Circa 1933. B&W hand tinted. A. H. Pelham collection.
(see person in foreground for scale)

April 1994. Photo: B. Cameron

July 2008. Photo: P. Miller

Friends of Saint Helena Crater

This web site is for the Friends of Saint Helena Crater bush care group. We are working on restoring Saint Helena Crater in the Blue Mountains National Park, NSW, to its natural state. It is presently suffering from a severe weed problem. We are working with NPWS to tackle the problem.

Take a look at the problem in 2009: there is a page of immersive panoramas that you can pan left and right, and tilt up and down; you can take “a look around”.

Getting There

Location: via Google Maps
Map: Penrith 1:25k, ref 740622

Closest route from a railway station is Blaxland via Ross Crescent and the Bullant track (6.4km). I've never walked this route.
Closest route by car is parking at Martins Lookout via the Kings Link track via Bunyan Lookout (4.5km). The Glenbrook Creek valley is 250m deep at this point, and you will need legs of iron to cross it twice in one day. (Martins Lookout to Bunyans Lookout takes about 2hrs.)
Glenbrook station via the Duck Hole is 7.3km. This is the way I first went to Saint Helena Crater, and still my favourite. The Glenbrook Creek valley isn't as deep at this point, and is at an easier grade.
The easiest walk in is the 11.5km from the Woodford gate, and most definitely the easiest walk out.

Our Aims:

The aim of this group is to restore Saint Helena Crater to the state which inspired The Warrigal Club to start work to protect it in the late 1930s. It was described then as

an attractive and unique feature from the point of view of geological and botanical study and the [lease] will permit of some control being exercised over it to prevent spoilation and destruction of these special features.

Sadly, the crater today has difficulty inspiring such sentiments. You can read an article describing the problem (PDF). There is also shorter version as PDF.

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” — Greek Proverb
The proverb is a metaphore, but you and I can grow us some actual trees.

You Can Help:

We are currently recruiting individuals and bushwalking clubs to help us with this long-term project. There is more than enough work, and credit, to go around!

Follow the link to see how you, and your club, can participate.

Mailing List:

Want to stay up-to-date with what is happening? See our mailing list.

Please join our mailing list, it makes it much easier to distribute important information, such as short-notice events, to interested people.

Photographs:

Do you have photographs of Saint Helena Crater in better days? We are urgently looking for photographs of the crater, to give people an idea of why it is so important to restore this “attractive and unique feature”, and what it is that we are aiming for. Please contact Peter Miller <pmiller@opensource.org.au> if you do.

If you have trip reports of visits to the crater, with or without photographs, recently or long ago or anywhere in between, we would like to see them.

Calendar:

When are we planning working bees? See the the calendar.

Known Weeds:

The following weeds are known to occur in the crater: Balloon Vine, Blackberry, Black Willow, Cobbler's Pegs, Moth Vine. Follow the link for more information.

Contacts:

Convenor:	Peter Miller	<pmiller@opensource.org.au>	02-4365-5521
NPWS:	Fluer Urquhart	<fluer.urquhart@environment.nsw.gov.au>	02-4739-2950

Copyright © 2008 Peter Miller
Some rights reserved.
These works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike 3.0 License. You may use this material if you fully comply with the license conditions.

This page has been accessed approximately number times since 2008-Aug-27.