The walk down the Grose River in one of the classic bushwalks in the Blue Mountains. This is one walk that I have never done, and one that I had saved up from my early bushwalking days, and thus keeping it available as one that I could do some time in the distant future. My philosophy was that there would still be some walks that I had not done in the Blue Mountains. Another walk in the same category, that I have deliberately avoided doing, is the Jenolan River downstream from Jenolan Caves.
Keith Muir, the Director of the Colong Foundation for Wilderness had organised a walk down the Grose River over the Easter period and he invited me to join him. Perhaps it was the right time to finally do this walk? Two others were also keen to come along – Alex and Wendy. Perhaps though, we should have looked at the weather forecast a bit more carefully. As it turned out we had a lot of rain, and had to abandon our original goal to go down the river as far as Faulconbridge Point. But we still had an excellent walk in great country.
The Grose Wilderness Area can be thought of as a “pocket” wilderness (like the idea of a pocket battleship) – it is a relatively small area, but it still has a great feeling of ruggedness and remoteness. I had visited the Grose River below Blue Gum Forest on a few occasions – the first bit, a lot on early Mt Hay Canyon trips. The original exit was to go down the creek all the way to the Grose River, and then walk upstream to Blue Gum and climb out of the valley via Lockleys Pylon. I had also visited the river at the junction of Hungerfords Creek on a bush walk back in the 1970’s. Another trip I remember was a walk from Leura, to Mt Hay and then along the ridge to Mt Whitton, then descending to the river at the Wentworth Creek Junction, a short walk downstream and then climbing out at Faulconbridge Point. Further downstream I had visited on a number of trips. Continue reading
