After my Dad's fall while rock climbing I intended to keep at it and start again with him once he had healed (he has been pestering me to go, but at the same time he refuses to go when it's too hot, and it's Summer). However I was just falling into a good rhythm in my work place, and my Wife and I had just purchased our first home, when a job I had applied for almost 2 years prior finally got back to me offering the position. I had went for this job while I was a casual as I wanted to progress forward with life. To clarify the job I went for was one of being a Train Driver for Sydney Trains. We had a serious thought about it, and although I loved my job and workplace the money was too good to turn down, so I gave me workplace my notice, and soon began my training as a Trainee Train Driver.
The course was pretty full on, as I knew absolutely nothing about trains or the railway, and I soon found traveling into Sydney and back everyday incredibly taxing, my life was pretty much consisting of getting up, going in to work, coming home quickly eating and showering and going to bed. There was no free time or life in between. My Wife also found it difficult as she was working full time to finish work, make sure dinner was ready by the time I got home so I could eat and go to sleep. Needless to say I wasn't really enjoying it, and it didn't help that I had no passion for the job, although I was in a class with some pretty good guys, who I was lucky to meet. I decided not long in that I had made a mistake and had called up my old work and tried to set in motion plans to return. However as I had actually resigned this was harder to do. So I had to keep studying and passing tests to stay as a train driver in case I was unable to return to my previous role.
My Wife has wanted a Dog for years so while I was at the trains one day we went to the RSPCA and came home with a new addition to our family.
We brought our little puppy home and tried to name her saying names and seeing which she responded to. She ended up coming when we called Orla (Irish: Golden Princess).
This helped us both feel happy, but it was very hard being away from her so long as I would pretty much only see her on weekends. We tried taking her out to to many places such as doing the Kiama Coastal Walk with her, going around Lake Illawarra or to Blackbutt Forest. We even ended up making her a instagram to chronicle her adventures. Finally I got the option to come back to my previous job, however as I had resigned I would be working in the role casually and would have to reapply, and even go for the job interview again, putting our home, and mortgage at risk. My Wife agreed it was worth it to just have that time together and so a bit before 2 months I had left Sydney Trains and was back in my previous role as a casual with no sick leave or flexi time.
I spent my weekends with my Wife and "Daughter" or "Fur Baby". Yes we're one of those couples who our Dog knows and actually responds to as Mum and Dad.
The rest of the year just seemed to skyrocket past, my interview soon came up and I began my role as a full time employee again and I kept saying I wanted to get out and hike and continue writing but every time something came up, overtime, weekend shifts, I applied for another season of Australian Survivor (that I more than likely will not get on) and then soon the bush-fires hit. Utterly devastating much of Australia. The air was thick with smoke and it was just uncomfortable to even go outside. The politics began, with arguments from people on each side of the political spectrum. Christmas came around, where we actually splurged a little (we usually save money for bills and an eventual trip to Japan) and bought ourselves a Nintendo Switch and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which hasn't helped me get out hiking either.
Then New Year came around, and now it is 2020, we've had a little bit of rain but the bush-fires are still going in many areas while some places begin work to recover.
I finally set my mind that it was time to do a new hike and I was going to hit up my friend Tristan to go with me, then on January the 17th in the morning at work I had a call from my Wife. I answered the phone.
"My Dad was attacked by a Shark."
The shock set in. I soon found out he had been attacked near Windang, right near my Dad's accident.
Lucky both situations ended up mostly ok, my Father in Law has to wear a cast and keep his foot elevated for the next 8 weeks before he can begin physio therapy and hopefully all will work out well. We bought him a get well gift to cheer him up.
After all that I finally messaged Tristan a date and a location, adamant to get back into the habit of adventures and writing, telling him that we would walk:
Belmore Falls
We picked a date that suited us both, the 1st of February, and we locked it in. Coming up to the day all the weather predictions estimated that it would be a really hot day, reaching the 40's or mid 40's (Celsius). Still determined we decided to brace it. While arranging it Tristan told me he needed to stop for coffee on the way, telling me we could stop in at Bean Roasted at Calderwood.
Finally on the morning of, I set my alarm to wake me up early in the morning, both decided to try and get there earlier to beat the rush if lots of people decided to go. I woke up, but we didn't end up leaving as early as planned as I was delayed with diarrhea. I explained to Tristan that I wasn't sure if it was because I had woken up early, if it was because of my double shot coffee first thing in the morning, my jalapeño pizza for dinner the night before, or the numerous margaritas I had also drank along with my pizza.
He laughed that it was probably a combination of the 4 of them as I picked him up and we began driving towards Macquarie Pass and the Southern Highlands.
