Bald Trig, Goochs Crater and Billabong Canyon – 2 July 2020

Bob suggested a walk to Goochs Crater in Blue Mountains National Park. This sounded like a good idea. On the way we could visit the nearby Aboriginal site at Bald Trig.

Billabong Canyon

We turned off the Chifley Highway at the Zig Zag Railway and travelled out the Glow Worm Tunnel Road before turning off to Bald Trig. The past oar two the road was very rough, so we parked and walked he last part. I had been to the Aboriginal art sit there a few times, and on the second visit, knew it was hard to find. we were on the lookout for a small cave with a single faint hand stencil. This time it didn’t take too long to find –

We then climbed up to the trig. Here there are extensive views of the Wollangambe Wilderness –

And also views of sand and coal mines –

We walked back to Bob’s car and drove out the Dumbano Firetrail. We parked before the road became too rough and walked out a short way to the side trail that went towards Goochs Crater.

All of this area has been badly burnt out by the bushfires last summer. On the way, we noticed many of the epicormic growth had been eaten. Roger Lembit later informed us, that this was by sawfly larvae.

The last part of the walk is along a ridge though the bush. There are sone nice rock formations here.

Then an open ridge takes you down to the crater.

We first visited some nearby rock formations.

The we walked down to the crater.

And then went around to the camp cave.

This is an Aboriginal site. There are several faint hand stencils.

We then left the cave and climbed up to the pagoda and out along towards Billabong Canyon. To descend the canyon, you need to abseil and possibly swim. So we walked around the top and scrambled to the creekbed lower down and then walked upstream to the lower part.

We the went back the same way to the pagodas above the crater.

looking down, we could see a shadowy future skulking in the camp cave.

We went down to the cave, and it turned out to be Roger Lembit. He was planning on camping in the cave after working in the area on an ecological survey.

We left him, crossed the creek below the cave, and climbed up the ridge opposite. We walked along the ridge to join afire road, and followed that till it took us to the Dumbano Fire Road. Then it was a short walk back to Bob’s car.

An interesting day out.