Planning

Why have a Great River Walk?
In the book “The Hawkesbury River” by Paul Boon, it is described as the best-hidden river in the world. In so many ways it is the most special river in Australia. This is why.

– It has the longest estuary on the east coast
– It is navigable from the sea to 120km inland
– One of the longest human occupation of any Australian river
– The longest European occupation of any river
– It flows through 11 national parks
– It passes two world heritage sites encompassing both geography and history
– It has the most visually stunning countryside
– It is quiet and remote, largely forgotten by the biggest city in Australia just 50km away
– It encompasses a country full of ancient Aboriginal rock art
– It has diverse vegetation types and untouched bushland
– It has riverside villages full of character and history

Why wouldn’t you want to walk through a country like this? So the concept of a long-distance walk following this great river was born 25 years ago, and gradually, short sections of the overall route from source to mouth have been opened.

The new 47km stage from Lower Portland to Oystershell Bridge near Spencer is the first major stage to be opened. Hopefully, in time, more will follow.

The whole route was first walked over a four-year period from 2000 to 2004 by a group of bushwalkers from the Sydney Bush Walkers Club. The story of that walk is now on the Great River Walk (GRW) page of Bushwalk.com.

An article describing how unusual this great river is, forms part of the GRW page as well. A full description of the new stage is in this app. It is in two parts, walking from Lower Portland to Oystershell, and a separate description walking the other way.