Johnny Boy's Walkabout Blog

Tuesday 11 June: Tallowa Gorge Clifftop Walk, Morton National Park – L/R,ptX. The start is in the Wingello State Forest 16 km east of Marulan. We’ll walk southeast on fire-trails to Morton National Park, then spend about 5 hours off-track following the clifftop on the rim of Tallowa Gorge. There are excellent views and some interesting side creeks that have carved deep gullies. Much of the walk is in steep, scrubby country and some rock scrambling is likely, when negotiating the small side creeks. Off-track: 8 km Fire-trail: 10 km. Maps: Wingello, Bundanoon. Leader: Ian W.

Further Information

In a couple of the videos I said we were overlooking the Shoalhaven Gorge. Our leader Ian certainly knew where we were – overlooking Tallowa Gorge!

Summary

Distance: 17.9km | Climb: 590m | Time: 8.30am – 4.10pm (7hrs 40mins), including 45 mins of breaks | Grading: L/R; H(12)

Photographs

Photographs are available, where you can start a large sized slideshow.

Videos

Waypoint and Track Files

Download the gpx file for this trip (if your browser does not automatically download the file, it will open the gpx file in a new window and you can then save it). To use in Google Earth, do File, Open… and select Gps or All files as the File Type.

Track Notes

Nearly a 12 hour day door-to-door from my old folks home in north Cooma (Gordon), but well worth the nearly 2 hours travel each way. I wasn’t driving, so used the back seat well by pushing out a few Zeds on the way up. A bit of fog on the Federal Highway (and a 3 car nose to tail car bash), then it cleared to a mild, blue-sky day.

We met briefly in Wingello, then drove via Forest Rd, Caoura Rd, a couple of other good quality fire trails to park at the intersection of Spotted Gum and Gap Rds.

Our walk in took us in along Gap Rd and Bulls Ridge Rd for 4km in 50mins.

A turn down through the scrub took us to above the first gully to cross and morning tea.

The main part of the day had us walking generally along the cliff tops above Tallowa Gorge, going right to the edge on 4 occasions for huge views to the sandstone cliffs on the other side and views down into Tallowa Gully.

Morning tea to lunch was 3.5km in 2hrs 10mins.

One scrubby patch, a few gullies to cross and scramble up out of, a couple of runs of clean sandstone slabs amongst the vegetation.

Generally, mild scrub and relatively easy going. We enjoyed 3 views across and look downs.

After lunch we had Fergusons Gully to cross. It looked fairly fearsome as it plunged down the cliff, but we only had to walk a couple of hundred metres upstream to cross. The final vantage point had the best views. From lunch to the final touch was 1.7km in 50mins.

Ian had more planned for us, but the hours were slipping away. He pulled the plug, we climbed out 200vm to Gap Rd and had a 6.7km fire trail bash in 1hr 40mins (including a useful unmap-marked fire trail that saved us dscending to a feeder to Nyes Creek).

With other commitments and a sore foot, it’s probably over a year since I did a Tuesday walk. It was great to be back and seeing new country.

Thanks Ian and all.

Track Maps

Track overview

Track 1

Track 2

Google Earth snip

Party

7 walkers – Eve B, Melinda B, Greg B, Meredith H, Ian H, Ian W (leader), me.