Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park – Elvina Trail

We made the most of another beautiful spring day (and the long weekend) to head to Ku Ring Gai National Park, located in north Sydney it is Australia’s second-oldest park. There are plenty of walking tracks through bush and rainforest as well as amazing lookouts over the ocean and several Aboriginal sites. We decided to hike the Elvina Trail, as it has several pools and a waterfall which would provide some respite from the hot sun. Starting the trail we headed down a wide service track with lots of wildflowers growing along either side. There were several switchbacks as we headed steeply down towards the water and small settlement of Elvina Bay. I heard some rustling in some of the ferns in the switchback below us and suddenly a little wallaby jumped out and started eating! I was a bit excited as I have been dying to see one since we got to Australia. 

Elvina Trail

Beautiful bushland of Ku Ring Gai National Park

Wallaby!

Happy Hikers

As we headed towards the water the plants change from scrubby bush to large eucalyptus trees. Passing the small tin houses along the waterfront we continued along a small trail around to Lovett Bay. From Lovett Bay we branched off the trail and headed back into the bush. A short scramble later we arrived at some large rocks which we had to negotiate down and then we were standing at the base of a waterfall. (Only after I climbed down the rocks was it pointed out that there were lots of funnel spider webs in some of the niches). The waterfall is about 25m and falls onto large rocks with a small sand pool at its base. The bush here is almost rainforest; lots of ferns and moss. There seemed to be quite an easy climb up the rocks to a ledge part way up the waterfall so we headed up and stood under the spray. It was amazingly cold but pretty refreshing after our hike so far.

Rainforest

Lovett Waterfall

Scrambling up the rocks

Hanging out under the waterfall

Getting soaked!

I had read that there was a way of accessing the top of the waterfall and that the views were incredible but unfortunately this was not marked on any of the trail maps so we had to improvise. After taking several paths up and hitting sheer rock face we finally found a route that took us to the top of the ridge line. There was a lot of scrambling and there was quite a thick bed of leaves on the ground so I was hoping we wouldn’t disturb anything too poisoness that might be sleeping beneath….We walked along the ridgeline through large angophora trees and dense banksia forest in the vague direction of the waterfall and finally came across a large sandstone platform where a creek flowed into several pool and a series of cascades down to the main waterfall. The cascades are right above Lovett Bay so Tim and I climbed down as far as we could to the final edge – the view was amazing. Tim suddenly noticed he was bleeding on his foot and when he took his shoe off there was a leech just chilling in there feeding away. It must have attached itself whilst we were wading through the pools….really vile. Roger also got bitten by rather a large tick and we spent the best part of 10 minutes trying to dislodge it from the back of his neck!

A little bit lost.....

Top of the cascades

View from the top

Cascades

Disgusting leech

Casualty

With the war wounds all bandaged up we headed back down to the main service trail taking a little detour through the bush to a large rock platform with lots of Aboriginal engravings of wallabies, fish, emu and a giant whale. The entire rock platform has a rare erosional feature called tessellation where the rock surface erodes at different rates resulting in divot holes and depressions. It is amazing how different the landscape can be just 50m from the trail. Once back at the car we drove to West Head lookout. The views were incredible, we could see right across Broken Bay, Pittwater, Barrenjoey Headland and the Lighthouse that we climbed to on our first weekend in Sydney.

Beautiful West Head Lookout