Hawkes Creek Swallet

Today we thought we would go and check out something that has been on the list for a while Hawkes Creek Swallet.  A swallet is where a waterway just disappears into the side of a hill and then re-appears somewhere up-stream, a great example of this is at Julius River.  So after loading the ‘Slug’ we where off and got to near where it is located and then walked the rest of the way.  It was only a very short walk but still found some interesting stuff on the way.

I have gone from never seeing Blue Fungus at all to now seeing it all the time

and it seems to grow just about everywhere it is wet including in trees Not much further up we came across whatever this is.  Something that I have never seen before, just wish I had a decent camera to get a more detailed shot.  Not much further after this we could hear the creek and little did we know we where actually on top of it, so we followed it downstream and found the inlet to the Swallet.

Standing on top of the inlet looking upstream.

Inlet just behind the log jam.

About 50m downstream was the outlet

So after checking out the Swallet we headed out but that wasn’t without it challenges as the bush was so thick above that the GPS had a little bit of trouble picking up satellites so I turned my attention back to looking at the fungus and wondering whether you could eat it if we got lost but luckily for us the road magically appeared out of nowhere.

As we where close to the Arthur River we thought we would take the ‘Slug’ for a bit of a ride and try find our way down to it but every little track we went down just disappeared back into bush so about the only thing interesting that happened on the ride was a big tree was over the track and for whatever reason I had to try to get over it

So after achieving nothing at all we headed back to the 4wd to check out another spot on Salmon River Road. Walkers Mine,

Whats left of a building in the area

The mine Adit.  I’m not sure when or what was mined here but it must have been reasonable at the time as there is what I think is an old tramway nearby

Old Sleepers??

Possibly old tramway. There is a lot of old ground disturbance in the area so there may have been an old quarry or something here at some stage also.

For what was meant to be a lazy Sunday turned out to be rather busy but found some great stuff so it was worth it.

Full Video here.

Hope you Enjoyed

Cheers Brendan & Jacinta