Lerderderg Gorge 2

The Waterfall.

While walking the gorge last year from Darley to Blackwood(Wazza's first blog), we noticed on our maps a waterfall off track a bit and thought we must find it one day. A Saturday in early June 2011 was the day to go looking. The party included myself, Brent and Jonah. We parked on the top of Mt Blackwood at the end of Lohs Lane and with our day packs on headed into the gorge. It was 8.30am and it didn't take long to reach the start of the Ah Kow track. This track takes you into the gorge and down to the river. Heading east bound the track slowly dropped into the gorge with some nice views along the way.

The last km was extremely steep and slippery, huge care had to be taken and I had a couple of falls on the way down. This is a track I wouldn't want to climb so I started looking for another way out of the gorge.
We hit the Aw Kow ruin and mine and had a break, de-packed and put on our head lamps. It was time to explore the mine. Hand and knees at start then you could stand up. It wasn't long before we could no longer see the mine entree and the ground become soft underfoot with bat droppings. There were tiny bats hanging from the roof.
We reached the end and headed out.

We geared up and headed down river for the bears head track (last years 1st camp site). The river had a bit of water in it and was flowing faster than last year so there was plenty of river crossing.


The gorge hasn't changed, still beautiful with towering cliff faces either side and great scenery.

We came across the dried out inlet that enters the Lederderg River described on the map as The Old River. Approx 1km up the Old river was the waterfall. Before going after the waterfall we continued along the Lerdy for another 5min and had lunch at the start of the Bears Head Range Track. This track was going to be our exit point from the gorge later on.

After lunch we headed up the Old River. Once again there were cliff faces either side and as we got closer to the waterfall there was more water in the river. We had to scale along a few cliff faces and across huge logs to avoid getting wet and an hour after leaving Bears Head we reached the falls.

There was a nice sized pool under the 5 mt waterfall but only a trickle flowing over it. The water in the pool was pristine so off with the boots and we waded in, bloody cold.

We headed back to Bears Head then started up the track. The first section was tough climbing out of the gorge. Shear drops both sides made every step important. Loose your footing in the first section of the Bears Head Range Track and your dead. The climb become a walk as the track started flattening out and looking down into the gorge was great.

Once we hit the Blackwood Range Track we walked west along a 4wd track that not on the map for about 1km till we hit The Foxy Gully Track, then simply back to the car by 3.30pm. I really enjoyed this walk, it was extremely tough in places but I dint think I could ever get board of this place.