Yuri’s Conservation Walks – designed to showcase the beauty of the Gardens of Stone area – are always worth the horribly early start from Sydney. And today’s bushwalk across a sea of pagodas to the Wolgan Loops and Point Green followed by a descent to Wolgan Falls was no exception. As always, the walk begins with a briefing, and a reminder that while “Gardens of Stone Conservation Area” suggests some level of protection for this unique pagoda country, sadly mining and now tourism development (like the NPWS Commercial Glamping Proposal) still threaten the area.
We head straight into the initially dense undergrowth from the firetrail, which Yuri explains is technically a sand dune… we’re walking on what are inland, wind-blown sand dunes that date back to the last ice age, and have now been forested.
The Sunnyside Dune is a crescent-shaped body of sand, 280m long, 70–110m wide, up to 4.6m thick and thinning at the edges, with an estimated volume of 50 000 m3. It is located adjacent to the edge of the Newnes Plateau on the Sunnyside Track in the Newnes State Forest
Late Quaternary aeolian dunes on the presently humid Blue Mountains, Eastern Australia
The dense scrub, a result of the last bushfire, soon thins out and the first few hundred metres is fairly uneventful walking.
The fun starts as we reach the first (and definitely not the last!) pagoda. Formed over millions of years, the “platy” (a geological term used to describe rocks or minerals that break into thin, flat sheets.) pagoda formations are unique to the Gardens of Stone, and give the park its name. The ironstone within the sandstone, which is more resistant to weathering, creates the “plates” and step-like shapes:
The platy pagodas however are an uncommon and signifi cant geomorphic landscape feature, and are distinguished by the extent and regularity of their ironstone banding. The formation of the ironstone banding has involved the movement of iron in solution and its precipitation to form resistant bands, swirls and pipes… Platy pagodas are in our view distinct and significant features, as we are not aware of any other rock formations in Australia or overseas that mimic the geomorphology of platy pagodas.
The Geoheritage and Geomorphology of the Sandstone Pagodas of the North-western Blue Mountains Region
On some Gardens of Stones bushwalks, climbing a pagoda is an optional side-trip to get some nice views… on our bushwalk to Point Green, a series of pagodas is the route!
There are some spectacular views over the rugged landscape as Yuro leads the way along the top of a line or “spine” of pagodas towards Point Green.
Our group disperses a little as we navigate our way along the pagodas, taking time to enjoy the sandstone panorama.
There are no shortage of views over the extensive pagoda country, and the deep gorge carved by the Wolgan River.
This is one of the best vantage points on this bushwalk of the Wolgan Loops: five compressed loops carved out by the Wolgan River just above Wolgan Falls.
We pause briefly at the base of the last pagoda in this initial series, before resuming our route, which threads its way through more rock formations.
We’re soon at the first of several vantage points along Greens Spur, the narrow outcrop which we are now following, with more views over the Wolgan Loops.
A short distance later and we’re at another vantage point over the Wolgan Valley, which starts almost at the base of Wolgan Falls and gradually broadens out to eventually reach a width of just under 7km. (Wolgan Valley is characterised as a “bottle neck valley” as it narrows significantly in some places – like below where we are standing!)
We continue along the increasingly narrow Greens Spur, which ends at Point Green.
This rocky outcrop at the end of Greens Spur was named by Yuri after Richard Green, a renowned Australian landscape and nature photographer, who died in a helicopter crash in November 2015 in the Hunter Valley during severe weather. Richard had spent time photographing this area in June 2015.
The 360-degree views from Point Green include the Wolgan Valley to the west, and Wolgan Falls almost directly below.
Growing in the rocks is a small cluster of the rare Pagoda Daisy, which only grows in small pockets of sand that gather in the cracks & depressions of pagodas in the Gardens of Stone & Wollemi National Parks.
We re-trace our steps – but only for a a very short distance. A narrow slot on the western side of Greens Spur provides – with the help of some tape – a path down to the base of the tall cliffs. We’re not the only ones who have descended this way – Yuri points out an old battery that has been there for some decades. Although it’s only about a five metre drop in total, with our large group it takes almost an hour before everyone has safely descended.
