Bumble Hill Trail

OLNEY STATE FOREST from KULNARA to YARAMALONG VILLAGE

BUMBLE HILL TRAIL

THE GREAT NORTH WALK

Starting a hike while it is still dark is tricky, but for this walk it is well worth it to watch a magnificent sunrise over the far horizon.

WORDS JAMES LUTWYCHE

© JAMES LUTWYCHE Rock orchids growing in the leaf litter.

Rockpools form where the track crosses an intermittent creek.

© ANTHONY DUNK Accompanying me on this hike for excessive conversation and noise, are my four-year-old daughter, and my son – best mate, budding scientist and intrepid adventurer. Head torches, fresh with new batteries are installed with instructions not to look me in the eyes.

‘What Dad?’ They both look at me, and there goes my night vision.

The four-year-old is hoisted up on my back into my hiking harness, and my son gets to carry the gear. In the soft beam of the headtorch we can see all the luminescent spiders and insects, their tiny little eyes looking back at us; we tread carefully.

The Great North Walk is a series of day hikes that link Circular Quay in Sydney with Nobbys Head Lighthouse in Newcastle. It takes in all the splendour of the Hawkesbury and Central Coast waterways and sea cliffs, the beautiful rugged bushland, lush pastures and farms of the hinterland, and the Watagan forests.

For today’s walk, we start at the trackhead at the top of Bumble Hill on Greta Road in Kulnura, and follow the trail northeast downhill to Yarramalong village. There are areas to leave the car if you don’t want to walk both ways, and if you have transport back up the hill.

The first section is a loose, rocky, single-file trail that winds its way down the spur below the transmission powerlines. This is the only difficult bit with the lack of sunlight, the wet ground and slippery loose rocks. If you start your walk a little later in the morning, you’ll see plenty of wildflowers covering the ground including flannel flowers, boronias, little terrestrial orchids, and flag lillies.

Just after the third transmission tower, you come to a small junction with a narrow, unmarked trail down to the left. This leads to the final transmission tower and a rocky escarpment, where we sit and wait for the sun to rise over the eastern ridgeline.

We watch the pink sky give way to an amazing sunrise with the sun lighting up the low clouds, and the mist below us that covers the whole of Yarramalong in what is described by my daughter as ‘a fluffy white blanket’.

We backtrack the five minutes back up the trail to re-join the track. The terrain changes and we leave the spur to follow the old bullock trail that used to link Yarramalong to Mangrove Creek and down to the Hawkesbury River.

This mid-19th century trail was constructed to cart Australian red cedar, blue gum and turpentine timber by bullock teams down to the river, where it was loaded onto barges destined for Sydney. To the untrained eye, there is very little evidence that the timber-getters were ever here; the bush has reclaimed what was removed, and there are even young red cedar saplings returning to the valley – thanks to the work of both the birds who spread the seeds, and to the timber-getters who left enough remnant trees as a seed bank for the future.

The trail gently snakes it way down the valley, the vegetation changing at every turn. On the southern slopes there are carpets of ferns and hanging swamps beneath towering mahogany gums. Then around the next curve we stumble across huge, buttressed Angophoras with old man Banksias, and grass trees.

ABOVE Cliffs large and small, caves, and rocky escarpments are typical of the Bumble Hill walk.

Forest she-oaks carpet the ground with fine brown needles and half chewed nuts, courtesy of the black-tailed and gang gang cockatoos who are also visiting today.

Don’t forget to look up. Towering cliffs hang above, and water drips from mossy, glistening rocks. Thankfully, along this section there are also some little cliffs, caves and rocky escarpments – plenty of time today to stop and let the kids have a bit of a scramble.

Recent rains have created a huge landslide. It’s amazing to see giant trees plucked from the ground and hurled in a pile at the bottom of the gully, as if mother nature has had a game of pickup sticks, lost her temper rather badly, and tossed all the sticks in a corner.

The bullock trail soon returns to a modern fire trail-width, and we’re back to my preferred style of hiking, side by side, with conversation able to flow. We constantly gaze around, commenting on all the birds, funny looking rocks … and planning our next adventure.

Today’s trail is almost at its end. The fire trail links back to Bumble Hill Road, but it is best to follow the signposted goat track to avoid walking along the road. There is no verge and large trucks descend the hill heavy and slow, but unstoppable. It is a five-minute walk from here to Yarramalong village.

A final ‘shout out’ to my mate Regan (at Regan’s Fine Foods) for one of his legendary meat pies and a bucket of his Butchers Coffee. Best way to end the morning.

The 6km hike took us two hours with ample stops along the way.

A timber boardwalk in the moist forest area of the walk.

© ANTHONY DUNK

James Lutwyche is a horticulturalist, and a local and experienced bushwalker who has led or been part of expeditions in the Hawkesbury, Blue Mountains, Kosciusko, Tasmania, New Zealand and Mongolia. He lives and works in Yarramalong and is married with four children. James is also the local Scout leader at Peats Ridge Scout Group and spends his time between work at Paradise Botanical Gardens and exploring and enjoying the great outdoors.