What if the overhang collapses on us while we’re asleep?

ETTREMA THREE CAVES WALK – APRIL 2016
Sassafras > Ettrema Tops > Waterfall Cave > Discovery Cave > Bollards Cave > Sassafras
Three camp caves, waterfalls, stunning creeks and The Passages of Time rock formations … all in an area I’d not been to before, add to that the usual Ettrema Scrub, and this had all the hallmarks of an epic trip.  A bushwalking friend, Geoff J, had kindly given me a mud-map of his classic walk, it sounded fantastic and Jeff, Heather and I were up for a bit of exploration.   We drove down on Friday night (horrendous traffic) and spent the night on a rock platform at The Jumps on Talong fire trail.

Next morning we broke camp and headed off, we accidentally passed our turnoff but backtracked and eventually parked the cars at a NPWS locked gate and headed off up the fire trail.  The first bit of excitement was the sighting of two emus running towards us, our shriek of joy must have alerted them to our presence; they turned around and headed back they way they’d come.

Time to start setting a bearing

After about an hours walking we headed off into the scrub, not too bad at this point, a bit of hakea in spots that you had to walk around.  We followed bearings and eventually came to some rock shelves that were marked on the map, this made the walking a lot easier, I was out in front leading the way until I surprised a juvenile black snake, I wasn’t so keen to lead after that.

Is this grass? sure looked like it, and was so thick you couldn’t get through it without throwing yourself at it.

We eventually came to a high point and knew we were on the right path because there was a cairn at the top of a small rise.  Veering off to the left and down a spur after lunch, we hit lovely open grassland dotted with trees, you would have thought it was old farm land where cattle had grazed but the map shows no evidence of any old property boundaries.  All was going well until we thought that we would head into a side creek, or cross it, not sure what Jeff really wanted to do but whatever it was, we got into serious trouble.  We were obviously in an area that had lots of water because the grass/reeds had grown over our heads and were virtually impenetrable, Jeff went first and was throwing himself against the stuff and then trying to walk on it, it took at least an hour to get out of this mess and back onto high ground.  That was enough of creeks for us, we were very leery of creeks from then on.

We stayed high until we were near a side creek, by this time Jeff was getting a little cross about telling me which direction to go and then me going a different direction to avoid scrub, nevertheless, we made it down into the side creek and were finally in the main creek where we wanted to be.  The whole time I was a bit apprehensive about hitting a cliff-line or waterfall that we’d have to find our way around, but really, the cliffs in the whole area wouldn’t have been more than 30 – 50m if that, there’s always be a way around them.

Waterfall Cave

Anyway, we’re in the creek by now and walking down lovely flat rock slabs and arrived at the waterfall (for said Waterfall Cave), we looked around a bit, there were two caves here, one suitable for a very small party and then a bigger one, we chose the bigger one which had a lovely big pool at the bottom of the waterfall, it was a pity we arrived there as late as we did, too cold to swim.

Fire soon going, popcorn cooked, wine drunk, dinner cooked and it was off to bed, we were pretty tired, mostly from battling the grass in the creek.  Next morning we woke to drizzle, Jeff was all for staying put and having a bludge day (I really think he was joking), but we set off anyway in search of the pass up through the cliff line to the tops again. Found it easily and then walked along flat rock slabs, skirting around the occasional scrub heading for the pass down to Discovery Cave.

Me coming down the pass (looking like a drowned rat!)

We got to the designated point where it should have been and spent about 1/2 hour looking for it, I was right on it for a while but didn’t want to step across a half metre gaping chasm while I was by myself, if I had have, I would have been right at the cairn marking the pass (which was cunningly hidden behind a tree branch).  Pass eventually found, we climbed down it (a really cool pass, how did the first walkers ever find these places), and then walked along the base of the cliff line to Discovery Cave.

Discovery Cave

Geoff J said this was the best of the three caves and he was right.  Absolutely flat floor, heaps of fire wood, and shelter from the drizzle which had now turned into rain.  We were all soaked through so we set a fire and started to dry out our clothes, have a cup of tea and decide what we would do.  I for one was willing to just stay there nice and dry but the others thought that heading off into the rain/scrub/unknown was a better idea, so off we went.

We crossed over the small creek and into an area called the Passages of Time, no photos here because every shot I took had rain drops on the lens!  It is a remarkable area though, whereas the Blue Mountains have pagoda rock formations (sort of rounded), these formations are like obelisks, most had straight sides and flat tops, there were tunnels and caves and if you’d dropped your pack to look around, you’d have had trouble finding it again.  We spent a good hour walking through the area (we’ll have to go back as didn’t see it all), and then headed up to the plateau again to try to make Bollards cave before nightfall.  We had a fall back position, if it got too dark (we hadn’t left Discovery Cave until 11am), then we’d just set up camp in a major creek on rock platforms there (if we could find them).  As luck would have it, once on top of the plateau, it was very easy going and when we got to our creek that we had to parallel, we came across these amazing flat slabs of rock that went for hundreds of metres, so we made really good time and were soon at the side creek that we wanted to go down to get into our main creek.  A bit of frustration on Jeff’s part when I wouldn’t go the way he wanted, but that’s what you get when you walk with me Jeff!  Soon enough we were down in the creek, a really nice section and walking downstream to our last cave, Bollards Cave.  Once again Geoff J’s instructions were spot on and we had no difficulty finding the entry to the cave (under yet another waterfall).

Bollards cave looking across the swimming hole that “black hole” is where Jeff and I had our camp

Heather set herself and her tent behind the waterfall, I didn’t like the look of that, too dark, damp and not flat so Jeff hunted around and came across large rock slabs (obviously at some point in time they had fallen from the roof of the cave).  We set up camp there and I think Jeff spent a little time that night awake wondering what would happen if the ceiling fell down on us in our sleep, he and I were in the one spot and we had the sat phone, both plbs, and the map, all that equipment and us would be obliterated, Heather would never find her way back to civilisation!

The popcorn this night didn’t do so well, burned and made a horrible mess of Jeff’s billy.

The ceiling of the overhang didn’t collapse on us when we were asleep, so next morning we headed out to find our way back to the cars.   We took a little time to head upstream in our creek to see if we’d missed anything.  It was a nice creek and well worth exploring but after an hour we’d decided that we’d seen the best of it.

Walking up the beautiful Plain Creek

The route that Geoff J had on his map paralleled a side creek but I wanted to see what was up this creek so we headed off upstream, what a great decision.  This was a highlight of the trip, the creek was wide and mostly rock slabs with cascades and waterfalls (sadly most of these weren’t running, will have to come back after serious rain), this part of the creek continued for about 500m and every time you thought that you’d reached the end of the spectacular rock formations, you went around a boulder and there was more.  Finally, after yet another waterfall that we climbed up, we were on a big flat area with little pools in it.  We tried going further upstream but hit unbelievable scrub, so turned around and exited the creek.

Walking out on the fire trail in the afternoon sun

From here on it was fairly straight forward, a bit of scrub, a bit of open ground, more scrub and then we spotted a rock platform down below us so headed for that.  We took a bearing to get to the fire trail and were soon on it, then it was a tedious 3hr walk back to the cars.  This was a wonderful trip, the scenery was fantastic, but part of the fun for me was the navigation and route finding, and actually finding the spots on the map that Geoff J had told us about.

If you read through this post on the walk, you will notice that I haven’t quoted any place names that you’d find on the map.  This is intentional, the notes were kindly shared with me, but I don’t believe they’re published anywhere or posted on the net, so, I will leave it that way.

Emu droppings – after a few days in the sun

Emu foot prints, they’re a big bird!