The Waterfall Run

After a few days of being stuck at home due to bad weather we were keen to get out and about again especially as I have had days of work, so it was up early and on our way to Waratah as we were keen to check out Philosopher Falls.  We have been saying that we where going to do this for ages now so it was good to finally go and do it.  The weather was once again horrible and raining but it just seemed to stop as we got there thankfully so we got our stuff organised and headed in and instantly it was like winding the clock back millions of years the forest looked and felt ancient you kind of nearly expected to see dinosaurs

It kind of felt scary having your back to this tree as it looked like it wants to grab you

There where also some massive fallen Myrtles here as well, seeing this makes you a bit wary of walking through the forest. After getting down and crossing the boardwalk across the Arthur River the rest of the track follows a water race to the falls. The water race was used to supply the township/mine of Magnet back in the early 1900’s.You have to give it to the early settlers this would have been wet hard brutal work digging this out for quite a few km. Not much further up there is a staircase down to a viewing platform for the falls and it was definitely worth the walk.Some very red fungus on the way.

From here we decided to go and have a look up Mt Cleveland but it was pointless as the seasons were confused and it thought it was a drizzly winters day so we didn’t see a thing but the trip up was a bit of fun.After this we decided to go down to the Hazelwood River and have a bit of lunch.

It is a beautiful little river if it where any warmer I would have nearly got in for a swim

From here we where on our way to Waratah to check out a water fall that I found out about that is pretty well hidden but on the way there was something else I wanted to check out first

Which was the Arthur River Dam which I believe was built for a constant water supply for the water race mentioned above, it doesn’t look overly big but it must have worked.

We arrived on Waratah and found the track to the falls and literally just as we started walking down it Summer decided to show up again, I reckon the temperature rose about 10 degrees  in a matter of seconds and been in a very damp tea tree and dogwood forest it made it feel like a sauna which wasn’t good as the walk was extreme it was basically straight down the side of a mountain thick with rotten wood and moss but it was worth it in the end

The Walk up was literally a living Hell and although the falls were good I don’t think I will be visiting them any time soon again.  So after getting back to the 4wd soaking wet from sweat and covered in prickles we decided to go check out a couple of more falls near Ridgley.

The first one was Serpent Falls which was very hard to find anywhere to get a good look but luckily I had the drone

Not to far from here there are a couple of other falls so we decided to go and check them out as well the first Sanderson Falls there was another walk down a steep hill so we decided not to this time but we did find someone’s opium stash and it was flourishing.So after I dragged Jacinta away we went onto the next falls ( St Georges) and in their own way I thought these ones were the best.Although not much water was flowing over, this one was a true waterfall as it touches nothing from the top down to the bottom.

After this we are home bound and hanging out for a nice cold beer.  Hope you all had a great 2016 and have an even better 2017 and will catch ya in the new year.

Cheers Brendan & Jacinta

The whole video can be seen on you tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnyyNqjHvJ4