Not as unfit as I thought I was!

A bit of off-track and then we came across an old logging trail, heading down in the direction we wanted to go. Didn’t last long though.

At the cliff line now and we’re hunting around for a route through the cliff.

Zig zagging down, staying out of the fall zone, a few loose rocks around.

And then we’re down on the river flat.

Nice river gums in the creek, not much water yet.

The creek was very pretty at this part high up in the headwaters.

Quite a bit of rock hopping, eventually I decided that along the bank was easier going, less chance of me slipping on the rocks.

After a while Trish and Heather joined me.

Then we were back in the creek.

And lots of big rocks.

Back up on the bank, amongst trees that had been logged and left behind.

We’re seeing large pools now. Lovely reflections in this part of the creek.

Eventually we came to a lovely section of slabby rock, I wonder if this is on the same contour line of slabby parts that we’ve come across in other parts of the Watagans.

You can’t go past slabby rock, highlight of the creek for me!

Very pretty section of the creek.

Trish had been looking for this pool and the rocks in it to take some photos, was a stunning pool and loved the reflections in the water. It was here that I discovered a lot of leeches on me – had to move fast to avoid them after flicking them off!

We then came to this stunning Bangalow Palm forest, it was the only second of palm forest that we found on the whole hike.

Better view of the Bangalows.

Arrived at the junction of a side creek which would be out exit. We had lunch here (well I had third or fourth lunch, I’d been snacking all day).

The creek was quite scrubby and tedious so we set off to find a better route, up on the steep side of the creek, Trish leading the way.

This photo doesn’t depict what was really going on here, a dubious route across a hanging root of this massive fig, I took a safer way around but Trish took one for the team for this photo op!

Heather leading the way out of the scrub, the lawyer vines and fallen trees were very time consuming.

Checking out to see whether this cave would get us up higher, seemed to be a no go.

So we headed a bit further around looking for a way up out of the scrub.

I found this route up (had to climb up through a slot), then this other slot, looked a bit iffy so I suggested Trish go first (lol).

We’re up through now almost at the top, not far to go.  There was quite a bit of scrubby stuff, but then we dropped down into the creek again and it was a lot easier.

Nicer in the creek but the rock looked slippery.

And then we arrived at our “destination” Apocalypse Cave – you could camp here if you wanted, there was water and plenty of wood for a fire. Very fine cave.

We made it up to the ridge and the old logging trail after about an hour of scrub bashing. Was a relief to get to the trail, Heather and Trish checking their GPS.

Me, Heather and Gladys B our ex-State Premier taking a well deserved rest after resigning (well, it’s really Trish but she sure as hell looks like Gladys in this pic).