The Pterodactyl Cave and a Short Canyon – 16 November 2016

I had recently seen some photos of The Pterodactyl Cave on social media (such as this one taken by climbing photographer Kamil Sustiak) and it was featured in a story in Vertical Life online climbing magazine. But it didn’t seem to match any feature in the Blue Mountains that I knew. I mentioned it to Bob and we both speculated about possible locations.

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It is a current climbing development site – and climbers like to protect the secrecy of their locations until they have put up their climbs. Fair enough. But, with a bit of investigation both Bob and myself independently found out the cave’s location. It is actually a natural arch and has been known about by non aboriginal visitors since at least the 1950’s. 

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So, we headed up to the Blue Mountains and ended up only doing a short walk to reach the arch. It is quite impressive! In a few places we could see quickdraws and bolts – signs that climbers had been there.

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There are some convenient ledges that allow you to climb part way up the side of the arch.

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After quite few photos, we climbed back up to the ridge and then investigated a small canyon nearby. I had visited this canyon on a trip many years earlier, but this time I wanted to try and get some better photos. The canyon was nice – but all too short.

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We then climbed above the canyon and looked down into the slot.

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Near the canyon were some nice Pagoda Daisies.

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On the walk back we found many wild flowers – including a multitude of Waratahs (we were on the Waratah Ridge!)

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We also found a few markers indicating some sort of transect –

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Both the Pterodactyl Cave and the small canyon are not protected. They are included in the Stage 2 Proposal for Gardens of Stone National Park.

We next visited a small knoll nearby that had some aboriginal sharpening grooves and some possible aboriginal art.

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On our way home, we stopped of at Mellow Bath and checked out a recent landslide near the Coliseum and below the Hydro Majestic Hotel. It looks like this landslide took place around 9 October 2016.

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More photos from this interesting trip are online on my website here.

This entry was posted in Blue Mountains, Bushwalking, Canyoning, Gardens of Stone, Wildflowers and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

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