As we stopped in at bean roasted we weren't sure if it was actually open, seeing it was Tristan asked if I wanted anything. I had already had a double shot but began removing sand from my joggers from whenever I had worn them last as he ordered his coffee. A small book stand was outside the coffee shop and I saw Tristan looking through them.
I turned on my mobile data and saw he'd sent me a photo of the page he had been looking at.
Finally with a coffee in his hand and some banana bread to we began driving past the beautiful green pastures on our way towards Macquarie Pass. I commented that I always loved the scenery driving out this way ever since I was a kid. He commented that he was sick of it, because he had to drive this way up the pass each day.
We began our way winding along the road while Tristan commented that it was nice to not be the driver for once as he could actually appreciate the scenery.
As we reached Robertson I saw a sign pointing towards Belmore Falls to our left.
"Should I turn here?" I asked.
"No, it's not that way." Tristan said.
"But the sign says-"
"It's a car park." He informed me, saying when he'd been with an ex to Belmore he had tried to turn into the same spot.
We took the next left and a right turn after crossing some train tracks.
We soon began driving along an unsealed road, that became incredibly corrugated and bumpy, and in my little car I really had to go slow, Tristan commented that my car was going to fall apart. I told him it's exactly the same heading out to Pigeon House or The Castle.
We soon arrived in the empty car park.
"At least we're the only ones here." I said, turning off the air conditioned car and stepping out into the heat, the hot dry wind strongly blowing.
There was a small dirt path through the bush leading over to a walkway with a metal railing, which we proceeded to, telling Tristan I wanted to walk to Hindmarsh Lookout once we got back. He sighed, relatively unenthusiastic, telling me it's just a lookout. I was adamant saying if I had some all this way I would do all parts of the walk.
Hitting the rail I asked Tristan if he remembered which way. He didn't respond and started walking to his left for a while as I followed, finally he laughed "Oh good this is the right way."
To his right there was a sign just down from the rail saying no access beyond this point, with the 'no' scratched off by one of the many visitors.
"I didn't realise you weren't meant to go there". I said to Tristan. "Why is it forbidden, it's not even a hard walk is it?" I asked.
"No, someone must have been injured once, and I think it might also technically be private property." he said, sounding unsure. "Everyone goes though", he reiterated, "you're not going to get in trouble dude."
We continued down the path alongside the cliff wall, coming to another sign telling us the track is closed penalties apply.
"They seem to be making a big deal about it. Like, surely jump rock is more dangerous." I said wondering how this walk would compare to Gerringong Falls, which the search for led me and my Dad sliding on loose topsoil down the side of a cliff.
We continued down an old set of stairs before finally coming to a long winding dirt path with the way clearly visible from frequent use.
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| Photo taken from the bottom |
We talked a lot on the way, about work, our lives, the bush fires and the incredibly hot temperature. Tristan mentioned about how there could be Tiger Snakes about, "Great." I said, telling him I was now paranoid about Snakes. I found myself very surprised about how easy the walk was, with only a couple of things to step over or duck under every now and again.
I stopped walking, pointing out to Tristan that there was a water dragon standing right in front of us. There were later at least 4 more right on the trail as we continued along, running from the path when we decided to proceed past them.
The hardest part of the walk so far was maybe stepping over a tree trunk, but it was so good to just be outside, and going somewhere new and it was nice to have a feeling of jollity, even the increasing heat couldn't dampen my spirits.
We soon came upon a a native Holly that I wanted to get a photo of, but the hot breeze kept blowing and my phone takes pretty awful quality photos as it is. Tristan, true to his bush regenerator title began telling me that it was native holly, and explaining stuff about it. I told him I knew it was native and I had seen it before while hiking up to Monolith Valley.
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| Me looking in the valley. Tristan: "Stand closer to the edge it'll make a cooler photo." Me: "No, I don't want to be one of those fuckwits who dies taking a selfie" |
The trail began to begin downhill a bit more and we started going through a section that felt much more like a rainforest than before. With a clearer view of the falls as we made our way closer.
As we reached this section we felt the relief of the shade, which lucky due to the intense heat didn't feel humid as all but cooled us from the sun.
As we rounded a few more bends I could see we were very near the falls. I commented to Tristan that it wasn't long at all, or difficult and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why it was prohibited.
For the first time in the entire walk the path split in to two separate tracks. One going down, and one continuing up.
"Which way do we go?" I asked.
He said it didn't matter that they both just end up at the opening off the falls as he quickly moved his way down the lower path, I continued behind him.
We stepped down, into the clearing for our first view of the falls, scarcely flowing due to the intense heat of the last few months as well as severe lack of rain.
We wandered to the edge of the falls to out left having a look down. I wondered if we would be able to get down there.
