Illawara Tunnels

 

Date: 10/10/2020

Participants: SUBW and me 

 

I joined Bruce on another day trip, this time we went to the Illawarra region to explore some tunnels. The group met at Central Station to catch the 8:30 train to Helensburgh. The ride from Central along the Illawarra train line has always been one of the most scenic rides along New South Wales south coast.

We took our group photo at the station and began our walk to the first tunnel - Cawley Tunnel.

According to Bruce, it is the second of the original 8 tunnels in the South Coast region train line. We crossed a rail bridge and walked along Cawley road, passing a locked gate. After walking along a track, we arrived at the tunnel entrance. The tunnel was quite damp and muddy, but it was so cool compared to the hot weather outside. We didn't use our head torch for the first tunnel as there was enough light for the short walk. Bruce also said that there were some mushroom farmers who grew mushrooms in this tunnel. 

 

 

After a short break at what seems to be like a car park, we followed another bush track to the road bridge over the train line, arriving at the second tunnel. 

From the outside, the second tunnel looked shorter than our first one, but before exploring it, we checked out the waterfall which was on the other side of the bridge over us. 

There was a family with children who were playing around the pool where the waterfall was going down beneath us. The second tunnel was wetter than the first one, we kept ourselves dry by sticking to the wall. At the end of the tunnel, there was a dam and another pool. 

 

 

We climbed up a steep short track to a bigger trail to the third tunnel. 

The third tunnel was also the Old Helensburgh tunnel. We saw a lyrebird at the end of the short tunnel! The tunnel was very dry. 

We went to our fourth tunnel - the Metropolitan tunnel, which was also the location of the old Helensburgh station, unfortunately, it was close as there was too much damage done to the glow worm population inside. After a short toilet break at Helensburgh station nearby, we went along the Hacking Fire trail and had lunch at a clearing spot. The group had to cross the Hacking river after that. For me, I chose an easier part further up, but ended up in a private property! Lucky for me the fence was open so I joined the group shortly after. 

We went straight to Otford lookout, one of the endpoints of the popular Coast track. 

After another group photo at Otford lookout, we headed to the Otford tunnel, also the longest one on this trip, about 1.5km! The path to the tunnel branched off from the road to Otford station. 

Bruce explained to us the reasons for his choice of day to did the walk. On this day, it was the centenary of the closing of the Otford tunnel to trains in 1920, the other reason was that this day was his birthday! 

The group sang him a happy birthday when we reached the end of the tunnel. It was really dark inside the tunnels, and very cool as well. It wasn't a dry tunnel either, one of the people in our group, John, spotted a few Yabbies in the stream running through the tunnel. 

We headed down to Stanwell Park Beach after the last tunnel and had a break for about half an hour before going to Stanwell Park station. 

However! There was a bushfire nearby - after checking the news I found out that it was in Kangaroo ridge! We couldn't take the train back all the way back to Central so the group had to separate and took different buses back. On the bus, I could see fire along the highway! There was a couple of people laughing at the situation who later got yelled at by another passenger on the bus. I wonder what was funny about this situation? Though, the trip had been exciting to me, a full day of exploration!