Hiking Pisgah Rock to Dadder Cave

Time: ~2.5 hours each way hiking

Distance: ~2.5-3km each way

A short, easy weekend hike

After several attempts to do this hike, we finally managed to achieve it last weekend on a sunny but not unbearably hot weekend. Previous attempts have been stymied by storms and raised river levels, extreme heat (over 45 celsius), and backburning activities so it was great to finally have all the stars align.

Once we got to the access track and wandered down Pisgah Rock track to the lookout, we started the descent towards Erskine Creek down below.

Starting at around 2:00pm was in hindsight not the best of ideas for the descent down. While the path is short and not particularly technical or difficult, the afternoon sun and heat left us feeling pretty sapped for energy and we needed a rest down the bottom to collect ourselves before moving on. Not wanting to lose too much momentum, we chose not to fully unpack and go for a swim, but to instead track on towards Dadder Cave.

Moving up the creek, we crossed over about halfway to Dadder Cave and a natural crossing point, moving from actively scrambling to a more leisurely and level route for the last section before finally arriving at the cave and getting set up.

Once we had the minimum set-up to sleep, we took a couple of drinks apiece and went down to the creek to cool off and get the stress of the day off us. While colder than I’d have liked, the water was warmer than expected and we found ourselves able to comfortably stay in for quite a while before hauling ourselves out to get some food set up for the evening and properly setting up our accommodation.

We thought we’d go the extra mile for the trip, bringing along salami, a few different cheeses, a baguette for a nice dinner along with other snacks to sate us for the rest of the evening. The moon wasn’t full but was incredibly bright, it was more than easy enough to see and navigate closeby without a torch and I rued not bringing my eyemask with me.

Waking up the next day we decided to make a slow and easygoing walk back to the base of the descent and spend some time at the swimming hole before heading back up to the main trail. Again the water was cool but once you were in it was fairly tolerable to stay and enjoy yourself.

Coming back up around midday, it made a huge difference to be able to avoid the worst of the sun on the rocks and start before the sun had baked on them too long. Once back at the top we took a moment to check out the view and where we’d come from before heading back to the car and returning to civilisation.