Saturday, August 07, 2010

Exploring our local area: Stockrington Hike

Today Billy & I went on a hike with his Cub Scout group.  It was a nice small group - 7 kids and assorted parents & leaders. 

Just near the little town of Seahampton, there is a road that veers off down the mountain to the site of an old mining area called Stockrington.  Off that road is an old railway cutting - it was apparently home to Australia's last working steam railway.  There are no longer any steel tracks, but its a fairly easy walk (if somewhat muddy today!), and you get to go through one of the old railway tunnels.


The echoes were awesome - you can imagine how much fun the kids had :)  We made our way to where one of the other tunnels are but it was flooded, so we couldn't go in. 

Also along the track is a cave known as Jewboy's Cave.  Edward "Jewboy" Davis was a bushranger (outlaw) in our local area in the 1840s.  There's no evidence that he and his gang actually used the cave, but its a nice story :)


This was the first time we had to leave the track - the first time we felt like we'd really been on a hike!  We had to do some rather serious rockhopping to get down to the river where the cave was - thank goodness for some strong dads that lent a hand to get us back up again :)

The cave was more an overhang than a deep cave, but was quite picturesque - with a lovely small waterfall nearby.  My camera batteries were dead by this stage, so no photos of it unfortunately.  We stopped for a rest and afternoon tea before heading back off down the track to the cars. 

I have to admit to being quite pleased when the cars came into view!  It was that pleasant tiredness though of fresh air, exercise and a great day.


Billy being 'king of the mountain' earlier in the day.

3 comments:

Kylie said...

very cool, heaps of fun by the looks.

Tracy said...

looks like a lot of fun!

Dove's Rest said...

Carter is very excited because he starts Cubs at Glen William Hall on Tuesday night and I showed him Billy at Stockrington. Catch up on Tuesday maybe.