FF Tour - Days 18-21 Dorrigo

Dangar Falls

Leaving the coast for the time being, we took a four day detour to the coastal hinterland and the top of the ranges to the west of Urunga, with a visit to Dorrigo.

Now technically, we had stayed in Dorrigo before and visited often, mostly on our way to the coast when we lived in Armidale and the much smaller, Wongwibinda.

This trip was something entirely different and would easily prove to be the highlight of the trip.

After a leisurely drive inland and up Dorrigo Mountain, we missed our first attempt at turning into Dorrigo Mountain Resort. Anyone who has approached from the coast will offer their understanding, as the turn comes upon your immediately around the apex of a bend and signage is adequate once you have missed it. Even the GPS was unprepared. We had to drive into Dorrigo to make the turn and then back past the Resort by a kilometre or two for a second chance. Having successfully negotiated entry at that attempt, it was "disappointing" to discover we had arrived five minutes into office lunch break. Off we went to town - again - and took the rig out to where the Bielsdown River drops 30 metres over the Dangar Falls, after a series of cascades. It may not be high but it is a wide concave set of falls which descends into a broad splash pool which can be accessed via a short walking track. Nice picnic facilities are available, with free bbq and toilets. The parking area would be tight if you had a big rig, as there are only two long vehicles slots. We contemplated the walk down to the splash pool but with booking in still required, we ate lunch in the van before trying entry into the park for a third time!

The eery mist of Dorrigo noir. 

We eventually settled in. Good gravel sites with a luxuriant supply of grass surrounds and beautiful views are the hallmarks of the digs. As is often the case with these non-chain parks, the amenities were tired, one of the machine machines was broken and the clothes line well past its prime. They also boast early colonial themed cabins, grouped as though they are a small settlement. There is a camp kitchen, mostly set up for school groups who use the cabins but cleaning seemed a low priority. Lots of bugs and beetles frequent the high ceilinged, quasi bush built toilet block and the plumbing in the showers was all external to the tiles! "Seen better days" would be an appropriate description but the sites were nice and there was plenty of shade.

The next few days were extraordinary.

For at least fifteen years, I have readily accepted the role of family historian for both mine and Sue's family. There were many hurdles, particularly Sue's mob and most of the elders were dead, so the family folklore was big on lore and short on folk to corroborate it. Several generations had missing members because of unmarried relationships producing offspring and we had reached an impasse in trying to find Sue's paternal grandfather. Ancestry.com had been most helpful and in a last roll of the dice, Sue did a DNA test. From there came possibilities and following negotiations with potential relations, we had come to Dorrigo to see if doors might open to reveal the truth.

Open they did and after a couple of days, it was obvious to all, that Sue and two new uncles were getting to know each other: swapping stories, photos and news of relatives previously unknown. These were generous people and their welcome was warm. Sue spent the next few days visiting with them at their homes and forming the first of new bonds. By times end, the exact identity of her grandfather has narrowed down to one of two brothers. Either way, she has new uncles and aunties and a rich vein of family which she never knew existed. Better still, there is a genuine desire to explore the relationship further.

There were plenty of ironies but ponder this. Sue's father had asked to have his ashes scattered on the Bellinger River. No one knows why. He never worked there and as far as we can tell, had only ever driven through the town of Bellingen on the way to holidays. In his last years of a life cut too short by a cruel accident, he constantly bought Opera House lottery tickets so he could buy a farm along the Bellinger River. Mystery? He was indeed scattered on the upper reaches of the river, at a spot we had subsequently identified and visited in previous years as I learned about the man I never met. With the information gained from this Dorrigo visit, the site of his scattering is only 15 kilometres from where the father he never met is buried in Bellingen cemetery. Cue the Twilight Zone theme and roll the credits.

Strangler fig at Dorrigo NP

On the last day, we went out to Dorrigo National Park and completed a small section of the Crystal Shower Falls walk. Unfortunately, the shorter end of the loop to the falls was blocked by trackwork, meaning a walk too long to take on a day heavy with mist and annoying rain and high humidity and chilly temperatures which were playing their own havoc with my asthma. Even a kilometre was enough to remind us of what a special place this rainforest is, having done this circuit several times on other visits. Even more special was the new knowledge that one of Sue's uncles had been instrumental in developing this very walk, in his role as a senior NP ranger. Returning to the visitors centre, we had a coffee and decided we had more than enough to be grateful for from this visit to Dorrigo, fully expecting further visits in the future.

Click here to see today's photos

Covid, an increasingly prevalent and persistent co-inhabitant with our caravan park neighbours in the last seven or eight days, caused us to cancel a night out with Sue's new family members, intended to introduce her to their friends. It was a disappointing way to end what had been a delightful interlude.

TOD Tour, Day 17 - Dorrigo NP

Skywalk selfie

Dorrigo National Park is one of those places where the importance of preserving some of the natural environment and keeping it from man's desire to consume the planet, makes compete sense.

Even driving there is a sensoral experience. Whether you approach it in a gradual climb across the increasingly thin sliver of the Northern Tablelands which lies to its west or up the steep incline from the coastal plain to the east, sights and sounds and smells greet you. Everything is green and today, wet. The aroma of fresh rain and stimulated decay are pungent when you open the door at the Rainforest Centre.

