By Sharon Nott
Photos contributed by: Jane Boyd and Hans Staub
Peter and Annette Bruce: ‘Sharon, can you be the Leader for the January Trip to BIG RIVER campground-we will do the Rekkie and check it all out. It clashes with our Elvis weekend’.
Sharon: (thinking to herself that bushwalking in the middle of January in 40 degree temperatures is not what she would consider a FUN activity!). ‘Yeh sure’ (with my eyebrows raised)
Peter and Annette Bruce: ‘Great, look, l think most people will just do a little walk and sit in the river and catch up with what they have been doing over the festive season’
And so the email went out from Joby inviting our members to join a day by the Goulburn River with myself as the contact. The Visitors Guide really does say it all ‘rugged sandstone country along the course of the Goulburn River. It’s a great place for liloing, camping, bushwalking and birdwatching………..with easy walking along the flat sandy riverbed’.
70 kms from Mudgee with 17kms of dirt road felt like we were miles from anywhere and yet this great NP is right on our doorstep. Taking the bus made it a lot easier getting members to the ‘Big River’ campground-it also allowed us to be more conscious of our environmental impact and we car pooled the rest of the team. A drop in temperature from 40 degrees, low cloud, soaring wedge tailed eagles were all a sign that we were in for a good day as we meandered our way out to our gathering point. 24 members gathered under the shady Angophora’s for a sharing morning tea-where l found that John has a fetish for fruit cake!!. Other family groups were at the site but there was plenty of room.
We chatted as to what our plan was-‘let’s head down to the river and see how far we can walk’!!
Finding the steps, the group, with some keen photographer’s, started exploring. The river is the main feature of the park and as we found, it has a great waterhole right near the campground. The river is quiet shallow and you could walk along the edge for about a km. There was some great honeycombed sandstone cliffs and in places you felt like it was a wallaby’s apartment block with all these little caves. When the walking meant getting feet/knees wet the group broke up with the majority heading back to grab their swimmers and frolic in the waterhole (I can’t report on what they actually got up to – but they sounded like they had a good time when we all reported back to our apple tree base). A group of 5 of us-Eunice, Hans, Jim, Paula and myself blazed on to complete the 3-4km walk to Spring Gully and then the 1km walk back along the road to our base camp- This group formed a special bond and given that Eunice wasn’t going to get wet she is indeed a true trooper. The scenery just kept throwing up surprises – salmon coloured gums complementing the varied coloured sandstone cliffs, overhanging She-Oaks, varied coloured river stone, muscle shells and playful dotterels on the water’s edge made the surroundings majestic.
Giant Lizards are the main attraction on the day.
The Goulburn River NP is definitely worth a visit-with your swimmers, old joggers, food, picnic table, chairs, inflatable and a group of likeminded people. The Mudgee Bushwalking Club kicked off the year with a great activity and Peter and Annette which just have to give Elvis a miss next time!!
More photos, click Gallery on the menu.
