(header photographs by Harry Waite 1912-2011)

The Myth of the Sacred Brumby

 

 

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A Glorious Failure

      The unconquered Heights of Arethusa Falls

      by Dorothy English

      from the Bushwalker Annual - 1938

      OUR first attempt to storm the Arethusa heights took place in October when eight of us set out, encumbered with fifty ft of rope, hope in our hearts, a map, and various superfluous necessities in the shape of eating and sleeping equipment.

On a red-hot Sunday morning we left our camp close to the junction of Blue Gum track with the Rodriguez-Pass-Grand Canyon round tour and headed up the valley towards the Fal An indefinite track following the creek soon petered out in a tangle dense river growth, so we bore up the hill on our right till we reached higher ground where the tree-line virtually ceased as it met the rock canyon wall.

For half a mile a wallaby track followed around a somewhat crumbly ledge hardly more than a foot or two wide in parts, then came to sudden dead stop on the wall of the precipice, and we found ourselves under the spray of a sixty foot tumble of water—Arethusa Falls. Above our heads, with the branches of the lower one swaying just within reach, grew two small stunted bushes, distorted in their growth by the impact of many floods and the fact that they relied for sustenance on mere handful or so of soil strewn in several small niches and crevice in the cliff face. We tested these very gingerly, for if they had pull away in our hands it would have been good-bye. But they held 01 weight, so one by one the packs and the party were pulled and pushed i till we all stood on the slippery rock level from which the waterfall to its leap into the valley below.

Breasting The Current

We were now in a high rocky gorge through which the water roared i that we had to yell to make ourselves heard. A little reconnoitring soc disclosed the fact that it would be easier to proceed up the watercourse rather than to attempt the side wall, although the former proceeding involved some exciting swimming. By means of some smart manipulation of the rope we managed to slide the packs down from a higher ledge o rock to the lower level where our swim would bring us out. Then ti whole party took to the water and surged up current like a herd of cattle

There was another waterfall at the end of this section, some six o seven feet in height, but a hasty examination of this showed us that a: easier means of getting up must be sought. "It's a pity we're not salmon," gurgled the half-drowned leader of the vanguard, bobbing up at* down in the foam, semi-dazed by the impact of water.

Some four feet up the dark rock wall was a neat circular depression like a plughole with the plug removed, and attention was directed to thi as being the only other possible way out. To step into a depression four fee up a vertical wall is difficult enough on terra firma, but when the take-of is an unstable fluid and all the mob around are treading water am hurling bright remarks about to the tune of "Stick to it! After all, yoi can only break your leg," well, the task is more than doubly difficult. I speaks very well for the whole party that they all did get up at last Then we shouldered packs and continued our way, but gingerly sliding over the slippery rock and making a handrail with the rope when necessary all of us more or less wet and somewhat chilly, with the roar of th< water continually dinning in our cars.

A Gloomy Canyon

The walls of the canyon now closed in till they were hardly more than fifteen yards apart and almost touching overhead, thus closing out the light of day so that we went in an eerie gloom, climbing over huge boulders, sliding1 foot by foot up slithery waterways, squeezing and creeping under rock ledges, snaking along in a fine powdering of rock sand that had lain undisturbed for centuries. In some places it was necessary to swim, floating our packs before us wrapped in ground-sheets to keep the water out.

We might have gone ten miles or we might have gone less than half a mile—all sense of time and distance was forgotten in the din of many waters and the feeling of being the only people left in the world, and above all the conviction that we must go on—go on, finding a way to surmount all obstacles that might bar our progress.

It came as a rather demoralizing shock, then, when one of the party suddenly announced the time to be three o'clock. We now realized that we were chilled to the marrow, and hungry too, having eaten nothing since breakfast at 7 a.m., being too engrossed in the hazards of the trip to think of dinner. When we found ourselves up against a forty foot sheer wall of rock so smoothly polished that even a lizard would not find a foothold there, and over which a waterfall, passing through a cleft in the rock, hurled itself into a deep pool below, we decided to call it a glorious failure and retrace our steps, vowing to return again in the near future as no mere waterfall was going to give us best.

A Second Attempt

That was some months ago.

