Wednesday 21/04/2021 Bells Line of Road – Jinki Ridge – Dalpura Creek
Blue Mountains National Park, NSW
Dharug Country
Participants: Beth Davies, Stephen Davies (Photos, Report), Sue Davies, Pablo Ureña Vega
After driving up from the South Coast to Blackheath this morning we found ourselves enjoying an early lunch at Blackheath and contemplating our afternoon activities. Sue pulled out the March 6, Sydney Morning Herald Traveller section, which was subtitled “Think you know the Blue Mountains”. In this article, we noted that local photographer Gary Hayes had recommended Jinki Ridge as his favourite local walk.
Max elevation: 1040 m
Total climbing: 393 m
Total descent: -395 m
Average speed: 3.45 km/h
Total time: 02:30:36
After finding Jinki Ridge on a map, we headed off and drove through Bell, shortly thereafter turning east along the Bell Line of Road for about 4km into a car park under the power lines just past Flagstaff Hill. From here the topographic map and Pocket Earth app both indicated track for only about 1km out along Jinki Ridge. This was not the case, there is well defined track along the whole route.
Along this track, we passed through fairly open woodland, almost 1km along the trail we caught our first glimpse of the pergolas mentioned in the SMH report. These were very impressive. A number of them are easily climbed to gain different perspectives over a multitude of pagodas and the cliffs on the other side of the Grose Gorge.
Whilst exploring this area we noted an unmarked trail heading towards Jinki Gorge, so we backtracked a little to pick this route up and followed it down into Jinki Gully. Once into the creek, we found a tape and carabiner anchor point around a large tree to enable canyoners to descent into the gorge below. At this point we headed upstream for a short distance, delighting in the beautiful sandy creek bed surrounded by a low cliff line.
Pablorunner in Dalpura Canyon
Having not expected the last 2km of track and not having geared up for anything too serious we turned around and walked back to the road the way we had come.
This proved to be a delightful surprise, especially beyond the expected pergolas and views across the Grose Gorge. Well worth the time and effort and worthy of further exploration if adequately prepared.
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