While the bushwalk along Green Point Creek in Pearl Beach is fairly short, it’s a beautiful walk that Michael and Carolyn show me to finish off our day exploring the Central Coast. From the end of the road, a wide firetrail quickly turns into a bushwalking track.
The first section of the walk passes through the edge of the Pearl Beach Arboretum – or to use its full name, the Crommelin Native Arboretum – a “protected sanctuary for Australian wildlife”. It’s hard to imagine that forty years ago the area was “infested with weeds and littered with old car chassis, galvanised iron tanks and other building waste”, as we walk through a sea of ferns and tall forest.
The track continues to head up towards Green Point Creek, as we cross a few boulders and pass some grass trees.
We soon reach the creek, and what is perhaps called the Pearl Beach Waterfall – there’s no official name on the map. The water drops over a wide ledge, which is fringed by ferns.
There’s a bit of a scramble up a rocky section next to the waterfall, with the track now becoming more of a route as it follows Green Point Creek upstream. At the of the falls is a much smaller cascade.
We’re now following the creek, sometimes along the rocky creek bed and sometimes along a rough pad that alternates between both banks of the creek.
The trail (or route) passes the Pearly Ponds, a tranquil and beautiful swimming hole along Green Point Creek. Michael explains the creek is spring-fed, making this also a pristine waterhole.
We continue a bit further upstream, with the vegetation around the creek getting increasing wild.
Along the creek bed is an interesting channel between two potholes which is probably natural, and a single groove that looks like an Aboriginal axe grinding groove.
Finally we reach a roadblock: large boulders prevent further progress along the creek, and the terrain gets much harder from here.
We turn back, returning the same way along the creek.
Getting to Green Point Creek
Although fairly obvious, the track from the end of Amethyst Avenue in Pearl Beach is not signposted. It heads in a generally westerly direction before following the creek upstream. The Arboretum is accessed from the end of Crystal Avenue. Pearl Beach is 25min from Gosford, and about 1:20min north of Sydney.
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