We turned to our right and headed to Belmore Falls.
Coming up to the pool at the base of the falls I noticed a rock with tyre imprints.
Climbing up a noticed a little tiny indent in one of the rocks filled with water. I snapped a photo and told Tristan it was the mini Figure 8 Pools.
We stood just standing and admiring all that was around us. Cold air flew from the waterfalls and along the pool washing over us cooling us down.
As we scrambled over some rocks to go sit by the waterfall I noticed the tyres that I assume at some point in time left the imprints in the rock.
We sat and drank, just silently looking around. I took out a chocolate chip pumpkin cookie my wife had baked and offered Tristan one.
"I don't like chocolate dude."
I had completely forgotten he didn't like chocolate having packed extra for him telling my wife he would definitely like them and he wouldn't mind the pumpkin. I told him I felt like a bad friend for forgetting and he told me to just tell my wife that he thought they were delicious (I just told her the truth).
Tristan began saying he was keen to go in, as he had been here twice previously with two different girls and hadn't had the opportunity to swim. I was debating on whether or not I would go in, thinking I probably should while I was there but remembering the chafe of walking back from a swim after Gerringong Falls and Kangaroo River.
As Tristan removed his shirt ready to jump in I turned away as I was going to climb up and stand under the falls. Suddenly there was a huge crashing sound and I turned around. Tristan was looking back a the fall too.
"What was that?"I asked.
"I think a tree fell, or some dickhead is throwing shit off from the top."
He pointed out what looked from where we were to be a perfectly cut log of wood. We waited a while and listened for sounds of people above us. Tristan began to get a little nervous about going in, because he evidently didn't like the thought of being struck by a falling object and dying.
Eventually he made the decision to hop in while I was still undecided. He yelled about it being cold as he walked in before just taking the plunge.
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| Bashful me, leaving my shirt on |
It took a moment, but I looked at Tristan and said "And you swam in it!" He had a look of disgust on his face, and said he hoped he wouldn't die of e.coli. We both laughed and I told him I had made up my mind that I wouldn't swim. We decided to walk around to the opposite side as it looked like someone had drawn a large Kangaroo on the rocks out of mud. As we made our way around we spotted another decaying Wombat, this time down at the edge of the pool and I told Tristan I hope he didn't get sick. He commented that they didn't smell so that was in his favour.
We made our way up to the Kangaroo, and I climbed up a small bit of rock. Tristan tried to follow, stopping and looked at it asking "How the hell did you get up there?" I pointed out a few little grooves in the rock and he quickly made it up, commenting that it was good he'd been going to indoor bouldering with me.
I commented that the Kangaroo was actually really well done, considering I don't really like when people draw, carve or leave things in spot I had to admire the fact it looked pretty cool.
We continued around and Tristan suddenly asked me. "You're not spiritual are you?"
I paused for a second, before telling him that I was in nature, and that's where I felt some semblance of spirituality. I then began to explain to him about the Ancient Celtic Nemeton or 'Sacred Grove', telling him there were certain particular spots withing nature that I felt more spiritual.
"Like this place?" He said gazing around.
"Exactly."
He soon walked over pulling out an invasive weed; Crofton weed, or Mexican devil, explaining about how he had been working on trying to remove it from around this location.
We began to head back to our bags when I noticed a perfectly round rock sitting in a hole. I commented to Tristan that I felt like if I lifted it up, a Korok would appear. He didn't get the reference.
As we were making our way down the first group of visitors turned up, and I let them know about the decaying Wombats. Tristan and I sat at our bags, enjoying the view before we would try and make our way down the valley for some exploring. The group sat near us and talked and Tristan asked if they would still go in. "We didn't come all this way for nothing." They said and Tristan turned to me. "See?" He said.
"See ya fellas." I said and we made our way, back to the edge of the lower cliff and followed a set of stairs upwards on our right, right across from the side of the clearing we had entered from.
From up here we found that the path was way less traveled and we soon came to a smooth stone slope heading down that we followed, realising that from here there was no obvious path.
We slowly waddled down the smooth stone and we no clear path just continued making our way down through the scrub hoping we wouldn't get lost.
We kept an eye our for ways that looked like paths you could take, though there was no trail, at one point I froze thinking I saw a python hanging from a tree but it was just vines on a tree behind another tree giving the illusion of stripes. I told Tristan it was his fault for putting snake paranoia in my head.
We made it to the bed of the river and I hopped over a few rocks thinking we had reached the base of the spot we had looked down from the first Belmore Falls clearing.
I turned around and noticed Tristan sitting down. We had a quick drink and continued around to find the base we had reached was not the one directly down from the falls, so we must have been further down.
