Death adder

 "I really don't like the thought of bumping into anything with a name that starts with death", wrote my English sister, when I sent her this photo of a death adder (Acanthophis antarcticus).

Neither should I. But I just love these things, and so far they've always been too sleepy to be very offended when I've invaded their personal space.

We encountered this one fast asleep in the middle of the Engineers Track on the lower Grose River. Our fearless leader stepped right over him without noticing. I was second in line, and pulled up sharply. The lady behind me made everyone in the valley very aware of its presence with her loud screams!

Never poke a sleeping snake with a stick, is a well-known rule of bushwalking. Well, fearless leader did exactly that. No problem, we lived to tell the tale, and we did wake the thing up, and hopefully he slithered off into a better hiding place.

The lower Grose, where everyone goes

Not quite everyone, but a lot more than go to the Upper Grose (see here: 2019 post  )

The other day we did a very scenic circuit, incorporating the Avoca Lookout, two crossings of the lower Grose River, a surprisingly navigable section of the Engineers Track, and a return via the fire trail route. It was a nice day out.

Here we are descending the steep track below the lookout.

Then, down near the river, we crossed layers of debris left by the big flood of a few weeks ago. A river crossing would have been rather unimaginable back then.

A couple of hours later it's back across via the quicksands. Then up the big long fire trail, and back out to the car.

The Upper Grose - where no-one goes!

And now I know why!

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

"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......