Over the last few years, a number of the family members had been to Numantia falls at one point or another, with all the recent rain, it seemed like a good opportunity to revisit and get some photos of the falls in good flow instead of the more familiar trickle. So I managed to talk the child bride into coming along today, I had heard there was an alternate route down that was much shorter that came off the end of the ridge above the falls, at the end of Binstead St at Faulconbridge.
Please note, the end of Binstead St is NOW all private property, do NOT try to access this area via this track / road - You have been warned.
On our way out to the end of Binstead St in the 4WD, we stopped and had a bit of an explore near the powerlines and some clifflines I had seen on Google earth, a cool area that needs more exploring. The track out to the end is pretty good really, a bump or two here and there and you are at the end in no time. Actually, I parked just before the end as I did not know what was at the end of the track and as I had already found a great place to park, I did not want to get into a situation where I had to back ot of a dead end track. I need not have worried as the end of the track has a large turning circle.
So after shouldering my new daypack we walked down to the end of the track and noticed a feint walking track coming off the corner as the track turns right and starts its loop. So, with no other walking tracks in sight, we followed this for a while, it was very feint but we managed to follow it for a while, we came to an old wooden fencepost with barbed wire still attached. It was not far past this, near a large burnt tree we lost this track. I spent 10 minutes looking around for where the track my be continued without success. As the falls were "just" 350mtrs away as the crow flies, and the scrub was pretty light, we decided to push on. That was all about to change...
The scrub closed in and became quite thick, I could finally see the drop off at the end of the ridge, so was living in hope that like a lot of other ridges, it would open up and become a series of rocky drops to negotiate. Well, we got the rocky drops, but the scrub stayed just as thick, if not thicker making it slow progress indeed. There were also deposits of leaf litter feet deep piled up against the mini cliff lines that we negotiated making it very unstable underfoot. The wife had never done a walk like this and she was finding the going quite tough, even I was not enjoying this part much at all, but had probably done worse.
Eventually, after many small cliff lines that we always found a break through, we got to within 100mtrs or less from the falls, I knew the falls were in a natural bowl or amphitheatre type of location, so instead of angling for above the falls, I angled downstream to hopefully come down a kinder slope and join up with the footpad that heads to the falls. It was not far past here that we encountered the first of the lawyer vines, nasty stuff.
I could now finally see the creek and valley floor below, a few more slopes and drops to negotiate with lawyer vine everywhere and we would be done, the wife's knees and ankles were suffering from the descent by now. A quick jump and we were across the creek and a scramble and on the footpad, around 140mtrs downstream of the falls. It did not take long to get there, we got to the creek crossing, my boots were high enough to walk through, the wife had decided to not wear hers but just wear sneakers, I offered her a piggy back across, she chose to just walk straight through. CHAMPION!
As soon as we arrived, the first thing I saw was a monster freshwater yabbie, great to see them this size and this one looked in good condition, I could see a few others in similar condition in the pool as well.
A few minutes later we were at the falls, and they were in fine form, I'd not see the pool at the base this size before, it was stunning. I setup the tripod and started to shoot some images, 10 minutes later, the heavens opened up, so we sat for 15 minutes under one of the large overhangs waiting it out. It was a stunning spot to be sitting and watching the rain fall.
Eventually, it slowed to a light rain so we decided to head off, the new pack has a rain cover so I put that over the pack and we started down the footpad towards the victory track. We had decided that it was going to be easier to do the long walk out and then a long road bash, than try our luck getting back up straight to the car. Though, the wife did suggest it, it would have been too hard and no fun. A long road bash is no fun either mind you.
So we met with the Victory track, turned left and started the walk back towards Faulconbridge. I was looking at the toppo map on the GPS and said, there was a road on the ridge above us, it would be too wet and dangerous to attempt a scrub bash back out that way, again, the wife was interested in trying. I kid you not, 3 minutes later we stopped, there was a brand new well defined track that came down off that ridge and met up with the victory track. I asked the wife to stay there while I went for a quick recon in-case it was not really a track, it was and the pink tape on trees started up the slope.
We decided this was a steeper but quicker option, so, we started our way up, this is a wide track and quite new, between 6-12 feet wide in places and easy to follow. We eventually topped out as the mist was starting to come in and block the views, we were at the end of Badham St. Before we had even set foot onto the road, it started to rain. So we walked most of this road, in the rain, holding hands, go on, say it, awwwwwwww.
Eventually the wife decided she had had enough, so she sat on a rock while I changed pace and hot footed it around to retrieve the car and return to pick her up.
I'd like to return to see if I can find an actual track that heads down to the falls another day, as for if the wife will come on such an adventure again, probably not, she loved the location, just not the toughness of it. The new track out from the Victory track has now been added to the OSM project.
