Spectacular waterfalls, slots and pagodas along Carne Creek

It’s hard to resist a bushwalk led by Yuri that explores the spectacular Gardens of Stone Conservation Area; we’re taking a route that passes under and over a number of pagodas, and visits Edmund Falls and Devils Throat along the wild Carne Creek Gorge. Part of Yuri’s motivation in leading these popular bushwalks is to promote awareness an area that still lacks comprehensive protection: a State Conservation Area permits “mineral and petroleum exploration and mining”, and potential tourist developments also present an ongoing threat.

Edmund Falls and the Pagodas of Carne Creek

The bushwalk starts near the end of Firetrail Number 3 (not the most inspiring name) – as far as we can get in our mostly AWD/SUV cars – where Yuri points out where today’s adventure will take us.

A couple of imposing pagodas at the end of the firetrail offer the first views of the wild Carne Creek Gorge, a watercourse which is almost 20km in length and flows into the Wolgan River. It was named by Myles Dunphy in 1965 after the geologist Joseph Edmund Carne (1855-1922). The first pagoda offers sweeping views of the cliffs on the opposite side of Carne Creek.

A cluster of smaller pagodas provide an even more impressive view of the narrow and winding gorge.

From the end of the firetrail, we head off in easterly direction, along the top of the Carne Creek cliffs.

Our first destination takes us down into a tributary of Carne Creek into Edmund Gully, descending via a narrow slot or ramp in the cliff-line.

We find a safe passage down the tall and narrow slot, as we push through ferns and squeeze through a small gap at the end.

We emerge from the slot near a tributary of Carne Creek; I head downstream for a short distance, but it’s very slow-going through large boulders, fallen trees and thick undergrowth.

Meanwhile, Yuri explores one of the large shelters above the creek (encountering a startled swamp wallaby on the way) while those who stay and have a short break near the creek spot a very cool feather-horned beetle, or Rhipicera femorata (photo credit: Anna Janczewska): “There are only six species of Rhipiceridae in Australia… None have been studied well so little is yet known about their life cycle or habits. In Feather-horned Beetles, the large male antennae are used to locate a female beetle when she is emitting a mating pheromone”.

Our exit route takes us up the tributary creek, and we soon spot Edmund Falls on the opposite of the valley.

We continue up through the fairly thick scrub, passing a large sandstone overhang as head up the end of Edmond Gully.

There is soon an even better vantage point over Edmund Falls, which is not an official name for the waterfall – it was named by Michael Keats and Brian Fox in May 2015 after Joseph Edmund Carne.

A bit more scrub-bashing gets us back to the top of the cliff-line again, a little further east of where we descended into Edmund Gully.

It’s easy walking again through low grass and heath as we skirt around the top of Edmund Gully, just above where we were have an hour ago.

Our route takes us directly above Edmund Falls, and one of the most impressive views of the bushwalk so far: the waterfall below and behind it, enormous overhangs carved out of the cliffs.

On both sides of Carne Creek, the vertical cliffs are punctuated by long ledges and deep caves and overhangs, many of which (somewhat implausibly) sustain what appears to be a rainforest environment spilling out of the entrance.

It’s been fairly slow-going until now through this trackless environment, but we’re now making much quicker progress along the fairly open and obstacle-free grassland that covers the top of the escarpment.

About halfway along the route we’re taking above the cliffs we stop for a lunch break, with the Lunch Pagoda offering another glimpse into the depths of the Carne Creek gorge.

After lunch we continue to head south along the top of the cliff-line, until we reach Firetrail Number 2 – at the end of this firetrail is a pagoda known as the Lurline Jack Lookout, with it’s distinctive square-shaped rock on top. It was named by Karen McLaughlin after a plaque that was placed on the pagoda by Anthony Neil Jack (AJ Jack) in 2002 “In loving Memory of Lurlene Jack 22/4/28 – 5/9/67“, his mother having died of cancer when he was two years old.

Devils Throat

From Firetrail Number 2 we head off down into another gully on the second part of our bushwalk – you could also do this as a completely separate walk.

It’s not a difficult descent but there is a lot of scrambling, and progress (especially with a large group) is fairly slow. At the bottom of the first scrubby slot is a small, innocent-looking puddle. I hop across it, getting one shoe slightly wet. It’s actually an evil and deceptive “puddle” – as I find out on our return trip.

Next is a small vertical drop, which we scramble down under increasingly tall cliffs.

A last scramble down a boulder-lined creek bed and we reach Camp Creek, which we now follow upstream to Devils Throat.

It’s a slow but scenic walk up gorge the side of the creek, which has steep cliffs on both sides.

There’s a couple of tight squeezes through bolders above the creek, which require removal of backpacks to squeeze through.

The slow progress is offset by the impressive scenery of the fern-filled gorge, and a series of small cascades along Camp Creek.

At the end of the Camp Creek Gorge is the “shimmering, inflated apron of the outflow from the Devils Throat”, where Camp Creek cascades over a wide rock platform. It’s carefully negotiated by climbing up the side of the creek.

At the top of the apron is Devils’s Throat, where Carne Creek drops through a 15m high vertical shaft in the rock, before cascading out at the base of the cliffs through a slot hole in the rock. It’s a unique and spectacular feature, described better than I can by Michael Keats and Brian Fox:

…there is the noise of water crashing down as it discharges from the contorted canyon at the top into the cylindrical tube of the Devils Throat.

Coming up closer, one notices this amazing horizontal slit, where the falling water can be seen as a perpetual curtain before it races down the slope and over the apron. The slot is perhaps 4m long and half a metre tall. It is very hard to photograph and capture the totality of the experience.

Bush Explorers

We return the same way back along Camp Creek; the trickiest scramble is done with the aid of a tape.

Just above this tape-assisted scramble up is what I’m calling Satan’s Puddle… I’d heard a shriek from someone in front of me. Apparently the puddle is quite deep. But as I barely got one foot wet on the way down, I figured the reports of its depth were greatly exaggerated. I was wrong. After tentatively putting one foot into the end of the “puddle”, a few seconds later I’m literally in Satan’s Puddle with water up to my upper chest… Rather drenched from toe to neck, I finish the bushwalk at Firetrail Number 2, where we’ve left a couple of cars.

Getting to the Carne Creek Gorge bushwalk

There are many routes above and along the length of Carne Creek which are described in the Gardens of Stones book by Michael Keats and Brian Fox; this route starts and finishes at the end of Firetrail Number 2 and Firetrail Number 3, which are off the Glowworm Tunnel Road about 13km from the junction of Glowworm Tunnel Road and Old Bells Line of Road. It’s about a 2:30min drive from Sydney and 35min from Lithgow. If you’re doing this bushwalk without a car shuffle, it’s an additional 4km (one hour) of easy walking along Glowworm Tunnel Road and the two firetrails to create a loop walk.

You could also do the bushwalk by following Carne Creek through the gorge, rather than following the top of the cliffs (this would be a harder and slower route.)

More information

• Gardens of Stones – Threats
• Bush Explorers – Carne Creek / Edmund Falls / Lurline Jack Lookout / Devils Throat
• Bush Explorers – Devils Throat and the cliffs of East Creek [PDF]
• Museums Victoria – Rhipicera (Agathorhipis) femorata