Our attempted traverse of 5km of the wild upper reaches of the Blue Mountains' Grose River the other day was probably doomed from the outset. We probably should have started at daybreak, and should have done it when there were a few more hours of evening daylight on offer.
In the end we had a very close call with a possibly very uncomfortable benighting. And it was one of the most arduous day walks any of us remember doing. Progress down the river was slow and difficult. The rocks were super-slippery, and massive boulders and frequent waterfalls made exhausting bush excursions necessary. No trace was found of the legendary Engineers Track, which was once there, and would have assisted greatly.
With three hours of daylight remaining, and more than half of the river section still to do, a heroic decision was made to gamble on finding a shortcut out of the place. Elder statesman Harold told us of the historic mine site up above, just at the bottom of the cliff line, and with a good walking track out through the cliffs above. We just needed to make it there by 6pm nightfall.
That's when it got really interesting! The scramble up through the bush was horrendous. Really steep, riddled with monstrous thorny 'lawyer vines' trying to cut us to bits, and it took about two hours to get up to the cliffs. Then we progressed along the relatively level last few hundred metres, knowing that at any moment we could encounter impassable ledges that would stop us in our tracks.Indeed there were some last minute obstacles that had us doubting there would be a happy ending to this adventure. Amazingly, at 6:00pm sharp, there was the mine, and our deliverance!
We walked out along the track by torchlight, and compared our scratched limbs over fish and chips at Blackheath.
Picture 5 courtesy of Meiha Cheung
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