With a few spare hours up my sleeve, I decided that in the spirit of more hill climbing a quick jaunt down to Blue Gum Forest via the most direct route would be a good test for the legs. I have it on good authority that local mountaineer Allie Pepper used this route as part of the training for her successful Everest expedition, loading herself up with a dozen or more litres of water for the climb back up the hill. I had no intention of making it that hard for myself, but was looking forward to the short and spectacular descent into the Grose Valley.
Blue Gum Forest is the spiritual home of bushwalking in NSW and a place held dear in the hearts and minds of many outdoorsy folk. It became a catalyst for the early conservation movement in the 1930s when the lease-holder at the time proposed to fell the forest for a walnut plantation. Bushwalkers banded together to raise £130 – a significant amount of money during the depression years – to purchase the lease and save the forest from the axe. This represented one of the first instances of organised environmental activism in Australia.
The route from Perrys Lookdown via Dockers Buttress was pioneered in the 1870s and is now probably the most popular track into Blue Gum Forest. It is only about 2km each way from the lookout to the river, but involves a descent of around 650 vertical metres. It starts with a series of lookouts offering magnificent views of Banks Wall and across the valley to Lockleys Pylon and Mount Hay in the far distance. The track zig-zags steeply through a narrow cleft in the rock and a small pocket of rainforest before emerging into more open forest. Then, as the track hugs the base of the cliffs, it heads towards this rather impressive sandstone pillar.
There is a huge amount of trackwork happening here at the moment. Massive supplies of rock and timber have been helicoptered onto site, with the upgrade starting at the bottom of the valley and slowly working its way upwards. As you can see from the photos some sections are heavily eroded and in dire need of replacement, so it’s good to see this popular track getting some attention. The section around Dockers Ladder is also suffering badly from tree and rock fall that has removed a lot of the handrails from their footings and left bits of metal lying around everywhere.
After a little more than an hour I reached a clearing and the big old tree that marks the junction with the track from Victoria Falls coming in on the left, and the track from Blackheath via Junction Rock to the right. But today I just continued straight ahead, crossing Govetts Creek by way of a giant, fallen tree that conveniently straddles the shallow waters. I lunched in sunshine at the confluence with the Grose River, warming myself like a lizard on the rocky river bank. This is a lovely spot for quiet contemplation, surrounded by towering blue gums that are mostly around 300 years old.
After chatting with a few other walkers who had come down via Lockleys Pylon I started the steady climb back up the hill. The last time I walked up Perrys was on a particularly hot summer’s day and it made me feel quite dizzy and nauseous. I was glad today for the cooler air temperature and more pleasant conditions, but it still didn’t take me long to work up a sweat. The Hardenbergias were beautifully abundant and a great excuse for the odd brief pause, but despite many attempts I just couldn’t take a decent photo. So you will have to make do with a Hibbertia instead!
I’m not sure that I would ever find this an easy climb as it’s steep and fairly unrelenting, but with fresh legs and a small daypack it was a lot more enjoyable today than it has been in the past. And so lovely, as always, to make it down to Blue Gum Forest. I couldn’t ask for a better three hours in the bush.