Wanderings

Nattai River and Burragorang Valley
By Russell M. Kefford
1-July 1954

https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/233098369

Around Sydney, there are many interesting trips of fifty or sixty miles that can be undertaken over a weekend. Burragorang Valley is one such destination. Thousands of tourists visit the valley each year, drawn to its sandstone cliff faces, panoramic views, and winding river scenes.

Most visitors spend a day at Central Burragorang, arriving by car while the valley is still shrouded in mist and returning by nightfall. But to truly appreciate the valley and its surroundings, one must travel on foot. Many of the old roads and trails of this historic region are now overgrown, having returned to scrub and timbered country.

The valley lies southwest of Sydney, about sixty-five miles by road, occupying mainly the area between Mittagong and Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains. The Wollondilly River flows through the main part of the valley. It rises in the hills near Goulburn and eventually joins the Cox’s River to become the Warragamba, which ultimately feeds into the Nepean and Hawkesbury Rivers.

The trip I propose follows one of the smaller rivers flowing into the Wollondilly at Central Burragorang—the Nattai River, once inhabited but now the loneliest part of the Burragorang area.

Having packed our rucksacks for a three-day trip, we caught the train to Picton, a town in the Southern Highlands once known as Stonequarry. A two-hour night train journey, followed by a short walk of a couple of miles, brought us to our first camping spot under a bridge.

Early the next morning, we set off, walking along the road near Razorback Mountain, a well-known spur in the Picton area. After crossing a few miles of undulating country, we turned into the bush, following what was once the main road into the valley. Now little more than a track, it has recently been repaired for use as a stock route. The road follows Sheas Creek down a sandstone gorge, offering occasional glimpses of the massive cliffs that hem in the Nattai River.

At the foot of the valley, the scenery changes dramatically. Green river flats appear between the trees, and the valley narrows to no more than a mile wide, giving the impression of being cut off from the outside world by sheer cliff drops of over 1,000 feet. The only sounds are those of abundant birdlife, made more noticeable by the echoes of even the smallest noise. The Nattai flows so silently that one can be standing on its bank before realizing it. Shallow in places, no more than three feet deep, it runs quickly along a white sandy bottom.

The riverbanks, like much of Burragorang, are lined with she-oaks and old gums, but along the Nattai, numerous bottlebrush bushes with scarlet flowers also appear. River flats show old furrows where the land was once cultivated, and foundations of slab homes and derelict huts remain as traces of a once-thriving community. A small grave by the roadside under a great kurrajong tree commemorates James Taylor, who drowned in the river in 1869 as a child, and stands as a reminder of the valley’s pioneering farming community.

We crossed the river—a seemingly easy task—but the white sandy bed was loosely packed, and I found myself hip-deep in just a few inches of water. Quicksands of this type occur only in a few places along the Nattai, so we learned to seek stony crossings in the future.

We traveled up the valley toward Mittagong, where cliffs draw closer and the track is shaded by a natural archway of trees. A few cattle roam the paddocks, helping to keep the track in good walking condition. Every few miles, huts appear; some are still used by cattlemen, others by rabbit trappers who spend the winter in the valley. Many old homes have collapsed as if pushed over by a giant hand; others stand partially demolished or unroofed. Newspapers from the early 1930s served as wallpaper in some huts, indicating that they were reoccupied during hard times. Fruit trees and garden flowers, now wild, continue to grow in paddocks where houses no longer exist, leaving only a chimney as a marker.

Bird and animal life abounds in a place where humans are seen only a few times each year. The whole area has been declared a wildlife sanctuary. Many times during a day’s walk along the Nattai, one can see families of wallabies, the occasional platypus, and koalas. Numerous goannas and lizards frequent the rocky slopes. Were it only for the fauna to be seen on such a trip, it would be well worth the effort.

