I had recently seen some photos of The Pterodactyl Cave on social media (such as this one taken by climbing photographer Kamil Sustiak) and it was featured in a story in Vertical Life online climbing magazine. But it didn’t seem to match any feature in the Blue Mountains that I knew. I mentioned it to Bob and we both speculated about possible locations.
It is a current climbing development site – and climbers like to protect the secrecy of their locations until they have put up their climbs. Fair enough. But, with a bit of investigation both Bob and myself independently found out the cave’s location. It is actually a natural arch and has been known about by non aboriginal visitors since at least the 1950’s.
So, we headed up to the Blue Mountains and ended up only doing a short walk to reach the arch. It is quite impressive! In a few places we could see quickdraws and bolts – signs that climbers had been there.
There are some convenient ledges that allow you to climb part way up the side of the arch.
After quite few photos, we climbed back up to the ridge and then investigated a small canyon nearby. I had visited this canyon on a trip many years earlier, but this time I wanted to try and get some better photos. The canyon was nice – but all too short.
We then climbed above the canyon and looked down into the slot.
Near the canyon were some nice Pagoda Daisies.
On the walk back we found many wild flowers – including a multitude of Waratahs (we were on the Waratah Ridge!)
We also found a few markers indicating some sort of transect –
Both the Pterodactyl Cave and the small canyon are not protected. They are included in the Stage 2 Proposal for Gardens of Stone National Park.
We next visited a small knoll nearby that had some aboriginal sharpening grooves and some possible aboriginal art.
On our way home, we stopped of at Mellow Bath and checked out a recent landslide near the Coliseum and below the Hydro Majestic Hotel. It looks like this landslide took place around 9 October 2016.
More photos from this interesting trip are online on my website here.