Standing as it does on the dividing line between coast and inland, this pocket of rainforest which dips over the eastern edge of the Dorrigo Plateau has everything to offer in terms of diversity both within itself and in comparison to the country which surrounds it. Geological time, gravity and a high annual rainfall have developed stunning waterfalls on the way to the park and main fine ones inside its boundaries. Even on the hottest days, relief lies waiting under the rainforest canopy.

A world heritage site and one of the jewels which lie studded along the Waterfall Way between the Pacific Highway at its eastern end and Armidale at the western, it was established in 1967 as one of the early precincts of the then newly created NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service.

The Rainforest Centre which greets you and acts as the doorway to the walks on the southern end of the park, was established much later, along with the sensational Skywalk - a steel and wooden construction that juts out from the edge of the escarpment and over the highest of the forest canopy. The view is stunning. On a clear day, you can't see forever but you can see Bellingen and beyond to the coast. There is even a camera mount on which you can secure your digital cameras - the real ones, not the smart phone ones - and take that most desired "selfie" without fear that some fast running youth will abscond with your Canon.

The far view is one thing but the immediate surrounds are far more interesting and even on days of close fog, that view is uninterrupted. Birds of all sizes come in and out of the canopy seeking treats, many of them used to the strangers on their oddly linear tree. Peering down through the foliage, you realise how high you are and how privileged to be sharing the experience nature's hard work has created in the giants beside you.

It's the walks that reveal the best of this park and for people with average fitness, they are achievable but not without work. We walked the 6.2km Wonga Walk, in the recommended anticlockwise direction, taking the steep slopes down to the first of two spectacular waterfalls. The track is better than when Sue and I first walked here in the late 1970's. Then it was dirt, which more often than not could be slippery because of the pervading moisture of this place but now it is nature infused bitumen. Roots and leaves and a variety of vegetation types are slowly taking it back but in the most part it was an easy surface to walk on.

After nearly three kilometres and a smaller set of falls which came across our path, The Crystal Shower Falls appeared around a bend, nearly a full five minutes after we heard it. It free falls perhaps thirty metres into a plunge pool and across a cavernous opening which sits behind the last third of its fall. A suspension bridge spans the space in front of the falls, where once the track had led directly behind it but entry into the cave has been retained and improved with a steel-grated pathway.

Standing behind the waterfall's curtain is a unique experience and one not fully captured by images. Long roots have followed the waters path to the pool below and this adds to the visual effect. The sound of the water crashing into the pool on this day, after inches of rain, was in direct competition to speech.

Once we had exhausted our photographic hunger, we sat beside the falls for refreshments and took, probably, the best selfie ever.

Our reluctance to move on and especially to go lower still, was rewarded about ten minutes later by our arrival at Tristania Falls. Unlike Crystal Shower Falls, the water here runs across the rock face, taking up many pathways both into and also bypassing small splash pools before racing on. Another suspension bridge takes you across the face of the falls, with it extending above and below you. It is different but no less impressive.

From this point of the walk, at approximately the halfway mark, you begin a long, slow, upward climb which passes below the first half of  the track. Some of it is undulating, some of it level but for much of the time, it is a long, steady climb. By the time we reached the Rainforest Centre, all thoughts of a coffee and cake reward were gone as the cafe had long since shut. We were sweat from top to toe but not as worse for wear as our thoughts might have imagined. Sue, thought incapable of such walks twelve months ago, had coped better than expected and although slower than in bygone days, I still got there. The heavy, humid air, did no favours for my asthma but artificially propped up or not, I made it.

We drove through Dorrigo for a late afternoon viewing of Dangar Falls, located just outside Dorrigo on a road that will eventually take you to Coffs Harbour the original way, through Ulong and Coramba and past one of my favourite Australian place names, Upper Bobo. To think such a locality could be divided into and upper and lower! The falls were as I remembered them, having driven this way in 1977 in my original vehicle, a four door 1968 Cortina, which I would write off outside Kootingal only weeks later. It was the fencing and picnic area that were different. In 1977, you simply walked to the edge and looked. Perhaps in Western Australia, you still would.

After the falls, we followed a lesser known route which departs from the Waterfall Way almost immediately before it begins its descent and runs along the top of the mountain - with a few turns and a single lane for good measure - until you reach Griffiths Lookout. The view would have been superb on a late afternoon which didn't accompany the mist with rain. We didn't get out of the car.

Our last act of the afternoon was to detour off the Waterfall Way between the base of Dorrigo Mountain and Bellingen, to a quiet little crossing over the Little North Arm of the Bellinger River at a point where the Summerville Road crosses. Less than a kilometre off the Waterfall Way, this quiet spot with it low-lying road bridge - different now than it was in 1977 - was the place where the ashes of Sue's father John Gibbens were scattered and then, less than a year later, those of his grandmother, Kate Knapman nee Margaret Stuart. It was a place we had found only once before and given other tasks we hope to achieve before leaving Nambucca, it was a significant thing to do.

Our return to Nambucca was quiet until we had to get out of the car. Parts of us groaned and complained and made it sound like it was a corporate decision. Our mouths just went along for the hell of it.

The hot chips and cold beer were suitable compensation.