"What happens in the bush........."

My fellow adventurers the other week. We were in the Blue Mountains, exploring a new way down into the Grose River Valley and then on to the fabled Wentworth Cave. I'd been half planning to get to this cave one day, though assumed it would be from downstream and from the other side of the Grose. Our leader was veteran bush explorer and off-track masochist Liam. The other two were total newbies in the off-track department. No idea what was in store for them! They made up for it with their magnificently positive attitudes though. And attitude is largely what these endeavours are about,

Going down the first steep bit

Oh no. What am I doing here?

 How the hell do you do this bit?

And what exactly is going on here?

We finally reach the calm waters of the Grose River.

But we've still got to cross it somehow

Here's Wentworth Cave. It's quite an impressive series of rock overhangs, and it was a relatively easy walk down to it along the remnants of the Engineers Track. And here's the history lesson. The Engineers Track was built mid-19th century along the Grose River Valley, to enable engineers and surveyors to  plan for a railway line through the Blue Mountains. Wentworth Cave was used by them as a bush accommodation base. Eventually it was decided to build the railway over the top of the mountains instead. Far easier.


It was a great day out, but I'm not sure we'll see our bush-bashing newbies out on walks like this again. During the recovery dinner at North Kurrajong, there was a memorable quote from one of them: "What happens in the bush, stays in the bush". Well, maybe......