Its a walking day – and we started our walk at 9.30am and finished at 2.45pm – 17 kms
Are we tired or not? Yes - It was an accidental longer walk than we had planned, but it actually worked out to be the best walk. It definitely was Grade 4 and has to be one of the hardest we have tackled. It’s not the distance, but the hills and track terrain which made it hard. The roller skate gumnuts were out in force, just to keep you sharp.
We did a combination of three tracks. The green track is a walk to and back from Honeymoon Pool. This was our intention. We walked anti clockwise. When we started we took the Sika track by mistake, but no matter, we had intended to do the track as well. So the combo of all three tracks was the best outcome.
We climbed fairly high at the start. Along the track, a tree had come down, these aren’t the sort of trees that you can move with a 4wd or drive around – they are so tall.
See that rock and water, we are going to walk over there! Up and down these hills.
This tree was beside the path - it was scary when I realized how little was keeping this huge tree up.
I couldn’t get it all in the photo, it was so tall.
This is a black and white cockatoo. They call to each other all the time when they are feeding.
This goanna seemed to be immobile. He did not move off the track and challenged us when we passed by. Obviously injured, as they always scurry off. This is the first time a goanna has ever done that.
Notice that the right leg is back which is not normal.
We saw the red tailed cockatoos. I got a photo but it was against the sun and the cockatoo was at the top of a tree. We saw quite a few new birds to tick off in our book.
Western Yellow Robin, Red Winged Fairy Wren, Forest Red Tailed Black Cockatoo.
Since we are doing all of the colours, which one will we pick now?
We did orange, purple and green.
Why is it that the track is nice and easy at the beginning of the trek when you are energised? and as you tire, the track deteriorates.
We have now reached the lookout and the first seat after some 8 kms. There were a lot of hills to get to the lookout. The track down from the lookout is straight down the side of the hill, zig zagging steeply.
The track down was very narrow, nothing like the previous tracks. We saw several new plants, that we hadn’t seen before. It was a lot greener on this side of the hill and lots of birds singing.
That’s our path ahead. A tree down beside the track, it was huge and went down probably 30 metres.
We have now graduated to green, having come off the purple. It’s only about 5 kms to go, up hill and down. Always remembering that at river level we have to climb to the Dam Wall height and then up to the kiosk car park. We are all good here, the path so far has been reasonable.
We are now down at river level. There are quite a few rapids and with the water release, it is flowing strongly.
Large areas of paper daisies and other wild flowers in bloom, so late in the year.
The track, was washed out, very rocky and uneven and made walking hard. We had to traverse several hills on our way back to the kiosk.
Flannel Flowers, but a lot smaller than the east coast ones. Another hill, there were to be many more of these steep climb and descents before we were finished. We had missed lunch and it was nearly three o’clock by the time we got back to camp, so a shower and we had Linner – yes, that’s lunch and dinner.
Clean, refreshed and fed, happy campers.
Result, glad we did half of each track and especially glad that we only did the green track one way, there was nothing to gain walking both ways only pain. The young kiosk girl, did the green track (both ways) and short part of the purple track (all uphill) to the look out and wondered if she would be able to walk the next day, so there is hope for us oldies. She was impressed with our effort.
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