While we’re heading into a remote area of the Wollemi, our bushwalk has a fairly tame start as we skirt around the edge of a property from Bells Line of Road, before heading into the recently-burnt bush. Our destination is a remote waterfall in rugged terrain, which is technically no longer undiscovered, as Bernard (who is leading this walk) “discovered” the falls while poring over the LIDAR maps a few months prior.
We’re soon on a firetrail that heads deep into the Wollemi.
After a few kilometres the firetrail bifurcates; we take the left-hand fork which continues for another couple of kilometres before ending near the end of a ridge (the right-hand fork goes almost all the way to Mountain Lagoon Road).
The funs stops – or starts – here! Bernard leads us into the scrub, as we descend steeply to the bottom of a gully that will take us down to Wheeny Creek.
After navigating a few minor cliff lines, we are in the unnamed gully.
For the next two hours we cover a distance of just under a kilometre – and a vertical drop of just over 200m – as we follow this unnamed creek downstream. Despite the slow progress, it’s a very picturesque part of our Tenacity Falls bushwalk.
Somewhat surprisingly, despite the steep terrain on both sides of the creek, there are very few major obstructions… but there is no shortage of narrow slots and scrambling as we make our way down the gully.
Not much direct sunlight reaches the bottom of the rainforest gully, which means there is minimal undergrowth and almost every boulder is covered in green moss…
…on the other hand, the pleasant lack of undergrowth is offset by a multitude of logs and fallen branches – and a few boulder fields!
As we get further down the gully it start to open up a little, with a bit more sun reaching the creek.
About two-thirds of the way down the gully we reach the only major obstacle: a ten metre waterfall shown as a thick and menacing black line on the LIDAR map. We turn sharply left, leaving the creek as we find a route around this vertical drop.
We don’t have to go far before reaching a small drop, which takes us to the base of the waterfall.
Below the unnamed waterfall there is another short section of boulders and ferns.
This soon changes: the gully gets much wider and sunnier, as the creek drops down over a series of broad steps.
We’re now almost at the bottom of the gully, as we make our way along the western side of the creek, to avoid some steep drops.
While it looks from above as if there is a precipitous drop just before we reach the bottom of the gully, a series of slots and ledges provides a safe passage down.
A final series of ledges takes us down to Wheeny Creek. (Wheeny Creek possibly gets its name from the indigenous Darug word “Weenay,” which translates to “place of fire” or “fire dreaming place”. Or it may not. It’s very hard to accurately verify these place names.)
The creek is in full flow after rainy week, and on a (much) warmer day there would be an opportunity for a swim here.
Our next challenge is to cross Wheeny Creek; Bernard and I take the “wet line” with the water reaching just over our knees, while Foojan continues a bit further downstream and finds a “dry line” across the creek.
A short scramble up a gully on the opposite side of Wheeny Creek gets us to the base of Tenacity Falls, named by Bernard who discovered this remote waterall. It’s formed by an unnamed creek tumbling about 70m over a series of mossy ledges; due to it’s steep terraces rather than a single vertical drop, it’s not formally identified on any maps as a waterfall.
We return the same way after a break at the base of the falls, this time finding a dry but slightly awkward spot to cross Wheeny Creek.
It’s taken most of the day to get to Tenacity Falls – and back – and while this rugged bushwalk is (mostly) about the destination, the route down the gully to Wheeny Creek is in itself quite spectacular.
Getting to Tenacity Falls
The bushwalk starts along Bells Line of Road in Kurrajong Heights, with parking along Coach House Road. Unfortunately you can’t follow the fire trail which starts almost directly Coach House Road; you need to walk a few hundred metres west along Bells Line of Road before entering Wollemi National Park via an easement through a private property.
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