Cania Gorge and Cania Lake

Mon 7 September… Armed with our day sack, bottles of water and blister plasters, we got an early start to do the bush trails we didn’t do yesterday, only this time we drove to the start of the trails. We are now a 2 camera family as our first camera has decided to start functioning again. It could only have been one grain of sand gumming up the zoom. The Navigator had this good idea of putting it in the freezer for a bit and then trying it. With a bit of prodding and pushing, something moved. Well we didn’t have anything to lose as we were told it would be $500 to repair it. Now we are both snap happy!
The description given on the map for our first walk beggared belief. “This pleasant, easy walk ------------allow 3 hours” It was more like a part of the SAS selection course with steep gradients and hundreds of rocky steps. Well perhaps it wasn’t that bad but it was hard work, but the scenery was excellent. Our first stop was called Dripping Rock, which was basically a damp wall with ferns and green algae on it. On then to the overhang, a spectacular lump of rock overhanging a creek, which looking at the pictures looked really lush and green. Unfortunately the creek had dried up but it was still an amazing place. LOTS of photos to follow! After our 3 hour “stroll” We drove another 8 K’s to Cania Dam, very picturesque, but water levels very low. We had lunch overlooking the lake, and there were only 2 other vehicles there. Just south of the lake is another “easy” 1 hour walk, uphill, to an old gold mine, called Shamrock Mine and apart from a small amount of machinery, it was just a lot of holes in the ground. It was worked on and off from before the turn of the century until the 1950s.
If nothing else Cania Gorge Camp site has lots of friendly people here and we have learned lots from people happy to share their travel experiences with us, and we have started to realise that there is still so much to see and so little time left.