Taffys Rock Walk – 13 July 2016

This was an interesting walk with Bob to a place neither of us had visited – Taffys Rock in Ku-ring-gai National Park. Our route was along the Great North Walk to a point overlooking Jerusalem Bay and then along a side track that goes all the way to Taffys Rock.

Lion Island from Taffys Rock

We caught the train to Brooklyn and then left the hamlet and climbed up a steep road that is the Great North Walk. We soon arrived at Brooklyn Dam, a large body of water that use to be the water supply for steam trains. There is now a campsite there for walkers. 

Brooklyn Dam

We continued on, along the fire road, stopping a few times to admire the views of the Hawkesbury River.

We then left the road, and followed track through the bush, crossing a creek and climbing up onto the ridge overlooking Jerusalem Bay. Here we found the turnoff to Taffys Rock. The track is not marked on the topographic map (it is marked on Open Street Map) but was quite easy to follow. On the way, we stopped at a nice lookout for lunch. Not far along was the first of two old trig stations. These are roughly spaced out about one third of the way out and two thirds of the way out to Taffys Rocks. The first trig is called “Cole” and the second “Edwards”. On our walk, the track was very good and clear to the first trig and then a bit rougher for the rest of the way.

Taffys Rock itself is a large open rocky area that offers great views. We soon found a plaque – a memorial to Taffy Townson. She was a bushwalker in the Rucksack Club. You can read more about this in The Bushwalker (page 15). The story of her death is well known to bushwalkers – she was taking a toilet break, on the Overland Track in Tasmania and while squatting down, got bitten on her private parts by a tiger snake. I have heard that she was then too embarrassed  to seek help from other members of the party. But the location of the bite would have made application of a tourniquet, the standard treatment of the time, difficult.

We then explored the open rocky area. Surprisingly there were no aboriginal sharpening grooves, but Bob did spot what looked like a series of engraved foot prints.

On the way back, the track passed over a smaller open rocky area and there we also found some old rock engravings.

Jerusalem Bay

Back at the Great North Walk track, we soon made our way down to Jerusalem Bay, and then along the bay and up the track to Cowan Station. While we were waiting for out train, we were amused to see a group of 4- 5 elders get off the train heading north. They then set of to look for the population of Cowan to convert to the Mormon faith.

More photos of the walk are on my website here.