The second night was spent in a disused hut—a stable made very comfortable by about a foot of hay on the floor. At nightfall, the Valley became even quieter, and the sense of isolation was more apparent. Only the occasional yelp of a fox disturbed the silence. As night drew on, the air grew cooler and cooler, until at daybreak it was quite cold, and most parts of the Valley were blanketed in mist. As the first rays of sunlight appeared and the incessant chatter of birds signaled the start of a new day, glimpses of the river could be seen through the clearing fog. An early morning swim proved the Nattai to be no different from any other mountain stream—very cold!

Further up the Valley, the road was lost in places, and we were forced to blaze a trail. What was once a well-made road with cuttings and embankments has mostly been overtaken by gum saplings, and the surface has been washed from between the sandstone foundation. It is now only useful for cattle. Being on a limited hike, we made our way back to the hut where we had spent the previous night. Our proposed return journey followed part of the route we had already covered.

The Nattai River has a long and interesting history. It was first settled in the 1840s, with transport then being by pack-horse from Picton along much the same route the author followed. The road, I believe, came somewhat later. Many families farmed the entire length of the Nattai, though another entrance into the Valley exists at Mittagong. This is known as Starlight’s Trail, for it was here in the early convict days that Captain Starlight, the notorious bushranger, took refuge from the law. So complete were the unbroken sandstone walls of the Nattai River gorge that Starlight, at that time, was the only man who knew the southern exit from the Valley.

In the days when small farms were worked on the river flats, mild flooding was common after good rains. This served as natural irrigation for the many maize and fodder crops supporting a small dairying society. However, over the years, the Nattai cut deeper into its bed and left the cultivation paddocks much higher above the river’s flood level. Largely, this factor, together with the opening up of more country to the south, ended large-scale farming along the river.

Following the Nattai the next day, we completed our tramp by entering Central Burragorang and boarding the bus to Camden, the nearest rail terminal. During our trip along the Nattai, we had only seen one person in three days: an elderly man on horseback who had spent most of his life in the district. It was through him that we learned many things about the Valley which we did not know.

Central Burragorang, as seen from Braithwaite’s Lookout on the Camden Road. This area will be covered by water when the new dam is constructed.

The intensive small cropping in the Southern Tablelands eventually became uneconomical. When a road was built into Burragorang from Camden—an extension of the road to The Oaks, another very old farming community—many pioneers of the Nattai moved their farms to the banks of the Wollondilly, a much larger river with extensive river flats. Today, the main Burragorang Valley is farmed fairly extensively, with irrigation pumps drawing water from the Wollondilly River. Market gardening and dairying are the primary agricultural activities, while numerous guesthouses in Lower Burragorang (Bimlow) offer a rugged bush setting, as the valley here is narrow, more like the Nattai Gorge.

Fate has decreed that the valley has no future as a living community. Within the next decade, water will cover most of the farms currently being worked and isolate any above the water level. Sydney’s new storage dam, the Warragamba, when completed, will bank water thirty or forty miles back into Burragorang and alleviate Sydney’s long-standing water-supply concerns. The Nattai River will be dammed almost as far as Sheas Creek, preserving most of the historic portion of the Nattai—but it will only be accessible via the author’s route, not from Central Burragorang.

The little town of Yarranderie (Upper Burragorang), itself of historic interest, where an old silver-lead mine is still worked by a handful of men, will likely cease to exist. Its only outlet is through the main valley; rugged country has prevented a road from being built through the Moss Vale end. The coal mine at Central Burragorang will probably continue to operate, as the horizontal shafts are only partway down the valley wall, above the proposed water level.

The valley, productive for over a hundred years, will now serve a new purpose: storing water that previously went to waste in the Hawkesbury floods of Richmond and Windsor, which occur every few years. Sydney folk’s favorite picnic spots will be lost, but it is essential to relieve the city’s acute water shortage and storage capacity. Many hikers and bushwalkers still undertake trips into Burragorang from Katoomba or Wentworth Falls, and those keen and active explorers will continue to enjoy these jaunts. For the motorist and casual visitor, however, I say: See Burragorang now!