Bushwalks that I have done.
I have done some brilliant walks in my time, with the highlights being:
- Monolith Valley in the Budawangs National park, New South Wales and
- The Overland Track. Cradle mountain to Lake St. Clair. Cradle mountain National park, Tasmania.
- Gap Creek Falls. Watagans National Park. Walked the 30th of December 2003.
- Spit bridge to Manly. Sydney Foreshore National Park. Walked the 3rd of January 2004.
- Glenrock National Park. Walked the 9th of January 2004
- Rocky Creek Crossing track. Barrington Tops National Park.
The best Canyon that I have done is:
- Heart Attack Canyon. Grade 4. Newnes Forest, New South Wales.
- Mooryan Mountains.
- One of the Seven Gods pinnacle.
This walk is a rarely walked track. The reason being is the difficulty. The first part is a descent down a creek, which is just a series of large boulders. The walk up to Gap creek falls (Formerly known as Browne's Falls), has not been maintained and is hard to find. I know, it took us about half hour to work out where it is. THis walk is well worth the effort, but consider it hard foe its length. I was guessing that the walk was 10km's but the book thinks it is only 4ish. It took us 4 hours to do, so go figure.
- The Map.
- The Walk guide. Gleaned from Hunter Valley Bushwalks. Greg Powell. ISBN 0-908272-73-1
- This is what the Way down consists of.
- A Bird nest plant on one of the boulders in the creek.
- A different angle on the above shot. This one shows some more Birds Nests. Photo by Dianne.
- A Yabbie.
- A not so happy Yabbie.
- The Ampitheatre, that surrounds Gap creek falls.
- Due to lack of rain Gap creek falls was only a trickle.
- A tired bunch of Walkers, half way up the slope from the falls. This part of the track is the only official track into the falls.
- A Cicada.
- A view from a different part of the Watagans. The view from Mt. Sugarloaf, looking back to Newcastle.
The Sydney Foreshore National Park:
This track starts at the Spit Bridge, Clontarf and follows the coastline all the way to Manly.
- Sydney From the track.
- South Head from the track.
- A typical view of the first section of the Track.
- Crater Cove. This has got to be one of the best places on the track. You can see humpies down the bottom. These humpies would have the best views of Sydney.
- A shot of Jude admiring the view back to Manly.
- 2 Water Dragons. A male and female.
Male 1
Male 2
Male 3
Female
Jude and I walked from our house in Merewether, along Merewether beach. Then along Burwood beach up into Glenrock National Park. The whole walk was about 11~12Km's and took us 2.5hrs. We did the walk January 9th 2004. Below are some of the Images from along the walk.
- Burwood Beach.
- A View overlooking Glenrock beach and lagoon. This is from an access trail near the Great North Walk.
- A Native Orchid found along the side of the track.
- Another flower along the side of the track.
- National parks have made a new track and have added it onto the existing Great North Walk track. This track is called the Yuelarbah Walking Track and is only about 1.2Km's long, but they have spent some money on this small track.
- The sign indicating the new walk.
- Another part of the boardwalk. Admittedly, this and the bridge above is the extent of the boardwalk, but the rest is wheelchair friendly.
- Glenrock Beach and Lagoon as seen from the lower section of the Great North Walk.
- Remnants from the bygone days of coal mining. This rusted wheel is from the coal buckets used to transport coal out of the area.
- A shot of the the Coal bucket wheel with Glenrock Beach in the background.
- An unknown succulent found on the side of the beach on the way home.
Due to time constraints, we did not make it all the way to Rocky Creek crossing, but will complete that another day. We may even Lilo back down the Williams river to the starting point. Highlights of this trip were the water features, wild life and the rainforest. The leeches were another subject though.
- On the way up we decided to stop at Chichester dam for a look. It supplies 40% of Newcastle's water.
- Another shot of the Dam wall.
- Now onto the Barringtons. We set out from Barrington house and the first stop was Lion rock. As you can see it is very distinctive.
- This area is also know for it's mandatory jump. When you travel down the river as I once did (Pack, wetsuit and GP boots), you come across this and the only way on is to jump into the Plunge pool.
- What is stopping you floating down is the Rapids.
- These rapids are just above the Pool of Reflection, which is located further up the Rocky Creek track. This is as far as we went.
- On the way down we started doing the Fern Creek track. You first had to cross a bridge and this was the View.
- After the bridge there was a turn off to the Fern Creek track, so we followed that. It lasted only a few metres and we were at Fern Creek. The rest of the trail had been shut for rehabilitation.
- A close shot of the Fern Creek Rapids.
- We then turned back to the junction and followed the day use track. Along this track we came across a couple of male Lyre birds. Eventually we had to cross the Williams river again. The View below us.
- Next we headed back up to Barrington House. We came across this scene of what we think is one of the Crystal pools.
- A different shot of the Crystal Pool.
- A small Rapid at the base of this pool.
- This pool was further up the river and I think it is still part of the Crystal Pools. I named it Tranquil, because that was the feeling that it imposed.