Darwin, Wentworth, and other bushwalkers

Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains is very much the place to take any bushwalk-friendly overseas visitors. It was named after William Charles Wentworth, one of the explorers (and presumably bushwalkers) who, with the help of some locals, became the 'first' to find a route across the mountains.

Here are some of my past visitors, doing the terrific little Charles Darwin Walk, following in the footsteps of the great man himself in 1836.

After a while you reach Wentworth Falls itself - the waterfall that is. And it's a big one. There's a steep set of steps down to the bottom, with some magnificent views along the way.







 You typically then follow one of the routes westward to the Conservation Hut, such as the Overcliff-Undercliff Track, and check out all the lookouts along the way.

My bushwalking club did the trip the other day. I went along and supported a new walk leader on her first outing as leader. As ever, it was a nice day out.

A walk called Bruce

I'd been hearing about this lost-and-found-again bushwalk for a while,and jumped at the chance to find it for myself the other day, with my Friday bushwalking group.




Bruce was the surname of the Railways Dept surveyor who originally planned the track in 1931, as a maintenance track for a new power line that the Railways had got the job of putting in. It went from Blackheath to Bullaburra in the Blue Mountains, and it was promoted as a bushwalking track until World War 2, when it somehow got forgotten. It became overgrown and lost, and parts of it stolen for other purposes. Then in more recent times it got rediscovered and renovated by various legendary bushwalkers. Its continued existence does not seem to be celebrated by the National Parks people, the Blue Mountains City Council people, or the maps people, all of whom probably just see it as an extra expense if they were expected to maintain it or map it. Today it can be negotiated from Medlow Bath (starting from the Katoomba airstrip) to Wentworth Falls, and then from the other side of Wentworth Falls to Bullaburra.

We like it though. It's big enough to feel you've done a bit, and you get to see hanging swamps, cliffs and canyons, thicker forest, and do at least five significant downs and ups of 100-200m or more, to cross the various creeks flowing north towards the Grose River. Some of it's along fire trails under the power line, but a lot of it is on perfectly pleasant walking track away from the power line a bit.

There were new and old relics to see along the way - mostly new fire service signs or bits of old power poles. This kept our accompanying historian Keith happy. We saw no snakes unfortunately (I love snakes), but mountain dragons and other little lizards were in attendance. There were waratahs in flower, plus Keith identified two rare and special flowers found only in the Upper Blue Mountains.




Although most of the track is easy to follow, sometimes with track markers every few metres, some of it isn't quite like that. We lost it at one stage for half an hour or so, while we thrashed about in the bush until we suddenly got lucky and hit on it again.

As usual, a good day out in the bush. I plan to put it on the regular programme of my bushwalking club at some stage soon, now that it's well and truly found again.

Read more on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce's_Walk

Living on the edge in Sydney

Or in this case, about 100km west of Sydney, at Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains.

Sydney was a bit on edge this week, after the events in Martin Place, but I'm still reliving my edge-of-the-world experiences at Lincoln Rock with my Thursday walking group the other day, and plotting the next one.

Funny, I actually don't feel that I take risks on clifftops or elsewhere, but we do look closer to the edge than it seemed at the time! But we stay calm, focussed, and stoic. And it generally works out fine.

Picture courtesy Saf Barbour