The Glow Worm Tunnel walk is in the Wollemi National Park. It follows the line of the old railway built in the 1900’s that linked the Newnes Shale Oil complex with Sydney. The old railway line parted from the main line at the top of the Blue Mountains at the clearly named Newnes Junction (just near Clarence, where the Zig Zag Railway now operates).

The walk itself starts some distance from Clarence and it is necessary to drive in. There wasn’t much sign of the old rail bed at the start of the drive. What I have seen online suggests that the road does not initially follow the rail bed. The later part of the drive, however, is on Glow Worm Tunnel Road, which follows the old rail bed from the plateau down into the Tunnel Creek gorge. The road goes through a rail tunnel and through several cuttings originally made for the railway. They have not been widened – they are quite narrow and quite definitely single lane.

The walk in

The road ends at a carpark (and toilet), and the walking track then continues along the rail bed. It is a moderately easy walk in the most part, with a level and even pathway. Being an old railway line, it isn’t steep.

There is one exception, however, which makes it very definitely not suitable for wheelchairs and bikes, and possibly difficult for people needing walking aids. At one point the railway line used to go over a bridge. That bridge has long gone (there’s not even signs of it there anymore), and the path detours down some steps to a new pedestrian bridge at a lower level. The path down on the carpark side isn’t too bad, but return path on the tunnel side is a very narrow set of steps carved into a gap between a rock and the rock wall of the gorge. Easy enough for a person with full mobility, but could be challenging for other people.

The tunnel

The tunnel is deceptively tall. Walking towards the tunnel entrance, it looked like it wasn’t a particularly large cliff that it went into. It was only when some people walked out of the tunnel that the true scale became apparent. The tunnel entrance was a bit further way than I had assumed.

The path inside the tunnel is quite well made, and has a safety rail along one side, with a clear space beyond that where there is a fairly constant trickle of water. I presume it is deliberately done this way to keep people from touching the walls where the glowworms live. I understand that the pathway used to be just the uneven old rail bed, but that it has been redone and upgraded in the last couple of years.

It was certainly quite smooth and easy to walk on when we were there. It could even have been possible to navigate the tunnel without a torch if necessary, but just hanging onto the safety rail. Not recommended though – people stop and turn torches off to allow their eyes to adjust and see the glow worms, and it is so dark in there that you literally cannot see your hand in front of your face. The only way to find someone is in front of you when neither have a torch on is to walk into them. Word of experience – check your torch batteries BEFORE you leave home! (My partner had a torch, so I was not completely without light).

The tunnel exit

The tunnel exits back into the gorge of Tunnel Creek – only this time it is much deeper and steeper sided. The entire area is clearly rainforest, and I kept of expecting a small dinosaur to emerge from the undergrowth. No such luck, however.

There is a nice little clearing area off to the left of the tunnel exit where you can stop for a breather, snack, and/or cup of tea (definitely BYO for all the above – and please ensure you TYO for your rubbish when you leave). It was an amazing peaceful little place, if you excuse the several families with middle-sized children that were also there at the time we were. This is the upstream side, and the railway did not originally come this way.

The railway bed continues down the gorge, following the creek. The rail bed has long since washed away in floods since it was closed, and the path meanders along the gorge. It’s hard to imagine that 100 years ago this part of the gorge was probably pretty much barren of any growth, with a railway line down the middle.

Exiting the Gorge

The Tunnel Creek gorge exits the cliff face of the Wolgan Valley in a fairly steep drop down to the valley floor. Certainly not a path the railway could follow. Instead, the railway turned right towards Newnes along the cliff face. On a ledge apparently carved out of the cliff face by the workers all those years ago, it commenced a slow descent down the cliff towards the valley floor and Newnes, still several kilometers away.

I understand that the rail bed is a maintained path for a good portion of the way, and you can follow it down to the valley floor. Once on the valley floor I’m not sure if the modern path continues to follow the railway line or not, but in any case paths continue on to Newnes. We did not walk any further than the Wolgan Valley lookout, only a few hundred metres on from where the tunnel exits into the gorge.

If you do come this way, you can admire the patches where parts of the rock face have sheared away from the cliff behind and dropped to the ledge. There are also some quite spectacular patterns in the cliff walls to admire in places.

Other images

Links

• Glow Worm Tunnel Walking Track (NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service Website)

Disclaimer

We attended the establishments and locations mentioned in this post as full fee-paying guests. Our hosts were not advised that we are semi-professional photographers or bloggers before or during our visit. It is our understanding that the tours and information we received were as normally provided to any member of the public. Actually the locations in this post are all free and open to the public, but the same point applies.

I hold a Small Scale Filming and Photography Permit from the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and I am permitted to sell photographs taken in accordance with that permit.

The views expressed in this post are mine and mine alone, and any errors in it are also all mine. Any recommendations made in this post are unpaid and are based entirely on my experiences during my visit. Your experience may differ, and I cannot be responsible for that.