Tristan really thought the cave was cool however we had to backtrack a little bit to be able to reach the other side and have a look in what he dubbed 'The Rape Cave'.
As we made our way to it I told him I could hear 'Dueling Banjos' playing in my head as I stepped over an old abandoned pair of shorts that didn't help the whole Deliverance vibe.
We walked over a bunch of black stones discussing what they were before acknowledging neither of us has an geology knowledge whatsoever.
The cave was shallow and not deep and filled with large numbers of insects. We began our way back content to get to the top and finish the walk as the days heat just continued to increase.
We took a whole new way directly alongside the edge and made our way back up along the dirt slope.
At one point Tristan got a wrong hold and a couple of rocks began flying past him from the cliff side. We powered our way up, grabbing any hold we could, climbing up a little cut in the cliff face, that brought us just down from the base of the smooth sloped rock.
As we looked up we noticed a giant stone column right in front of us that we hadn't noticed on our way down (though we can see from the valley view photos where that section was).
We soon made it back to Belmore Falls and gave a last look at the falls from the distance as a new couple was just arriving. We made our way back along the path before I took an alternate route, asking Tristan if this would be another track that would just loop back in. He didn't think it was, but I had started on it and wanted to follow it along. Tristan was really feeling the heat by this point and was pretty keen to get back to the car and get to Robertson for a drink and some food.
I reached a blackened stump that came to a dead end, before telling Tristan in a fake sad voice that I didn't think it was the way. He groaned and said he told me so.
I could hear voices of more people coming down I pointed along the cliff face saying the path mustn't be much further along. As I spoke I realised the voice was coming from a bit further up then me and two guys came climbing down the cliff face shirtless. "Oh look, we can climb up here." I said to Tristan who was hot and flushed and didn't look in the mood to climb.
"Much further to the car park?" I asked the two guys.
"Nah it's just up this bit and you follow the path for a bit and you're there." One of them replied.
"Is it much further down? This fucking retard came wearing thongs!" One said to me while the other responded he didn't realise it would involve scrambling.
"You could of come the easy way." I said, informing them of the path we took down while convincing Tristan that climbing up this way would be fun.
I looked back at Tristan telling him how lucky we were to find this new path. Saying this was the fun way. "This is not the fun way." He replied, grumpy from the heat.
As we finished the climb we ran into another guy making his way down. We began along a winding dirt path and any coolness from the valley was gone, and the heat was blistering. I powered up the hill eager to reach the top before looking behind me and noticing Tristan was gone. I called out to him a few times and had no response. Panic set in a little due the worry after my Dad's rock climbing accident and I hurried back down to find him hunched over a tree.
"You alright man?" I had to ask a few times before he told me he just needed a breather and he was overheating and starting to spin out. I told him to have some water an he informed me he had drank it all. I offered him some of mine, but he old me he found that gross, which I didn't disagree with but in these situations I was willing to share. He stood up and began his way up the hill.
We came to a gap that lead to the road and I commented that we still had to go to Hindmarsh Lookout.
As we continued around we came to a car park and I said "Shit my car is gone". Tristan was quick to point out it was a different car park and we followed the road along, going past Hindmarsh Lookout on our way, as I said to Tristan it was fortunate we found the alternate route cause we got to have that extra adventure and pass the Lookout on our way back anyway.
We continued along the railing until we came to the right car park. We cranked the air conditioning and I realised I had a bottle of water I hadn't drank from (That I quickly finished) before going for the drive out over the top of the falls on our way to Robertson to get a pie and a drink.
As we made our way back to Robertson past the beautiful farm land I asked Tristan where we were going for this pie. Southern Rise Bakery he told me, and we began discussing how terrible the pies were at Robertson Pie shop and discussed our favourite pie places. He gave me a list of his favourite as he had been trying many of them since he began working in the Southern Highlands.
His list of 5 favourites were:
1. Stones in Berrima
2. Flower Water Salt in Berrima
3. Gumnut Patisserie in Mittagong
4. Southern Rise Bakery in Robertson
5. Jumping Rock Cafe in Bundanoon
We stopped in for our pies and sat on the gutter on the side of the road in the shade of a tree, looking at an old Church while we ate. After finishing as we drove along I decided I wanted a photo with the Big Potato. I said that I had driven past in hundreds of times and never actually got out to have a look at it, so I was determined. We pulled up and walked over for it, discussing how many of the 'Big Things' we had actually ever seen. I told Tristan I wanted a touristy photo with it, because I find living locally you neglect local tourist things that if you lived a bit further away you would probably be enthusiastic about.
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| Side note: my Irish Ancestor 'Mary-Ann Lally' came to Australia as an Orphan due to Gorta Mór or the 'Irish Potato Famine' |
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Thanks for reading! - Steven
