Tahmoor Gorge – 19 November 2017

I had been hoping to return to Tahmoor Gorge for a while now to get photos of the gorge below the Mermaids Pool. This is very beautiful and quite wild area and certainly deserves to be in a National Park.

To get good photos, you need to have a reasonable water level in the Bargo River and also have fairly subdued lighting. The forecast for the day was for it to be at least a bit cloudy and also it had been raining during the days before. David Hufton was keen to do the walk and we headed down there. 

When we arrived, the river was flowing – but not that high and there seemed to be more sun than cloud.

We walked quickly down past the See Through Pool and The Mermaids Pool and walk around the top part of the gorge to the lookout that looks back at the Mermaids Pool. After a few photos, we continued on. At the junction for where the loo walk through the urge returns there was a fairly new visitor book. It had been placed there by Robert Sloss, and is housed is a metal tool box. Robert has also been busy upgrading the track through the gorge to get past a lot of flood damage. To do this, he has cut through some quite large trees in places. This saves clambering over logs and boulders lower in the streamed – but it may become badly eroded in time.

We descended down Jacks Pass into the gorge and soon arrived at the river near some nice small cascades. Fortunately we ddi have some cloudy periods enabling photography of the stream features. You just had to be patient and wait for the clouds to come and block the direct sun.

The next part of the gorge is delightful – with lots of small waterfalls and cascades. And, great on a hot day, many nice swimming holes to cool off in. In the darker rainforest sections rock orchids cling to the boulders.

The dominant vegetation in the gorge would be the Watergums (Tristania sp). David Hufton had not been through the gorge before and commented that it reminded him of Angorawa Creek in the Colo region – a much harder place to get to. I agreed.

We continued downstream, crossing at one point to walk down some nice rocks slabs. We found a shady area for lunch near a beautiful small waterfall.

During lunch, another party of walkers passed us, and we later saw another party walking upstream. It is good to see people on these tracks. Most visitors just walk down to the Mermaids Pool.

After lunch, we continued downstream and then climbed out of the gorge via Roses Pass. The track then follows close to the rim of the gorge as it makes its way upstream. This provides good opportunities to look down to where we had been.

We soon arrived back at the junction where the logbook has been placed. After a few more photos of the Mermaids Pool, we continued back towards the carpark. On the way we stopped at a nice pool for a swim.

Back at the carpark – there were perhaps 20 – 30 cars parked there. It is a popular area on a hot weekend day.

This area deserves national park status. Please support the creation of the proposed Bargo-Nepean National Park.

The loop walk we completed through the gorge is about 10 km long and is well worth doing. It does involve some easy scrambling in places and you need to be agile.

More photos are online here on my website.