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"I
am told there are people who do not care for maps, and I find it hard to
believe."—Robert Louis Stevenson.
It
was the mass of black hachuring on the South-Eastern Tourist Map that
first made me want to see the country between Yerranderie and Jenolan
Caves. It was membership of the S.B.W. that enabled me to reach that
wild country; and it is the country itself, and more particularly the
river, that now holds my heart. Quite often people say to me:—"What!
Going to the Kowmung again this year! Why don't you go somewhere else
for a change; see some other part of the country?"
But
they do not suggest anywhere else that sounds half so interesting; and,
when one only has a fortnight's holiday each year, there is a lifetime's
exploration available in the Kowmung country.
It's
big, and it's rough, and it's uninhabited. It's no place for weaklings,
or lovers of luxury and bright lights, but for variety, and beauty, and
fascination, what can compare with the untamed Kowmung? Nowhere in all
its 60 or 70 miles does it touch civilisation. Actually there are four
40-acre clearings in all its length, and three or four fences stray down
to it, while nine or ten huts, occasionally occupied by stockmen, or
lived in by gold-fossickers, the prospect-holes and workings of these
men near Church Creek, and the old, deserted Cedar Road by Gingra Creek,
complete the tale of man's handiwork along the Kowmung.
An
ugly name, isn't it? Some say the man who surveyed it had previously
lived in China, saw a likeness to some river there, and named the
Kowmung after that Chinese river. Maybe. The first time we worked our
way down through the Morong Deep—up above Werong Creek, that is—we
decided the surveyors probably called it "Kowmung" as being
about the ugliest and worst name they could expect to get published on
any map. . . . Yet, how could they, after seeing the fairy-like beauty
by Hanrahan's Creek? And the lovely pools by Billy's Point, and other
places? The friendly river oaks! The smiling, gravelly reaches down by
Gingra! The fascinating rockbars near Tiwilla Creek, and other places!
The grandeur of Sunset Bluffs, the Tuglow Limestone, Orange Bluffs, Mt.
Cookem, to name a few only of its mighty bluffs and buttresses! Its
waterfalls and gorges, that delight the bush walker, had they no appeal
for the surveyor? He left most of them unnamed, and perhaps it is as
well, though I feel now that the Chinese Kowmung must be a beautiful
river indeed, if it is worthy of its Australian namesake.
To
unite and form the Kowmung, both the Hollander's and Tuglow Rivers had
to cut narrow, impassable gorges through a granite outcrop, and, in
addition, the Tuglow had to drop some 200 feet or more over a series of
three falls, but in the Kowmung shale soon reappears, the country is
fairly open, and stray fences and stock routes are met, and one feels
there are men and homesteads in the offing. However, they do not appear;
instead the blue limestone bluff in which the Tuglow Caves are hidden is
seen rising directly from the river as The Gridiron is negotiated. Then
the great granite gorge, "The Morong Deep," is reached, and
Myles Dunphy was quite right when he told Harold Chardon in 1930 that
that was "5-mile-a-day-country." It is only about 10 miles
long, and in many parts is quite impassable anywhere near water-level,
as the first 150 feet or more consist of sheer, waterworn, red granite
walls. However, there is plenty of room on the sides of the gorge, which
is 1,800 to 2,000 feet deep, while wombat and wallaby tracks often give
a fair foothold.
At
the junction of Werong Creek and the Kowmung is Venn's Hut, and the
first 40-acre clearing. For about a mile on either side, upstream and
down, there is fairly easy going— if you don't mind lots of large
lapstones—with casuarinas, bracken and nettles, some grass, and cow
tracks.
Then
the Kowmung enters Rudder's Rift, where the river is knocked from bluff
to bluff for about 8 miles. The Rift is wild and grand, but not
impassable unless the river is "up," though a lot of wading is
necessary. In the first half of the distance, we waded across the river
about every one mile; after that, about every 10 yards, except for one
section of half-a-mile or so where we had to keep high up on the
hillside on the left bank.
The
Rift ends at Dicksonia Bluffs, and the river enters on the friendly,
tranquil section we call the Middle Kowmung, where river oaks
(casuarinas) line the grassy banks, and pebbly rapids separate lovely
swimming pools. This is shale country again, and is where the river
(which has been flowing southeast) swings round to flow north-east
through the rugged Bulga-Denis Canyon; then, in peaceful, friendly mood
again, on past Ferny Flat Creek, Flower Garden Creek, Gingra Creek, and
the Cedar Road.
Beyond
Tiwilla Buttress, the country is wilder again as the river flows through
the Kowmung Canyon past the Devil's Elbow and under Mt. Cookem to its
junction with the Cox's River, but, though the going on the Lower
Kowmung (from the Bulga-Denis Canyon downstream) is roughish in parts,
at its worst it is 2-mile-an-hour country—very different from the
Upper Kowmung.
Quite
50 per cent, of the Sydney Bush Walkers know the Kowmung from Dunphy's
Shortcut, or Roots' Route, or Hughes' Track, to the Cedar Road—it is
part of their highway from Kanangra Walls to Katoomba. Not quite so many
of our members know the rest of the Lower and Middle Kowmung, and only a
few have earned their spurs on the Upper Kowmung.
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