BLUE MOUNTAINS – 6 September 2024
If I’d looked more closely to the Katoomba Map, I would have been able to identify this route (although it was unnamed), but it wasn’t until recently that The Horse Track came to my attention. When we talked about another fitness walk on this Friday, Marcia, who would be joining Trish and me, suggested The Horse Track. She’d been on it recently and said it was good. Having quite a bit altitude descent/ascent, it suited our purposes.
We started from Evans Lookout at 11.am and right from the beginning it exceeded my expectations.
The view from Evans Lookout (it’s been totally transformed over the last year – great new walking track).
Despite the “do over” of the Evans Lookout precinct, National Parks have kept a lot of the historic infrastructure.
View of spectacular cliffs – looking across at Lockleys Pylon.
Walking down the Evans Lookout steps (that would eventually take you down to the Grand Canyon). We will be taking a detour halfway down.
We’re now on The Horse Track. Apparently, according to Marcia, this track was used by early settlers to take felled wood out of the valley – usually using horses (although donkeys probably were also used).
We did a side-trip up to Lizard Rock, known because those who want to look over the edge get down on their bellies, “like a lizard drinking” to look over the edge, Trish did so.
Towards the end of Lizard Rock, is a nice lookout down to Beauchamp Falls. I hadn’t been to this lookout before.
From Lizard Rock, walking down these old steps, obviously put in place probably a century ago.
Marcia walking down from Lizard Rock which you can see on the left.
Trish a little further down the Horse Track. Apparently, NPWS have been upgrading this track from a mere footpad to a well-formed route down into the valley. The only other track in this area down into the valley is the Rodrigez Track which has suffered many rockfalls and landslips that it is now closed and is too dangerous to ever reopen.
About half-way down the track, we came across five NPWS contractors working on the upgrade of the track. It was fascinating what they were doing and we quizzed them on a few things … Contractors have been working on the track for almost 12 months and it looks like there’s another 12 months of work ahead of them. They start at 7am, walk down the track and then finish at 2.30pm and walk an hour back up to the top. There were bags and bags of equipment and rocks etc. that have been helicoptered in, they have a lot of equipment on site, but almost everything done is heavy lifting/manual labour. The three of us were beyond impressed!
There were masses of these wildflowers on the track. One of my “followers”, has let me know that this is probably Australian Indigo (Indigofera australis), thanks Maureen. Apparently you can dye fabric with the leaves.
Down at Govetts Creek for lunch. Trish got in for a swim, Marcia to cool off. Bit too cold for me.
I think going down to her neck was a bit of a shock initially, but she stayed in for quite some time.
Once we’d cooled off, we turned around for the return trip -the whole purpose of the walk, to challenge our level of fitness with the climb up.
It was a long slog, the unfinished track a bit harder than the upgraded track, regardless of the endless steps!
And the Stats … we’re back at the cars by 4.45pm, but we did spend a long time at Lizard Rock and down at the Creek. We walked approximately 7k according to Trish’s Garmin watch, and by my reconning approximately 490m descent/ascent. Another good workout. Big thanks to Trish and Marcia for joining me!
The lovely flowers are probably Australian Indigo though as far as I know the staining liquid the leaves produce is not purple or blue: https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/taxa/83364-Indigofera-australis
This site shows an interesting dyeing technique with the plant leaves: https://www.gumnutmagic.com/dyeing-with-australian-indigo/
Hi Maureen, thanks so much for the information, will update the website with the proper name.