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Chasm Falls 2017 ii Dec

Chasm Falls, Middle and Lower Dec 2017


My daughter was getting married next day. I had been working hard for months to get everything right for a wedding in our garden, and now that everything was abuzz, and the house full of helpers, I was feeling the overload. Meanwhile, treasured friends from Armidale (where our girls were born) – in fact, Yelena’s godparents – had arrived and wanted to go running with  me. I thought a walk to Chasm Falls to show them some local beauty would be more fun. We could run in the gorge on the other days. So, a walk to a waterfall it was, and a glorious one at that.


I photographed; Robyn inspected the wonders of moss and lichen; both friends just sat and stared at the mesmerising beauty for a while; and Keith joined me for some of the trickier climbing manoeuvres. It’s nice not to be alone when on slippery, sloping rocks with rather a big drop. I wasn’t too daring, as in my new role of “walker of our precious daughter down the aisle”, I didn’t think it would be appreciated if I died on wedding eve, or even if I needed to hobble on crutches. For Lenie’s sake, I was about as sensible as I get.


Lena thought it was wonderful that I took a well-earned break, and I felt greatly refreshed for having been let off the leash for a while.


And, in case you were wondering, yes, there were tears going down that aisle: both tears of sorrow that Bruce wasn’t there to share the day, and also tears of joy that Lenie was manifestly having the happiest day of her life, even if droplets were falling a bit … and, of course, there were also big, joyous smiles. I think I even heard giggles of delight as we walked down that all too short yet eternally long passageway between the hay bails towards a waiting Jonnie, so that the two young lovers could pledge eternal faithfulness. When you have helped your husband through fifteen years of Parkinson’s disease and still kept loving each other, you know that those words: “to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death shall part us” have a poignant significance. I remember the little student Louise saying those words and nearly choking on the last clause, it was such a horrid thought.

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Chasm Falls 2017 i Dec

Chasm Falls Dec 2017


Every time I have been past Chasm Falls, I’ve been in a hurry, and have only taken hand-held shots, not wanting to hold up my companions who were keen on this or that summit. I decided it was high time to rectify this matter, and give just these falls my whole attention for an afternoon.


The walk in only took me half an hour, so I had plenty of time to devote to setting up and exploring around for a bit. The photography thus took an hour and a half. It was nice to have the leisure to explore and relax and shoot what appealed, and I felt privileged to live in a place where you can set out from home and shoot waterfalls like these in between lunch and dinner.


The route I followed was exactly the route my blog shows when I visited Mt Ironstone (www.natureloverswalks.com/mt-ironstone/). Head for Meander, try not to get worried about the fact that the council signposts Liffey Falls but not the Meander, Chasm or Smoko Falls – or Bastion Cascades, Split Rock Falls or Shower Falls, for that matter. If you have enough patience, right near the end when you no longer need a sign as you’ve sorted yourself all out, you finally get one to put you at your ease. (First you want Meander Falls Rd and then Smoko Road).


Your early task after parking at the road’s terminus is to cross the creek before you set off up the hill. There’s a kind of open area with signs – ancient wizards with lichen beards – to the left for Mt Ironstone and Chasm Falls, to the right for Smoko Falls and Mother Cummings Peak. Obviously, if your choice for the day is Chasm Falls, you head left. If that creek’s flooded, then decide for Smoko Falls instead (which are not, actually, on the Smoko  Creek, just to confuse you).

Here’s a curiosity: To get to the Chasm Falls, you follow Smoko Creek. To get to Smoko Falls, you follow the Mother Cummings Rivulet and then seek a tributary flowing into it higher up. If that’s not counter-intuitive and confusing enough, (given that it might be reasonable to expect that the falls on Smoko Creek are called Smoko Falls), further troubles arrive if you go to the bother of reading the small print on your map, for there you discover that Smoko Creek miraculously changes its name to Mother Cummings Rivulet higher up – yet, as said, Mother Cummings Rivulet is the name of the stream (so the map says) which is to the right and comes from the Mother Cummings Peak direction. One of those two entries must be wrong. Luckily there are signs to direct you left or right, and only name peepers on maps get confused. However, photographers get confused, and post images of falls that are incorrectly labelled due to the myriad other confusions to be had in this area.