Once re-assembled at the bottom of the slot, a short detour to the south takes us to a vantage point almost directly above Wolgan Falls.
Although we are perhaps a hundred metres from the base of Wolgan Falls, it is a fairly vertical hundred metres with no way of descending from here without an abseil. The route to the falls involves following the base of Greens Spur towards the north and away from the falls.
The cliffs get increasingly tall and impressive, culminating in a narrow ledge above the valley.
After a few hundred metres, a slippery descent from the the cliff-line takes us into a small gully, which is pleasant walking through light undergrowth.
The pleasant walking soon changes as we cross a small hump, and descend into a rainforest-like environment with tall ferns… and slippery, uneven terrain that requires judicious foot placement.
We’re soon just below Wolgan Falls, where the ferns are replaced by enormous boulders, logs and other obstructions that impede our progress.
As we get closer to Wolgan Falls they become increasingly impressive, even though from the base you can’t see the full height of the falls.
We have a break for lunch here next to the shallow pool, before continuing our bushwalk by heading back up and out of the valley on the southern side of Wolgan Falls. The second half of our loop is the more common access route for Wolgan Falls, which has a fixed rope on the initial steep and scree-covered slope.
We pass the base of a towering pillar of rock – which we will soon be on the top of – and follow another ledge along the base of the cliffs. (The route back to our cars requires us re-cross the Wolgan River – upstream of the falls – and traverse the valley a second time.)
The route squeezes through a gap between two boulders, before emerging near the top of the pillar we just walked under.
A second, slightly awkward scramble between more weathered boulders takes us to the top of the cliffs again.
There are more spectacular views over the Wolgan Loops and he pagoda-studded landscape.
We are almost directly opposite Point Green where we stood about four hours ago, with the Wolgan River directly below.
As we descend towards the Wolgan River, we pick up a fairly well defined bushwalking pad through the low scrub.
The bushwalking track probably goes to the No 5 Firetrail, but Yuri has a well-known and probably incurable aversion to firetrails… so we we continue as bit longer through the scrub. Eventually we emerge onto the No 5 Firetrail, which is also known as the “Spanish Steps”. Regarded as one of the toughest 4WD tracks in NSW, it has a series of sandstone benches which gives the firetrail its alternate and unofficial name. It doesn’t seem possible that even a modified 4WD can make it up (or down) some of the almost two-metre drops that we carefully scramble down, but black rubber on the sandstone indicates that they have at least attempted to…
The firetrail crosses the shallow Wolgan River a couple of times and passes more tall rock formations as it follows the valley.
No 5 Firetrail eventually meets Sunnyside Ridge Road, but it would be a fairly circuitous 4km walk going this way, so we soon plunge back into the scrub for a much more direct route up to Sunnyside Ridge.
It’s only about a hundred metres of elevation gain before we are back on the firetrail, with a short and easy stroll along the sand dune back to our cars.
It’s been a full day with (have I already mentioned this?) an early start, but I can see why this is one of Yuri’s favourite Gardens of Stone bushwalks. You could easily trim an hour off our 7.5 hour walk with a smaller group – but allow time for route-finding.
Getting to the Wolgan Loops and Point Green
The Wolgan Loops and Point Green bushwalk starts along Sunnyside Ridge Road, about 26km (allow 45min to one hour drive) from the Zig Zag Railway at Clarence via the Old Bells Line of Road. A 4WD is recommended, but depending on the condition of the road an SUV would make it with careful driving through a few rocky and rutted sections. There is very limited parking along the firetrail near the start of the walk.
More information
- P.P Hesse – Late Quaternary aeolian dunes on the presently humid Blue Mountains, Eastern Australia in Quaternary International, Vol 108, Issue 1 (2003)
- Haydn Washington and Robert Wray – The Geoheritage and Geomorphology of the Sandstone Pagodas of the North-western Blue Mountains Region (2011) [PDF]
- ABC News – Helicopter crash that killed renowned photographer in 2015 ’caused by bad weather’
- Bush Explorers Encyclopaedia – Wolgan Loops / Point Green
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