Escaping the Rain – Plans A, B, C & D

GOULBURN RIVER NP – 9-10 August 2025
After almost a week of rain (and more forecast up and down the coast), Trish M and I decided that the walk I’d planned in the Mangrove Creek area (Plan A) wasn’t an option and we’d consider looking for a walk further inland … we’re all over the weeks of rain we’ve all endured.  So, we settled on Goulburn River NP (Plan B) where years ago I’d found a  “beautiful creek that needed to be explored”.  So, we set the wheels in motion.

I’d started with 8 participants for the walk, but for a variety of reasons, it ended up just the three of us (Trish, Matt and me).  As we left the Central Coast and headed inland, the rain eased off and eventually we got to our destination and although it was cloudy we were pretty sure we’d stay dry for the weekend.

I’ve done a lot of walking in this NP (mostly in the one area), so I planned a route I’d done before.  We would head down Morrisons Flat fire trail for approximately 3k, then use a spur that I’d used before to access the ridge that we’d negotiate to the creek.  The next day we’d retrace our steps to where we accessed the ridge and then follow the ridge back to Morrisons Flat fire trail, a route that I hadn’t done before.

Heading down the  fire trail looking across to the ridge, it was easy to see that the route I’d chosen possibly would have been the only route up as the cliff face looked like a no-go.

Heading up to our high point and access to the ridge. I have to say, it was a little harder than I remembered but the vegetation was quite friendly.

I didn’t remember the saddle that we used to access the ridge, very narrow and not easy to pick out. And the vegetation was now definitely not friendly.

We were at the ridge at noon, so had lunch, the weather was now great!

The vegetation on the ridge wasn’t good, the regrowth was thick and not nice walking at all – where was the lovely forest I’d walked through before?  Obviously gone with the 2020 fire.

The “really pretty creek” was not going to be so pretty after the fires (the whole point of the trip LOL), and there was no guarantee that we’d find a campsite in daylight given the thick vegetation and no guarantee that we’d find water where we wanted to camp, so we agreed that we’d put off this particular trip until longer daylight hours.  Given that we had at least three hours’ time, we decided we’d explore the “exit route” that I’d planned for Sunday … along the ridge back to the Morrisons Flat fire trail (Plan C), with a recon trip down to check out the river on Sunday.  That’s the beauty of a small group, you can change the plans and you don’t have a cast of thousands to convince the change in plans is a good idea LOL.

Trish and me starting up from the lunch spot (photo Matt).

So, we set out along the ridge – great views.

I’d say that this route was popular with either animals or humans as in spots there was definitely a footpad … obviously not on this spot LOL.

More great views – sheer cliff this side of the ridge.

And stunning views of the other side. The ridge was about 20m wide in most places – a “knife edge ridge”. (Photo Matt)

There were small knolls along the way, Trish led the way most of the time, finding a safe route up and down the knolls.

Finding a safe route down off a knoll.

Looking back at the knoll that we’d walked over. From the ridge we could see how the fire had devastated the area, when we were on the fire trail, we couldn’t see this devastation. (Photo:  Matt)

The beauty of doing the ridge on Saturday afternoon (rather than Sunday) was that we could take time to admire the views.

If we’d stuck to Plan B, there was no guarantee that we’d have had the time to enjoy the views and take our time to find good routes over the knolls.

Heading up the last knoll.

We came across a keyhole on one of the knolls and took the time to do some photo shoots (photo Matt).

My dodgy photo of Matt and Trish at the keyhole.

I took 3 photos, and you’d think I could have gotten at least one with Matt’s eyes open!!!

We’re now at the end of the ridge and negotiating our way back down to the fire trail. There were two spots which looked dodge from above.

We managed the descent but a hand-line would have been nice (for me). If you approached from the bottom (to go up to the ridge), this wouldn’t look daunting at all.

The walk down to the fire trail was very civilized, we looked for campsites but eventually decided on an “average” one close to the car, where we could have a good fire and close enough to the car to pick up water for the night (as we weren’t carrying much as we anticipated to get water for the night from the creek or the River).

As we sat around the campsite we decided that we would come back to do the walk when there were more daylight hours, and use the route from the afternoon to access the ridge right from the start and then after camping in the “beautiful creek” which probably wouldn’t be so beautiful any more we’d walk up the river bank to the Morrisons Flat fire trail – thus avoiding fire regrowth for one day.

Having made that decision, we came up with a Plan D for Sunday.  We could see on the map that there was a Tunnel Fire Trail so we decided to see where it went.  We packed up early Sunday morning, packed a day pack and headed off.

The fire trail initially wasn’t that great but eventually when it started going downhill with a nice creek beside it, it was much prettier.

We’d walked about 5k when we started hearing the sounds of a train on the railway track.  We’d determined now that this was a rail track used by a coal mine to transport coal to Newcastle.  We only had a 100m or so to go so we hurried as fast as we could to get a glimpse of the train going through the tunnel.

I got there in time to see the middle locomotive as it was passing.

And then saw the end of it. Was pretty cool.

Trish and Matt went down after the train had exited it, pretty good view.

So, after the highlight of the day, we headed back to the car, all round a 10k day walk.

One of a dozen or so fascinating trees that we saw on the way back. You usually see a tree that’s formed like this if there’s been damage to the tree (like it’s been struck by lightning or something). It had some scribbly gum patches on it, but we’re not sure what type of gum this is.

We were back at the car by 2pm and high-tailed it back to Denman to get milkshakes.  A great weekend away from the rain, thanks for coming Trish and Matt!  Looking forward to the next trip.

Banner:  on walking down to the tunnel, we went past a section of the firetrail with these lovely gum flowers that looked as though they’d fallen from the trees like snowflakes!