Guy Fawkes
Posted: Fri 13 May, 2011 10:26 pmWHAT’S IN A NAME?
Chaelundi, it has an exotic ring to it don’t you think? Although that’s where I was heading it’s actually down the road. Well, Chaelundi National Park that is; not Chaelundi Creek which begets Chaelundi Falls that you can view from Chaelundi Bluff. No, they’re all in Guy Fawkes National Park and you can readily access them all from, wait for it, Chaelundi campground, which is where I started my walk from. This naming has confused more than one person!
Other than myself there was a couple from New England, about 30 kms west of Armidale, and they had decided to pack up and see some of the great wilderness that was, so to speak, in their own backyard.
I’ve spoken to quite a few who have the same passion for bushwalking as I do and they’ve universally said they’d thought of coming out here but had never actually made it so I felt like something of a trailblazer amongst my contacts.
For some reason I had it in the back of my mind that it was a 4WD road in but the new brochure that I picked up from Dorrigo seemed to indicate otherwise and so it turned out, although the National Park section of the road in was narrow, even more so when you’re driving a motorhome.
Though my nephew and his partner couldn’t make it, I met up with another bushwalking buddy, Julie, and we set off after an early lunch, initially following the creek that had a little fresh in it which was just as well because it would be struggling to even trickle in a drought.
It’s less than a kilometre before you reach the falls though it’s not a sheer drop; no, it’s more a series of steps going down a steep incline for a long way. The view from there was good but, as we pushed on along the Lucifers Thumb Track it became apparent that it could be special up ahead, as touted by the National Parks brochure.
The relatively mundane sclerophyll forest eventually gave way to the final bare rock of the bluff and immediately convinced us that we had made the right decision to come here. It is unquestionably one of the better panoramas I’ve gazed upon in Australia, this viewpoint giving around 180 degrees of panorama down the valley to where the Guy Fawkes River meets Chaelundi Creek and the truly adventurous can do multi day walks.
The high points visible from here and listed further down at Misty Creek Lookout are too numerous to mention but Woolpack Rocks, where we’d trekked the previous week, was among them.
There’s something special about sitting on an outlook such as this with the updraft caressing your face and just the sound of flexing leaves and the occasional bird to disturb the peace. Not even the distant drone of aeroplanes pervades this place, merely the white cloud puffs rolling across the sky, their shadows traversing the ridges and plunging into the canyon floor before effortlessly climbing across the verdant landscape, rent rich green by the recent rains.
There’s a feeling of spiritual renewal in landscapes and moments such as this and we tarried awhile to soak it up, though I spent some of that time photographing a bird I’d never seen before, the white eared honeyeater.
We later visited Wurrang Lookout because that’s one of two entry points to Jordan’s Trail, a two day hike that starts its descent here and returns up the ridges when you reach Wallaby Point a few kilometres upstream. It was here that we felt the first bite of afternoon chill that pervades these parts in autumn and winter and beckons you to warmer places, such as the fire that our New England friends had already started.
Chaelundi, it has an exotic ring to it don’t you think? Although that’s where I was heading it’s actually down the road. Well, Chaelundi National Park that is; not Chaelundi Creek which begets Chaelundi Falls that you can view from Chaelundi Bluff. No, they’re all in Guy Fawkes National Park and you can readily access them all from, wait for it, Chaelundi campground, which is where I started my walk from. This naming has confused more than one person!
Other than myself there was a couple from New England, about 30 kms west of Armidale, and they had decided to pack up and see some of the great wilderness that was, so to speak, in their own backyard.
I’ve spoken to quite a few who have the same passion for bushwalking as I do and they’ve universally said they’d thought of coming out here but had never actually made it so I felt like something of a trailblazer amongst my contacts.
For some reason I had it in the back of my mind that it was a 4WD road in but the new brochure that I picked up from Dorrigo seemed to indicate otherwise and so it turned out, although the National Park section of the road in was narrow, even more so when you’re driving a motorhome.
Though my nephew and his partner couldn’t make it, I met up with another bushwalking buddy, Julie, and we set off after an early lunch, initially following the creek that had a little fresh in it which was just as well because it would be struggling to even trickle in a drought.
It’s less than a kilometre before you reach the falls though it’s not a sheer drop; no, it’s more a series of steps going down a steep incline for a long way. The view from there was good but, as we pushed on along the Lucifers Thumb Track it became apparent that it could be special up ahead, as touted by the National Parks brochure.
The relatively mundane sclerophyll forest eventually gave way to the final bare rock of the bluff and immediately convinced us that we had made the right decision to come here. It is unquestionably one of the better panoramas I’ve gazed upon in Australia, this viewpoint giving around 180 degrees of panorama down the valley to where the Guy Fawkes River meets Chaelundi Creek and the truly adventurous can do multi day walks.
The high points visible from here and listed further down at Misty Creek Lookout are too numerous to mention but Woolpack Rocks, where we’d trekked the previous week, was among them.
There’s something special about sitting on an outlook such as this with the updraft caressing your face and just the sound of flexing leaves and the occasional bird to disturb the peace. Not even the distant drone of aeroplanes pervades this place, merely the white cloud puffs rolling across the sky, their shadows traversing the ridges and plunging into the canyon floor before effortlessly climbing across the verdant landscape, rent rich green by the recent rains.
There’s a feeling of spiritual renewal in landscapes and moments such as this and we tarried awhile to soak it up, though I spent some of that time photographing a bird I’d never seen before, the white eared honeyeater.
We later visited Wurrang Lookout because that’s one of two entry points to Jordan’s Trail, a two day hike that starts its descent here and returns up the ridges when you reach Wallaby Point a few kilometres upstream. It was here that we felt the first bite of afternoon chill that pervades these parts in autumn and winter and beckons you to warmer places, such as the fire that our New England friends had already started.