One of the longest bushwalks you can do through the Grose Valley, Victoria Falls to Evans Lookout starts at the end of Victoria Falls Road and descends past Victoria Falls to the Grose River. It follows the river to the Blue Gum Forest and then through Govett Gorge, before a steep ascent to Evans Lookout. Sadly, this walk was not possible for almost five years, as a result of bushfires in 2020 and then a landslide in 2022 which closed the Rodriguez Pass and Horse Track – two historic passes into the Grose Valley from Blackheath.
Victoria Falls to Burra Korain Flat (4km)
While the Rodriguez Pass remains closed and is likely to never re-open due to geotechnical risks, the Horse Track was declared open again in May 2024 after extensive repairs as an alternative route from the Grose Valley to Blackheath. A popular two-day walk, it can be comfortably undertaken as a day-walk, which is what I’m doing with fairly early (8am) start from Victoria Falls. After a few minutes walking I reach the Grose Valley Lookout.
The Victoria Falls walking track can get pretty busy on warmer weekends, with people heading to the Silver Cascades and Victoria Falls for a swim – but early on a chilly winter weekend there’s no else on the track. The track is initially of a very high standard as it descends gently from the carpark, before becoming a standard “Grade 4” bushwalking track.
The track gets steeper as it negotiates the upper cliff line, passing underneath some tall sandstone overhangs and offering some filtered Grose Valley views.
Beneath these upper cliffs, the landscape quickly changes to being more rainforest-like, as the track drops into the deep valley.
I’m soon at the junction with a very short side-track that leads to the picturesque Silver Cascades.
A bit further is a side-track to the top of the waterfall, and then a track to the base of Victoria Falls, which is the best vantage point for this picturesque waterfall.
The Victoria Falls walking track soon reaches the bottom of the valley and crosses Victoria Creek, providing a last look back at Victoria Falls.
From here the track follows Victoria Creek downstream, past numerous small cascades and pools – on a warm day there would be many options for a swim.
The track is a Grade 5 track (“Off-track or difficult terrain”) which is not really accurate; there is a well-defined trail to follow, with just the occasional easy scramble when parts of the track has been damaged by floods.
The valley gets gradually wider and I see the sun peeking above the escarpment for the first time after an hour and a half of walking as I reach Burra Korain Flat. Burra Korain is the name given to the junction of Victoria Creek and the Grose River by Myles Dunphy, after the Aboriginal name for “big wind”. There are two camping sites, a smaller one before you cross Victoria Creek, and a larger one just after the crossing.
Burra Korain to Blue Gum Forest / Acacia Flat (10km)
The next section of the Victoria Falls to Evans Lookout bushwalk follows the Grose Valley, regarded as the “cradle of conservation in NSW” as it was one of the first areas in NSW proposed for conservation, in 1875. Despite having a total length of 40km, the only formed walking track through the Grose Valley is the 8km between Burra Korain and the Blue Gum Forest. Walking the entire length of the Grose Valley, which my friend Andy is keen to undertake, is a serious proposition that takes multiple days…
Deep fatigue of muscle and mind, slippery rocks, blankets of vines, sheets of shin skin stripping undergrowth, boulders, rapids, snakes, leeches, mosquitoes, hypothermia, heat stroke, hunger and cramps have made the first eight hours of forward progress all the more challenging.
The Sleep Train – Grose Endurance
My only (relatively minor) challenge is to cross the Grose River without getting wet feet. The river level is a bit higher than usual after heavy rain a few days prior, and being too lazy to take off my shoes and not quite agile enough to leap between the stepping stones, I end up wading through the knee-high water.
At least this means that on the second crossing of the river, which is only a couple of hundred metres further, I don’t need to try and keep my already-wet-shoes dry. For the first time I start seeing a few people, most of whom have camped in the valley. There are a couple of overseas visitors, and a group of Venturer Scouts from Austinmer doing this as a 3-day walk.
This is a very pleasant and easy section of the bushwalk, as the track follows the Grose River downstream. The valley is fairly wide, with the towering cliffs some distance away, and while it’s way too cold to swim, the many beautiful pools below the track would be hard to resist on a warmer day.
The track passes Crayfish Creek, one of several that always have some water (most are unsuitable for drinking, as they originate on the populated plateau).
There are almost no unofficial campsites along the valley, as the scrub extends all the way to the water, but about 2.5km from Burra Korain is a small, cleared area next to the track and above the river that would accommodate a couple of tents.
The next major creek is Hat Hill Creek, which I recently explored from Hat Hill Road, where it passes through multiple narrow canyons before dropping over the cliffs and and into the Grose Valley. (It’s possible to follow Hat Hill Creek upstream and climb up past Hat Hill Falls via the challenging Lews Pass.)
There’s some nice views of the cliffs on the northern side of the Grose Valley as the track continues along the river.
After about 4km is the junction with the track up via Pierces Pass to Bells Line of Road (an alternate exit from the Grose Valley, but a long car shuffle if you go out this way). There’s some nice cascades here, and a deep pool and swimming hole just below the cascades.
A sign here states that the track so far from Victoria Falls and Burra Korain is Grade 5, while the next 5.5km is Grade 4… not sure what this is based on, as the track is no better or worse from here. Ironically, the worst bit of the entire bushwalk is just after this sign, where there is a very steep, eroded and muddy section of track.
It’s very pleasant walking but there’s not much to see for the next few kilometres until the track reaches the Little Blue Gum Forest.
There’s a beautiful section of the Grose River within Little Blue Gum Forest, which would make a nice spot for a break.
The vegetation becomes rainforest-like again, and there a couple of smaller creeks that (at least after rain) are a safer bet for filling up the water bottle, as their catchment area is wholly within the national park.
