Exploring Parma Creek

A lovely sunny Saturday and a chance to explore a great little spot near our new home, Parma Creek Nature Reserve. Oh yea, we moved! Work opportunities and life have taken us out of the mountains and back to the coast. The NSW south coast is a beautiful spot, amazing empty beaches and only a short drive to the mountains, the best of both worlds.

Anyway, yea, a sunny Saturday checking out Parma Creek. My parents had an old guide book for the area and this one of the walks recommended. We went a bit off track joining up two separate walks from the book.

We left the Princes Highway and straight into gravel road, much more my style. We parked up just near a crossing of Parma Creek and set off.

First spot was a nice lookout, a little early for break but the view was nice so what the hell.

Parma Creek from Parma Fire Rd

 Too early for a break? nah

After our break from the exhausting 200m that we had walked we continued on across the creek along the fire trail. There were some nice flowers about.

Drumsticks isopogon anemonifolius 

A type of Leptospermum (tea tree)?

Pink Fingers Orchid Caladenia carnea

A type of Hibbertia (Guinea Flower)?

Waratah

A type of prickly pea, I got over trying to identify this one!

We left Parma Fire Rd and followed a nice track through the bush. There were lots of side tracks and we kind of just followed our way.

Nice track

An then we ended up at an awesome waterfall.

Very nice waterfall, photo is a bit crap 

Being full of adventure we bush bashed down and found a fantastic cave, nice and cool out of the sun.

Now it got interesting, instead of heading back we (maybe I) thought it would be a good idea to follow this tributary downstream until we came to Parma Creek which we could then follow back upstream to the lovely lookout that we started at. The going was very interesting...

Finding our way through the little tributary back to Parma Creek

Amazing trees though

After some time, actually quite a bit of time, we ended up at Parma Creek and what looked like a great swimming hole. We left the swimming for another day and followed Parma Creek upstream.

Potential swimming hole Parma Creek

 I started to take us higher to avoid the waterfall at the start of the walk. It was pretty good going compared to the creek bash earlier with some nice views of the valley.

Parma Creek from the eastern ridge

And that was about it. No snakes or other bities so all good. Great day out exploring a new area.