In the Steps of Charles Darwin
[2 of 2]© John Low
Twenty-five years later, in January 2006 (the 170th anniversary), my daughter Petah (born 1988) and I walked a much improved track constructed during the intervening years. New steps, raised boardwalk sections, bridges and hopping-stone creek crossings, have now replaced the rough path known to locals from the early years.
Unfortunately, Darwin recorded precious little detail of his walk. This was not the case, however, with two other naturalists, one who preceded him by two years and one who followed him down this path three years after his visit.
When the Austrian aristocrat and botanist, Baron Charles von Hugel, hired a gig and drove alone over the Blue Mountains to Bathurst in June 1834, he slept at the Weatherboard Inn, describing it as ’Äúa wretched place, despite its pretensions’Äù. It was very cold when he woke the next morning but he rose early, assembled his botany bag and seed-papers and, with one of the inn’Äôs stable-hands as a guide, set off for the falls before breakfast.
He found the track neglected and the going difficult. ’ÄúJust two men’Äù, he remarked in his journal, ’Äúcould make an excellent track to the waterfall in a single day but, as things are, you can hardly get through. Only by taking considerable leaps across the stream, which has cut a deep bed in some places with over-hanging banks, is it possible to reach the falls with half-dry feet.’Äù He noted the presence of Grevillea acanthifolia and concluded that, despite the difficulties, ’Äúit is worth getting wet feet to see these falls’Äù.
Louisa Meredith also ’Äúwet her feet in the creek’Äù, but ’Äúwith no great objection’Äù, when she walked to the falls in the hot November of 1839 and her account resonates with the obvious joy she experienced. She found among the reeds of the creek ’Äúthe great green frogs and bright dragon-flies’Äù, discovered the delicately beautiful ’Äúfringed violet ’Ķ growing alone on a thin transparent stem’Äù and came upon ’Äúa group of eight or ten splendid waratahs, straight as arrows’Äù that she couldn’Äôt bring herself to pick (it would have been ’Äúsacrilege’Äù, she wrote). After the tiring heat and dust of the Western Road, these small encounters refreshed her spirits. She delighted in the small things of nature and reveled in the ’Äúmoist greenness’Äù of it all.
While much has changed since Darwin’Äôs time, with exotic weed invasion (actively resisted by a local bush regeneration group) and the encroachment of residential properties to within sight at certain points, there is still much to interest the naturalist. The path wanders through a variety of vegetation communities, from the immediate creek-side environment to the hanging swamps with their clumps of button grass, to areas of open forest.
If you are lucky the endangered Blue Mountain skink might pop its head up between the panels of one of the boardwalks and, on a good day, a variety of birds will also put in an appearance. Honeyeaters are drawn to the nectar-rich banksias found along the walk and the thin, raspy cries of Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos haunt the high tops of the trees.
During the breeding season (September to January) a male Satin Bowerbird might also be observed at his bower arranging his collection of blue trinkets. They ’Äúthink about blue like words’Äù wrote the Australian poet David Campbell. It can take seven years for the male bird to fully develop its adult plumage, as deeply and intensely blue as the mountain valleys themselves often are.
Along the course of the creek there are quiet pools and shady retreats to accommodate the reflective walker and the water tumbles in several places over small waterfalls and cascades that become more pronounced the closer you get to the falls. Weeping Rock is perhaps the most famous of these, an image that featured on thousands of postcards at the end of the 19th century. ’ÄúWith every step you take closer to the precipice’Äù, wrote von Hugel, ’Äúthe view opens up more, until you suddenly come to the edge of the chasm, over which the stream plunges with a rush’Äù.
Following his walk to the falls, Darwin rode on to spend the night at the ’ÄòScotch Thistle’Äô inn at Blackheath. While he only lunched at the Weatherboard on his outward trip, on returning from Bathurst six days later he ’Äúslept at the Weatherboard, and before dark took another walk to the amphitheatre’Äù.
I have now walked in Darwin’Äôs steps on numerous occasions and in all weather, in the heat of summer (as he himself did) and on days of cold, drizzling rain. While the modern ’ÄòDarwin’Äôs Walk’Äô begins through a grand entrance in Wilson Park, on the southern side of the Great Western Highway, I think it always preferable to start where Darwin himself did, at the site of The Weatherboard Inn. On a warm day the spreading branches of the Darwin Tree create a pool of shade, a good place to reflect for a moment and adjust the mind to nature and past times. A good way to begin an hour or two in the company of the great naturalist!