheath on Friday afternoon, then to Jenolan Caves to drop off one car, then back to Blackheath to stay the night for an early start on Saturday. At the end of the walk we all crammed into the one vehicle and drove back to the start to pick up the other vehicles. We actually stayed at the Best Western motel in Katoomba, which was comfortable and reasonably priced, but there are other options. The walk starts at the Explorer’s Tree, outside Blackheath.

It’s a 45 kilometre hike, often done over three days, but we did it in two. We opted not to camp overnight, but to stay at the Six Foot Track Lodge, only 16 km into the walk, 1 km past the Cox’s River, which left us with 29 km to cover on the second day. http://www.6fttracklodge.com

The lodge has bunk beds and provides dinner, breakfast and a packed lunch for the next day. Bathing facilities consist of a “donkey” boiler over an open fire and a bucket. Bedding is provided. It’s basic, but comfortable, and a fantastic location. There’s even wine with dinner!

Day 1 began with a steep descent of 800 steps to Nellie’s Glen. This was complicated by two trees having fallen over the stairs in a recent storm! The track was then comfortably undulating, passing through beautiful bush and at other times open paddocks with wonderful views of the escarpment, back towards Katoomba. When we stopped for lunch, we were pleasantly surprised to spy two echidnas, also making lunch plans, which concerned a nearby termite mound! A bit further on we followed a creek which eventually joined the Cox’s River. We crossed the Cox’s River (one at a time) on the swing bridge, and arrived at the lodge in plenty of time to make our beds, get the fire going for a wash and have a pre-dinner glass of wine.

Day 2. We were on the track by 7.30am, and the next 5 hours were basically uphill, with a number of creek crossings. It was rocky and uneven going, hard on the legs. Because it was mid-winter and we didn’t want to run out of light before the very steep descent to Jenolan Caves, we pushed hard, eventually doing the 29 km in 8h 40m. We were also encouraged to move along smartly by the cold. It was certainly around zero when we stopped for lunch, and a passing park ranger had warned us that snow was expected! The scenery was great, however, and we were rather pleased with the pace we maintained.

If, or when we do this walk again, I would be sorely tempted to spend the night after the walk in Caves House, the grand old mock-Tudor hotel at Jenolan Caves. We’ve stayed there before, and it’s wonderful to be in that spectacular, secluded valley in the evening and early morning, when there are no day-trippers around. It would also save driving back to Sydney in the dark after a very hard day’s hike.

Pope’s Glen to Pulpit Rock

Date Sunday 9 August 2015

Weather Fine, cool, gentle breeze.

Track Poorly maintained, rocky, wet, overgrown.

Access Train to Blackheath

Who Pete, Di

Duration 4h 30min including lunch at Pulpit Rock

Comments

The top of the walk isn’t very exciting, but it improves from Boyd’s Beach onwards. The walk along the escarpment to Pulpit Rock has spectacular views. Lots of early spring flowers, especially various banksias, hakeas, acacias, lambertia. Plenty of birds.