Cave Creek

I feel a strange exhilaration riding my bicycle along Pockets Saddle FT in the falling rain. Doug has gone on ahead, while I cycled the extra half a kilometre along a side track to Pockets Hut. I am within six kilometres of Old Snowy Campground which makes the rain less of a problem. I’ll be back in the Floatel within an hour even if I am drenching wet. My legs are getting stiff from the cold, but with a goretex jacket and heavy toque (beanie) on, I am only a little chilled, not really cold.

A couple of hours earlier we had been walking east along Cave Creek towards Cooleman Falls. The track crosses the creek nine times and, while Doug had determinedly kept his shoes on almost the entire way, I had taken mine off and walked bare foot between creek crossings. Clark Gorge is a short, two kilometre canyon with limestone walls. About a kilometre before Cooleman Falls, the canyon opens out to a pretty river running beside eucalpytus forest lined banks.

On our way back from the falls to the campground, the rain started. Big heavy drops driven on the sound of thunder. We detoured up to the campground hoping to find a picnic shelter, but the only roof in the area was protecting the interpretive signage. After sheltering here for about 10 minutes, with thunder rumbling all around, the rain had stopped so we walked back down the Blue Waterholes FT to retrieve our bicycles. We had been going to walk the circuit loop around Nichols Gorge, a drier and smaller version of Clarke Gorge but the persistent thunder and threatening rain was a deterrent.

Instead of the whole loop walk we wandered up to Cooleman Cave where we walked through three of the chambers that did not require crawling through wet mud! Back at the bicycles, we started riding just as the rain started again. All the way back I felt as if I was being chased by Thor as the thunder rumbled on.