Early spring ripened into mid-summer and the hot sun warmed the icy mountain creeks—a decided advantage when most of the day is to be spent swimming in a dark, sunless gorge. In the interim, also, several members of the original party had been mountaineering in New Zealand and, rightly or wrongly, were thought to have improved in climbing technique.

So another assault on the unassailable was planned. We were to be a smaller, and therefore less unwieldy party, and planned to travel light, to the extent of carrying no superfluous clothes or cooking utensils and discarding tents and sleeping bags in favour of the Sydney Morning Herald.

Jack Debert and Gordon Smith left on the Friday night for Katoomba with the intention of exploring downstream from Minnehaha Falls as far as possible on the Saturday, and they were to return and meet Bert Whillier and me at the Arethusa Falls camp on Saturday night. The next morning we would retrace our previous route with a minimum of lost time, and the added advantage of knowing what to expect between the farthest point we had reached in the Gorge, and Minnehaha Falls.

We had already been informed that the Rover Ramblers had put this trip down on their programme for the same week-end, but were rather unprepared for the zeal with which their members patronized official walks —there were no less than thirteen camped at the Arethusa Falls campsite, all ready and eager for the morrow's doings. As there was no sign of Gordon and Jack, Bert and I amalgamated with the little boy scouts' party, and soon after 7 a.m. next morning we broke camp and proceeded up the valley.

If it had been a long business getting eight of us up the first waterfall, you can imagine what it was like getting fifteen up, but we had great fun. The whole fifteen surmounted the first water hazard in goodly style, despite the fact that one or two of the young lads could not swim. They were given scoutly assistance by their comrades till we all stood re-united on the other side.

Realizing that it would take more time than we had at our disposal to shepherd such an enormous party further up the gorge we decided to try our luck up the left hand wall of the canyon. A display of spider-monkey tactics, plus a very satisfactory manipulation of the rope and all the mob sprawled among their packs on a damp ferny slope some hundred feet up the canyon wall. A sally further upstream proved fruitless, so we were obliged to turn back on our tracks, as it were, but on a higher level, and follow along the rocky cliff face. Here we found a pleasant little tree, some forty feet high, which swayed out from the side of the cliff on its eight inch diameter trunk. With the aid of this tree we scrambled and hauled our packs up the cliff face. This operation took much time, and one of the lads had the misfortune here to lose hold on his pack, which dropped right back into the water in the canyon below. It was retrieved by dint of much effort, and we continued upwards. It was now ten o'clock. Someone suggested he had heard shouts down below—possibly Gordon and Jack, but being uncertain on the subject we forgot the matter forthwith.

Still More Hazards

Rounding a ledge we found ourselves in another canyon, equal in hazards to the one below. To cut a long story short, we followed the same crawling, swimming, clambering, sprawling, snake-like tactics here, and about three o'clock gained the flat heights of the tableland. It was raining a fine mountain drizzle; we were wet through and hungry, so when we heard renewed shouts in the gorge, proving beyond doubt the presence of Jack and Gordon, we merely marvelled that the voices still seemed to come from the same place as they had at ten o'clock, then shouted a hearty "good-bye" and departed, catching a train home about five o'clock. The next day we heard from Gordon and Jack that they had got down the canyon from Minnehaha Falls for quite a long distance. Then rather than retrace their footsteps, they camped and continued down on the Sunday morning, hoping to meet us coming up. They were stopped, however, by the canyon floor dropping away into a waterfall chute some sixty feet high, so here they stopped and yelled. Then they went away, to return later and yell again, but finding that Bertie and the Englishberg and the drove of little boy scouts did not materialize they called it a day and went home.

Thus ended the second attempt on Arethusa Falls to Minnehaha Fall via the waterways. You will see that it has not yet been done. The little boy scouts have done something just as good (or perhaps better), in their achievement, and the Bushwalkers have done the gorge upstream to a certain spot which we shall call X, and downstream to a certain spot which may or may not be X, but the original course has eluded us a second time. David Stead has seen fit to include it on the official S.B.W. Walks Programme for next year. All those innocents who think to attend this walk, expecting it to be just an ordinary creek-bed trip, be warned!