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Bastion Bluff 2012 Oct

Bastion Bluff    6-7 October 2012

J and I sat on a rocky outcrop in the sun waiting for the others to appear through the dry eucalypt scrub below. We couldn’t hear them yet. In fact, we couldn’t hear much at all. It was one of those still, silent days in the bush when even the insects seem to be sleeping. The sun was warm, but we knew if we took off our jackets we’d begin to freeze. There had been a snowstorm the previous day; we were only warm because we’d climbed. This outcrop was a great place to stop. We’d gained our height and the land was about to flatten out and moisten up. Dry sclerophyll forest would give way to scrubbier melaleucas very soon. Rock underfoot would cede to mud. We would lunch by a stream in that section. Both times I’ve been there we’ve lunched at that creek (in fact, both times I’ve sat in the middle of the creek to eat – seemed like the easiest and most picturesque way of getting water “on tap” so to speak). As we sat and gazed, on the other side of the broad drop below, we could see dark storm clouds. I willed them away. “Let us have lunch first”, I pleaded.


The morning had been beautiful – a case where the means are nearly as good as the end they enable. Over the Meander River to continue along the Smoko track for fifteen minutes to a clearing and track junction where the old road then becomes a tagged trail through pristine rainforest, heading (in our case) for Chasm Falls. There are several beautiful waterfalls here (complete with clear, beckoning pools offering fabulous swimming to the hardy in summer). These were followed by a brief upward slope to the rocks where we sat perched.


Later, while eating at a higher creek, we could look up to see where our pad would continue. In particular, the chimney of snow that led to the bluff itself looked exciting. Before that, we would need to negotiate the swampy scrub, with its tapes (old, faded) or tin cans on a post (heavily rusted), and up past rocky scree to the chimney that led to the bluff. The snow in the chimney was slippery, steep and unreliable, so we elected to climb the rocks at the side until we reached the flat summit. The Ironstone cairn could be seen across the expanse at the top. The views from the bluff itself were well worth seeing (as views tend to be). At about this time the snow started as we headed off across the flat, rocky top, rich with tiny tarns, to a shallow gully that would offer protection should the wind come up during the night. I am not of a practical nature, and put views ahead of little matters like not being blown away, so had been rather hoping for one of the exposed tarns near the bluff itself, which would have offered the best sunrise and sunset photos.


Be that as it may, the spot where we pitched was spectacular – next to a wall of iced snow that looked like a scene from Antarctica. Snow fell both as we pitched, and also while we boiled the trangia on our “kitchen rock” for a cup of soup to warm up. By the time we were drinking, B’s pack was already buried in snow. (He decided it would not fit in the vestibule. I hoped we could find it in the morning). Snow fell on us, mantling our heads in its light fluff as mugs obscured our faces. I decided it was a good idea to eat our main meal super early, as maybe the kitchen wouldn’t exist if we waited for real dinner time, and the others agreed. Some were so cold they didn’t finish dinner anyway and retreated to bed. B and I and some others went exploring the snowy fields until the light faded. It was beautiful in its white expanse, with some blue crevices for colour.


We had pitched right next to the creek, and I lay listening to the soothing sound of its trickle as I dozed off – a sound that diminished as the night wore on and the creek increasingly froze over. By morning, it was a strip of ice with interesting patterns and a glisten as the struggling sun caught its crystals.


The view from the Bluff was superb on the return journey. There was sparkling rime covering the boulders in the foreground, and the colours of the mountains seen through gaps in the boulders were more intense in the early light. The contrast of white ice and blue-green mountains on the horizon made it more special. It was sad to descend from our snowy kingdom, but at least we were heading down to superb rainforest and waterfalls.
This trip was done before I owned a gps. If you turn to my blog on Mt Ironstone ( http://www.natureloverswalks.com/mt-ironstone/ ‎) you will find the start of this route, which coincides with the Ironstone one until this route hives off, along the Dell Track, after Chasm Falls.