Text and photosRobert Wildman

Helen in serene Ettrema Creek just below the campsite

This is not a place of formed or made tracks and numerous camp spots; it’s hard country with lots of scrub and little relief. This area, around an hour’s drive southwest of Nowra, on the coast of NSW, consists mainly of big flat rocky platforms incised with deep creeks and gorges.

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Dave, Helen and Michelle keen to start

It provides a wealth of wilderness, wild creeks, gorges and extraordinary adventures for people who are prepared to do their own thing.

But it can also be unbelievably beautiful at the same time. Choosing the best weekend in the whole of March for an exploration of the top end of Ettrema Gorge was a piece of exceptional luck. Our destination, this time, was a set of gorgeous pools on the Ettrema Creek known to bushwalkers as Murrays Pools. We gleaned our route information from Geoff Jones, a well-known explorer of this area. He named his house after the creek, so much it is in his blood. He had given us all sorts of advice on what to expect (like “scrub here – best take secateurs” or “two compulsory swims here”) and this proved invaluable.

Setting off on the easy part of the walk around 9:00 am, we strode the two kilometres along the Tolwong Road to our off-track departure point. We chatted easily and caught up,

gloating about some of our mutual conquests. The others on the walk were Helen Jones and Michelle Brown, both of whom had walked with me in Central Australia a couple of years before. The last member was Dave Sullivan, whose last hike was an Outward Bound expedition when he was about 15 (45 years ago). Perfect combination. What could go wrong?

After turning off, we skirted along the flat rocky plain and quickly made our way to the high point on the platform. It was all pretty clear vegetation and only occasional patches of scrub which were easily avoided.

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Occasionally we found a cairn or two which just gave us the confidence that we were on the right route after all. We started to descend toward the cliff line, with expansive views starting to sneak between the trees. Of course, we had only a verbal description of where the break in the cliff, known as Boomerang Pass, would be as we bumbled our way to the cliff edge. After a little scouting it was very obvious; a small saddle just before the cliffs led

Michelle finally smiling in Ettrema Creek gorge at the bottom of Boomerang Pass

slowly off to the left and gently opened out into a fairly easy descent to the bottom of the cliffs. First big hurdle over.

So all that remained to do was to try to keep roughly on the ridge and plough down the slope toward the creek. Geoff had estimated this section as taking about 45 minutes so we had much higher expectations than we should have had. This was a real bush bash and reminded me of the last few years of dealing with regrowth from the fires and rains in 2019. The one positive thing, which pointed to a better descent in the future was the fact that the horrible ‘tobacco’ plants which had plagued a few of my earlier trips had started to die. But, actually, I’m fooling myself because they were replaced by vines and even thicker smaller bush. This descent is a 45-degree slope and we found ourselves having to work really hard to just go a few metres.

Then came the scree – a great long stretch of very loose sharp rubble which just slid away under your feet. More crashing through and suddenly, when it seemed like we would never get to the bottom, a clear glade of trees opened up and, while still steep, gave us some relief from the battle of the Triffids. This short section led quickly to vegetation which was greener but clearer and after two hours we finally dropped onto the boulder-covered creek.

Water, shade, rest and lunch were great and even the conversation picked up as we contemplated the three kilometres up to the camp at the pools.

At first, the creek was just a steady stream surrounded by small boulders but after a few hundred metres, the topography changed. We were now dealing with pools and rock formations which were part of the walls of the

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gorge and we had to start looking for clever ways around them. As always on creeks, each kilometre was painstakingly slow and we were progressing at less than a kilometre per hour. Having started out after lunch at 2 pm, we all realised we were not going to get to the camp by mid-afternoon. After almost three kilometres, and only a couple of hundred metres from the camp, we started to smell smoke and were left trying to decide whether this was as a result of a bushfire or someone making tea at the campsite.

We couldn’t stop to think about it because we had now come to the point where the gorge closed in and we were going to have to swim. We were warned to bring good waterproofing but one of us didn’t read the memo and I merely grabbed some garbage bags before I left home which were not designed for the task at hand. Never mind – too tired to worry

now. The first swim was about 15 metres and once in the surprisingly warm water we started to enjoy the experience. Until the end when we realised that we had leaks – plenty of them. Twenty metres from the first pool came the second and by now we knew we were going to just have to deal with wet gear. Halfway across, my pack flipped over but I had no strength to both fight the current and try to right it. Helen decided to go commando and dog-paddled with her walking stick in

One of the many bath-like pools at Murrays Pools

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her mouth. We, of course were pleasantly drenched, all of us amused at our sodden state. But what was going to surprise us was the condition of all our gear inside the very wet packs.

The camp area is a slightly raised platform formed by the bend in the creek and was surrounded by small pools below and a very steep rocky wall behind us. In between was a superb glade of small trees and spaces for tents. We arrived a few minutes after the swims at around 6:30 pm, pretty exhausted. How lucky were we that it was the end of summer; plenty of light and warmth to strip off and get into miraculously dry night clothes. And then to join the other campers around the fire. Sleeping bags and dry clothes had luckily survived the drenching but not much else. Anything loose was soaked. Another lesson there somewhere!

Two other small groups had arrived earlier from different directions and thankfully got a roaring fire going. The evening was like a bushwalker’s conference; lots of discovering connections and common destinations in the world of being out there.

The route out was described as ‘easy’ and immediately our scammer radars were working overtime. We were told that the section getting to the cliff-line had now developed into a fairly navigable pad, and it continued right around the base of the cliffs and almost onto the plateau at the top. And the pad did exist and it did exactly that! Once on the plateau, we followed a bearing to the top of the trig station on the crest of the range and then took the obvious break in the trees to press on to the road and our car.

While our thoughts about this walk at the end of the first day were pretty black and a lynching of the leader appeared imminent, the mood changed as we realised that the route out could also be a really handy way back into this wonderful gorge spot. We were so tired on the night before that none of us could muster the energy to go fifty metres upstream to witness the amazing big pool with its accompanying waterfall. It will just have to wait until we make a return. Looking forward to it. Oh and Dave? Let's just say I'm very glad he came.

Dave, Helen and Michelle under the cliffs on the route out

Drying out the gear at the leaf littered camp spot at Murrays Pools

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