Oakdale to Yerranderie

[Solohike74]

Has anyone walked into Yerranderie or beyond from ghe water board gate at Sheehys Road?

[michael_p]

Hi Solohike74,

It's illegal to walk through that area as the Schedule 1 Catchment exclusion zone extends all the way to the gate. Have a look here: http://www.sca.nsw.gov.au/catchment/manage/special-areas.

And here is the end of the road: https://maps.google.com.au/maps?q=-34.128716,150.503404&hl=en&num=1&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=-34.128695,150.503457&panoid=FSJ73bWz3AzAV2HjVtNj4w&cbp=12,276.36,,0,1.18

And for a laugh have a look here: http://users.tpg.com.au/users/eirvine/warragamba/story.htm.

Cheers,
Michael.

[kanangra]

Promise not to tell anyone? But I rode out that way about 30 years ago.

K

[Grabeach]

25 years ago I was visiting a mate who lived out that way and we drove through the open gate down to the water. Not sure what we would have done if someone had locked it while we were down there. Didn't have enough petrol to get to Oberon.

[michael_p]

I've never been down into the forbidden zone.

I do remember as a kid going to the Burragorang Lookout and there were several walking tracks that headed away from the picnic area. Last time I visited the lookout there were no entry signs about every 10m's around the area. How things change.

[Solohike74]

How are the water crossings?

[michael_p]

How are the water crossings?

River height data for the Wollondilly can be found here: http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/wrap_fwo.pl?IDN60143.html. As far as I am aware there is no height data for the Nattai.

Michael.

[Mark F]

Look below the Warragamba Dam heading and you will see a height for the Nattai at Smallwoods Crossing just below the Kowmung entry

[michael_p]

Look below the Warragamba Dam heading and you will see a height for the Nattai at Smallwoods Crossing just below the Kowmung entry

Well there you go. Never thought to look under Warragamba. Thanks Mark F, you learn something new every day.

[DaveNoble]

How are the water crossings?

You cross the Nattai on a bridge - well above the river. It used to provide access to coal mines on the west side of the river, as well as access to Yerranderie via the Wollondilly arm of Lake Burragorang. The Wollondilly at the ford can be harder to cross if the water is high.

Dave

[Haematocrit]

I don't know who, but someone took a trip on Sunday into the Nattai. He had hoped to skirt the edges of the restricted zone, entering from Wattle ridge, down Nattai road to exit at Thirlmere lakes. He left the car park at 5 am, and using a head torch initially, made good time, crossing the nattai for the first time at 8am and reaching the turn-off to Beloon pass at 9am

. The idiot, who shall remain nameless, had previously come this way on a trip to yerranderie on the june long w/e last year. So it was only at this point, 19.5kms into the trip that he realised that he had left his map in the car. Carrying on regardless, he made good time reaching another locked gate which clearly indicated that walkers only could continue. The next stretch offered only occasional glimpses of sandstone cliffs due to light rain and mist, but the going was good and to an agriculturalists eye it was obvious how fertile these river flats, now being reclaimed by regrowth, once were. With a map, the idiot would have turned right about 5km after the locked gate to quickly leave the restricted zone and exit via Little river and Blue gum creek. Foolishly he turned left.

Smallwoods crossing is a concrete causeway in a U shaped river bed

. There is a very well engineered flying fox adjacent which would allow crossing during flood - the river depth could easily reach 15meters, but today was only a couple of inches over the causeway.

There is a small fibro house here and a large grassed clearing, the road veers easterly for about a km before meeting a sealed road at a T intersection. The idiot fortunately considered it wise to turn right to follow the Nattai downstream and trudged for kilometers down the sealed road expecting to be accosted and fined any moment. He crossed the bridge referred to by a previous poster

and the continued east to slog up what he realised was Sheehy's Creek road. At just after 2pm, about 42km after setting off he was picked up on Barkers Lodge road by his long suffering beloved and delivered back to his starting point to pick up his car and return home to nurse his blisters. She was sensible enough to bring a beer

[kanangra]

Great little circuit isn't it? Hard to think that heavy colliery trucks once rumbled down those now deserted roads. As a matter of interest you also have the option of returning via the Little River Rd. That ends up at Thirlmere Lakes NP. There is also a track that cuts across from Sheeys Ck Rd to the Little River Road. You need low water though because at maximum storage the last section is flooded.

K.