Finding Hollands Gorge
When John Kraefft emerged onto a thin sliver of sandstone cliff, deep in the Budawang Range, his escape from its dense heath was only temporary. It’s one of those places where progress is measured in metres. John—a lanky, experienced bushwalker—and his party had been off route for hours. They were low on water and exhausted by the struggle through thick swathes of banksia, hakea and melaleuca—a who’s who of Australian shrubs.
Their attempt to traverse Hollands Gorge, a rainforest-lined corridor that links Folly Point and Mt Tarn in the northern part of the range, had gone awry. The gorge, now cast in shadow, lay somewhere to the south west. In twilight, they pitched tents and sucked whatever water they could from a seepage. Tomorrow, they had to head back into this arboreal version of quicksand to get home. Their attempt was over.
The Budawangs, a spur of the Great Dividing Range, lie between the Clyde and Kendrick rivers in southern NSW, their peaks and ridges crisscrossed by densely forested valleys and gullies like Hollands Gorge. The Wandandian and Walbanja tribes arrived here over 10,000 years ago. Desperate lumberjacks extracted what
