Growing up in Springwood, I had visited Long Angle Gully quite a few times when young, and camped at the junction of Fitzgeralds Creek with the scouts on one occasion. And I had been to Sun Valley as well, but never been down the fire road from Sun Valley to Long Angle Gully.
I had been in touch with Bob about a location for our usual weekly bushwalk. Nothing had been decided except that we could decide where to go on the way up the mountains. This “plan” has worked in the past, and it worked this time. Sun Valley had long been on my list of possible places to visit for a bushwalk, but with a low priority. It was thus saved up to visit on rainy day. Well, we now had a rainy day, so it seemed like its time had come.
Sun Valley is a large diatreme just to the east of Valley Heights. It would have long been used as a camping place by Aboriginals, and was used to graze horses by early European visitors. Early Europeans to settle in the valley included the Deane family. However there was another Deane, not from the same family, Henry Deane, who was a railway surveyor and engineer. Amongst his many achievements was the construction of the railway to Newnes in the Wolgan Valley. He also had an interest in botany and the Mountains Blue Gum, Eucalyptus deanei is named after him. There is certainly a nice grove of Mountain Blue Gums in Sun Valley and nearby gullies.
On our visit, the Valley did not live up to its name, it was far from sunny. But on a cool wet day, it turned out to be a good choice. We did not have to push through wet bushes and we both used umbrellas at times.
Bob parked near the start of Rosenthal Lane, and then we set off down it. We soon passed a locked barrier, and then followed through some small farms for a while.
The tall Mountain Blue Gums continued right down the valley.
Part way down the valley, we checked out a side track that was marked on Open Street Maps. We later planned to use it to descend from Warrimoo back to near the start.
Nearby, in the main creek we saw the remains of an old concrete dam. More on that later.
We certainly passed through some very nice stands of tall timber. But all the trees looked relatively small, so not that old. We wondered if the larger older trees had been logged. There did not seem to be any obvious stumps that we could see. But once home, some later research indicated that all these valleys had been logged. Bruce Cameron, the author of the excellent History of the Blue Labyrinth book, had also authored a small monograph on the history of Sun Valley and Long Angle Gully, and it has a section on the logging. There was even a funicular railway going up to Rickard Road to bring out logs.
At the junction with Long Angle Gully, we crossed the creek.
The old campsite that I had once stayed at looked a bit waterlogged.
We then walked along the Long Angle Gully Trail – almost to Single Ridge Road and back.
In the photo below, I think the dark streaks in the tree are caused by sap leaking out from where gliders have been feeding.
There was a lot of birdlife. Here is an Eastern Yellow Robin –
Once back at the campsite, we crossed Fitzgeralds Creek again, and set off up the steep climb onto the ridge.
On the way up, we stopped in a nearby overhang to have lunch out of the rain. Past the cave was short cut track that we used to cut off a bend in the fire road.
Once on the ridge, we spotted quite a few Bearded Orchids.
We could have walked up Rickard Road, but instead decided to cross the next valley and reached the fire road at the end of Spurwood Road.
More Bearded Orchids.
We then walked up Spurwood Road to Railway Crescent, and then continued to Rickard Road. Then we followed that to Cross St, and turned off to the Cross St Natural Reserve. Between two metal seats in this attractive bushland reserve we found the top of the track that we had seen the bottom of earlier.
We then followed the track. It descended steeply to the small creek.
Once on the creek, we were surprised to find ourselves on an old track. And this was an old constructed track – benched with old stone steps.
Again, once at home, with some more research, it looks like this was the “Gully Trail”. It is marked on a Blue Mountains Council tourist map (circa 1960).
The track was a private track constructed by Arthur Rickard, a property developer, to add to the appeal of his blocks of land for sale. The track went down to the concrete dam, whose ruin, we had earlier seen. It was popular swimming pool in the 1920’s and 30’s.
This turned out to be a very interesting and pleasant day out. A good walk in the conditions we had.