After negotiating a small landslide (which meant wet feet again, as the only route is to walk down the river a short distance), the track passes some more wide and tranquil pools.
About three hours from Burra Korrain I reach the Blue Gum Forest: an enormous and impressive stand of Mountain Blue Gums at the junction of the Grose River and Govetts Creek. The forest was saved from logging by bushwalkers in the early 1930s, when they discovered that Charles Hungerford, a Bilpin farmer, had a Conditional Purchase Lease on the north-eastern bank of the river. He had planned to ringbark and burn the trees, so he could graze cattle and grow walnuts.
Over less than two years, a campaign was established that raised enough money (£130) to purchase the land from Hungerford. On 2 September 1932 The Blue Gum Forest Reserve for public recreation (40 acres) was proclaimed in the New South Wales Government Gazette. The ecology of the Blue Gum Forest has changed over time; for many decades (as shown in early photos) the forest had almost no undergrowth. Since the 2019 bushfire and a series of wet years after the fire, ferns and thick undergrowth have taken over forest floor.
Until the 1970s, you could camp within the Blue Gum Forest, until it was banned to protect the forest. The campsite was moved about 600m south to Acacia Flat, where a large area was cleared of undergrowth in 1969 to allow for dispersed bush camping. It’s a popular campsite, but there are many cleared campsite spread over a large area.
Acacia Flat to Evans Lookout at Blackheath (7.5km)
From Blue Gum Forest to Acacia Flat, the walking track has been following Govetts Creek (there is no any further down the Grose Valley). The track continues along Govetts Creek (named after William Romaine Govett, a painter and assistant surveyor in the Surveyor-General’s Department of New South Wales), crossing Orang Utan Gully, an intermittent creek. This time my feet stay dry…
There’s some great views of Govetts Creek and Govett Gorge as the track rises above the creek, with Fortress Hill in the distance.
I really enjoy this section of the bushwalk, as it closely follows Govetts Creek upstream. The quality of the track through Govett Gorge is highly variable; one minute you’re on a well-built “tourist class” track, and the next negotiating ankle deep mud. It seems NPWS has fixed up the sections of the track that were most storm or fire-damaged.
Fortress Hill remains one of the most prominent features – it forms the eastern boundary of Govett Gorge on the left of the track – while directly ahead is the Carne Wall (the southern boundary of the gorge).
Junction Rock (originally known as The Junction) is at the intersection of Govetts Leap Brook and Govetts Creek; between the two creeks towers a large rock. The red tape across one track is a sad reminder that the Rodriguez Pass is closed; described as “one of the most spectacular tracks in the Blue Mountains” and a popular exit from the southern end of the Grose Valley, it was partially destroyed by landslides.
A short section of the Rodriguez Pass walking track along Govetts Creek remains open, and provides a link to the Horse Track – an alternate exit from Govett Gorge.
There are some nice views again of the cliffs which bound Govett Gorge as the track gently ascends.
Horse Track Junction marks the start of the Horse Track, and the start of the steep climb out… Of all the Grose Valley passes or trails, the Horse Track is the least spectacular – and until recently was the least well-known. It was likely an Aboriginal route out of the valley, before the first documented European use in 1898 by Jack Taylor, a Blackheath dairy farmer. A walking track was constructed around 1900 and it was improved by explosives and earth moving in the 1920s.
The historic pass was used to get cattle in and out of the Blue Gum Forest, and by packhorses to access mining leases – and it provided a safe route of the valley during floods. Its use was discouraged for a long time and there was no track signage, until landslides damaged the Rodriguez Pass track. Ironically, the NPWS then made a significant investment in upgrading the Horse Track to provide a now very-well-signposted route up to Evans Lookout.
The Horse Track zig-zags steadily up the valley, and after about 45min of steady walking the cliffs of the escarpment come into view.
Horse Track uses a natural pass, with the walking track ascending via a narrow gap to reach the top of the cliffs.
While the route up is definitely one of the least exciting of the many Blue Mountain passes, just off the main trail to the left is a rough track up to a narrow rock platform at the edge of the cliffs. It doesn’t have any signage or a name – I’ll call it Horse Track Lookout – but it offers a spectacular 180-degree view over Govett Gorge and the Grose Valley.
The Horse Track soon joins the Grand Canyon track, for the last (easy) kilometre up to Evans Lookout.
It’s taken me exactly 7.5 hours for the Victoria Falls to Evans Lookout bushwalk, with a 15min lunch break and a couple of short breaks going up the Horse Track. Just to be safe I had allowed 9 hours – and on a longer, warmer day you could easily stretch this out to a longer day walk or an overnight hike, taking the opportunity of many swimming holes along the Grose Valley and Govett Gorge.
Getting to the Victoria Falls and Evans Lookout trailheads
You can do the Victoria Falls to Evans Lookout bushwalk in either direction, with either a car shuffle or taxi/Uber transfer between the two trailheads. It’s also a bushwalk you can do using public transport, although you may want to catch a taxi to the start and finish of the bushwalking track:
- Mount Victoria – The Victoria Falls walking track starts at the end of Victoria Falls Road, which is 5.1km (10min drive) from the Great Western Highway, and 6.3km (12min drive) from Mount Victoria Station.
- Evans Lookout – the trail starts from the fenced Evans Lookout via the signposted Grand Canyon Track. It’s 6.2km (11min drive) from Blackheath.
More information
- Greenaissance – Blue Gum Forest
- Andy Macqueen – Back from the Brink: Blue Gum Forest and the Grose Valley (book)
- The Sleep Train – Grose Endurance
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