OT M T6 F4 Northern NSW rainforest swim/hike

Saturday's walk will be in Northern NSW, in the Tweed Caldera. Meeting point will be at The Pines shopping centre in Elanora (at the carpark near the library/KFC) for a 6:30am (QLD time) departure. We can carpool from there. The drive should only take about an hour. I will tell you exact location on the day.

We begin our walk with a climb up a well-defined trail for about 1.5km, before dropping off-track steeply downhill through rainforest until we reach the creek. Water levels will be pretty low. We will alternate between the creek and the creek bank as we make our way upstream. While there are no mandatory large boulders or rockhopping challenges, and no waterfalls on this creek that I'm aware of, it's still very pretty rainforest around every bend, with a few little pools and small cascades. Plenty of opportunities for a swim and a splash.

Depending on the group's fitness and the weather, there is an optional exploratory climb up to a rocky lookout that supposedly has great views. This section will be a steep off-track climb of several hundred metres through rainforest and is completely unknown to me. It might take too long. We can decide on the day whether we want to give it a go or not. Otherwise, a fairly nice stroll up and back along the creek as far as we feel like going. We will most likely return the same way, but if we are making good progress we might be able to do a longer walk that's a loop rather than an out-and-back.

Please look at the club's gradings before registering for this walk. We will be going at a moderately fast pace. 

Distance: M (Medium 10-15km). 

Terrain: T6 (Off-track. Steep rough or rocky terrain. Small climbs/scrambles using hands. Sustained rock hopping.) 

Fitness: F4 (Moderate – up to 7+ hours walking and/or up to 600m elevation gain/loss. Agility and moderate strength required.)

I kindly ask everyone doing the walk to avoid publicly publishing a GPX track recording on Alltrails or Wikiloc.

Suggested donation for those carpooling is $10 to the driver.