When
I was asked in December, 1938, to join a party to spend Christmas and
New Year on the Kowmung, I accepted with alacrity. The summer was
exceptionally hot, I was tired of the city, and I visualised lazy days
of loafing on grassy banks, reading, sleeping and chatting, interspersed
with frequent swims. But I had reckoned without my hosts, "the
Tigers." I might have known that they would not be content to lie
in gentle amity with the lamb. Their plan was to follow the Kowmung from
its source to its junction with the Cox, and I was blissfully unaware
that this had not before been "done" at river level by women.
My
first shock was the food. My pack was filled to bursting point, but
I reflected that, after all, one does expect to eat a little more during
the festive season, and cheerfully shouldered my
burden.
Fifteen
of us set out from Katoomba early on 24th December and drove out past
Ginkin. Christmas Day was spent on the Kowmung eating, resting and
exploring Hollander's Gorge and Chardon Canyon, and at 6.45 a.m. on
Boxing Day the trip proper began. The morning's walk took us through
easy though uninteresting country, but later the river broadened and we
lunched at Tuglow Hole Creek by a fine pool where we swam and sun-baked.
After lunch, we picked our way over rocks and through scrub and came to
the first canyon, where we either had to swim or go over the top
Transport
Difficulties
We
each had a small surf float to take our pack, but after much puffing and
blowing we found that the packs would not balance on them. We then tried
making a raft from odd pieces of driftwood, but that too was
unsuccessful, so we tied our packs in ground sheets, placed them
carefully in the water, and away they went bobbing along with the
current, while we swam behind them. Two other great granite-bound pools
were negotiated in this way during the afternoon, and at length we came
to Morong Falls, where the party divided—some had to return to town.
The nine who were left camped on a narrow patch well above the river,
amid clumps of the delightful Xerotes or sago plant, whose sharp,
sword-like leaf made even more uncomfortable our sloping gravel bed.
We
set off very early next morning, hopping, clambering, and hoisting
ourselves from boulder to great boulder—giants' toys tossed carelessly
into the bed of the river. For a time I felt that I would have given
anything to have gone back with the others; I even thought with pleasure
of Pitt Street at mid-day and the jostling Christmas crowds. But this
mood did not last long, and was banished forever when I managed to
negotiate a nasty piece of slippery granite beside a waterfall.
"The Tigers" ran down, as much at home as the waterfall
itself, but I was so glad to have accomplished it, my spirits soared and
did not drop again.
All
that day was rock hopping, tying one's pack, pushing it and swimming;
untying it, feeling glad it had not tipped and wet the contents —rock
hopping again, more swims, and more and more. The heat was appalling.
The sun was hot, the air was hot, the rocks were hot, and we were hotter
than any of them. The banks of the river were most inhospitable, with
boulders, clumps of sago plant, and the spiked blackthorn. At lunch time
we were hard pushed to find a place to sit (we certainly could not lie
down), so as soon as we had eaten, we sank back into the water and
floated there like rhinoceroses replete after a gorge.
Camped
by a Waterfall
During
the afternoon the wind grew hotter, the sun was a menacing ball burning
in a grey smoke haze, and the river began to run in. a narrow torrent
through a gorge of pink granite rocks, serrated and broken. On and on we
went, with the hot wind blowing into our faces. At last we stopped at
the only possible camp spot—a few odd patches of flat ground above a
great pool spilling over into a waterfall. We ate dinner perched on.
this eyrie, then straight to bed with the tumult of the river singing us
to sleep. But mosquitoes, sandflies, an'd the beat made sound sleep
impossible. A thunderstorm broke during the night, but there was little
rain.
Next
morning, refreshed in body, and with spirits as hilarious as ever, we
crossed a granite causeway and clambered along to a small tree, where
the packs were lowered. We followed, clambering down the tree to the
water, whereupon we wrapped packs and swam a 125-yards pool. Again we
had to lower packs and clamber down by degrees or bits. Then more rock
hopping or boulder bounding. .Sometimes we used one or other of the men
as ladders, and climbed up or down over them.. Next a fly climb along
sloping granite sides, then packs again and another swim. This continued
all day, scrub pushing, rock hopping, and those saving swims. That
afternoon we came on our first traces of cattle, and gave a loud cheer,
for where the cows could go, so could we. Shortly after, we came into
comparatively easy country, and left behind the-great granite gorges, so
difficult to negotiate, but whose magnificence and grandeur had given us
a compensating feeling of exultation.
After
a long afternoon, we camped at a most delightful spot where the river
bent in a wide sweep around a tiny island crowded with dwarf casuarinas—a
place of peace and beauty, and we slept soundly without the noise of
rushing water in our ears.
Another
Long Swim
A
soft rain was falling next morning as we followed a cattle pad along the
green banks—for the first time unaccompanied by flies. About 11
o'clock we came to the formidable part of the journey—a long canyon
which the previous party had decided not to attempt. The rocks ran like
flying buttresses into the water, and one couldn't see. what was ahead.
We decided to find out. We lowered packs, then jumped after them—there
was no possibility of clambering down. The water was warm and pleasant
and we found plenty of resting places. Except that the swim was
comparatively long, the canyon was quite easy to accomplish.
Unfortunately many of the packs were wet from being in the water so
long. On coming to a grassy bank, fires were lit to dry the gear whilst
we ate a stupendous' meal.
The
character of the river was now changed—no more gorges and rushing
waters, granite boulders and towering cliffs, but a peaceful stream
running between banks lined with casuarinas; now bubbling over small
pebbles, now was spilling into quiet pools. The next great excitement
was ice-cream at Church Creek, thoughtfully provided by the men of the
party who went into Yerranderie.
More
people joined us here to finish the trip, and we had a hilarious New
Year's Eve on a teaspoon of wine each.
We
followed the Kowmung down to the Cox, low and sluggish in the fierce
mid-summer's heat; turned up Cedar Creek, which was perfectly dry for a
long way up; a long hot pull over the Ruined Castle, and on to Katoomba
and home.
We
had accomplished what we had set out to do, but for a long time I was
not quite certain whether I had "done" the Kowmung or the
Kowmung had "done for me." |