The "Entry Prohibited" down Sheehy's Creek Rd. This sign is about 45 km away from the water intakes, and the road beyond doesn't get much closer. Mere facts like this don't seem to worry dysfunctional engineers at Sydney Water.

From here you can walk (or rather bash & scramble & slip), upwards NW to "Coal Hill" for a huge and epic view of the valley and what might just prove to be a damn good paraglider launch site, if only for a want of some second hand artificial turf. (Of course, paragliding is illegal too.)

You might be tempted to come back by a track you'll find near the top. Watch out for the nearby farmer's wife - she has been rumored to shoot at bush-walkers. Yeee Harr!! 

Sheehy's Creek Road near the top. This was the "One Secret Entrance" to Burragorang Valley. A bridle trail was cut to a dirt road only at the start of the century, but by that time another road had been cut into the valley near Oakdale (called "The Jump Back"), so this one was little used until the valley was flooded. Then it had to be done up and sealed for coal mining operations. The portion of the road shown here is "right hand drive" - the idea being that laden coal trucks coming up the hill (toward us) will load the road on its solid side rather than causing the embankment to collapse. Get it?  If you leave the road about 1.5 km before the bottom and follow the creek down instead, you will come to a heavily folded coal seam with some igneous or metamorphic intrusion.

Why was there this molten rock in the middle of a coal seam? Was it friction caused by the folding? Anyone out there know? It also looks like the early settlers hacked away at this exposed seam for a while.
 

A scan of a road map of the Blue Mountains. Can you see Sheehy's Creek Rd, and where it crosses the bottom end of Lake Burragorang? The branch to the NW goes to Valley Colliery No 2, thence Yerranderie, the branch to the SW goes to Valley Colliery No 3.

Both coal roads are asphalt, have centre lines in places, and being closed to motorised transport, represent a great place to ride your bicycle. Go early in the morning or late in the evening and you'll here lots of wild dogs barking, and the echoes of this bouncing between the cliff lines can get a bit spooky. Watch out for Denis! 

The abandoned Valley Colliery No 3 - a close up from the 1:25,000 topo "Nattai". See where the conveyor belt comes out of the hillside, and empties into the middle of the coal bin? Water is usually available in the tank thing shown on this diagram as a blue circle. It is a bit hard to find, though, and there are wrigglies in it. You will need this topographic map and a compass if you plan to go there. Don't stress out about staying overnight - it appears to me to be just outside the 3 km exclusion zone.

Can you count the locks? A gate on another road to the back of Hoddles Head. These are for Catchment Protection Officers and all their other 4WD mates in and out of uniform. Inside this state recreation area are some private landholdings as well. Scrambling down Hoddle's Head was an alternative route into the valley, but not suitable for vehicles or horses. Officially this is a public road, but don't ride your bike down here - you might get sent to prison!

Another illustration of what Sydney Water and their pals have been getting away with. Beside the gate is a sign saying "Public Entry Prohibited". This sign is illegal, as it is about 5 km outside the exclusion zone. Its placement is a blatant breach of public trust. More on illegal signs below!

The media, indecently obsessed with the concept of sexual intercourse with minors, couldn't give a stuff about this sort of abuse of the public's rights.

The bush around Warragamba dam used to be crown land managed by Sydney Water. For political reasons it has been handed over to NPWS. Some of the land is National Park, some of it wilderness area, and areas over coal mining leases are state recreation area. Most of the regulations seem to be written by Sydney Water, however some of them only have a NPWS stamp on the front.

According to Sydney Water and NPWS, all the stuff inside the white line is Schedule 2 (No bicycles or horses). Schedule 1 (human exclusion as well) is all the stuff painted red. You can see other Schedule 1 areas from the Avon and Cordeaux as well over on the right hand side.

In 1995 Sydney Water re-wrote the regulations covering this land. The Draft had a ban on camping and "picnicking" in the Schedule 2 zone unless at a sign-posted site however furious lobbying managed to convince Sydney Water that "a typing mistake" had been made in the draft, and the ban never went through.

Sydney Water, a profit-centred corporation, has been allowed to dictate levels of public access to this massive area (2,511 square km) of national park. They are promising to review recreational access, but no timeline has been set down. Is this right, having a corporation make regulations over public land? Do you have a problem with this? Isn't this like letting Qantas set the airport curfew times, and also giving them sole access to the Royal Australian Golf Course (A profound safety issue. Golf balls might hit planes. Or don't you believe in safety, huh?)

Where else in the world does this ridiculous sort of thing happen? Anyone know?

Catchment restrictions of some sort are of course necessary, but should reflect the worldwide trend of allowing passive recreation. To be legitimate, any review of the catchment restrictions must be scientifically based, and done by an independent body.

In case there was any confusion about a bicycle being a vehicle, NPWS have specifically prohibited bicycles from the Nattai reserves, with nary a whimper from Bicycle NSW.  1n 1995 the NPWS issued the document "Nattai Reserves Draft Plan of Management" which, to my knowledge, represent the first time bicycles have specifically been banned from a fire trail in state recreation area. This document also condoned daily 4WD bus tours over the same fire trails.  This trail is used by a private landholder to take his Range Rover down the Nattai river to his inholdings

This is my all time favorite sign. Erected on Wattle ridge Rd, it is a about 12 km outside the gazetted exclusion zone and 60 km from the dam wall. Who the hell authorised this? Why have NPWS left it up? Perhaps the grossly under-funded Picton office feel that leaving signs like this on display represents an easy management option?  It is pictures like this that prove that Sydney Water CAN NOT be trusted. And yes, I have the negatives.

Edward Irvine, the author of this venemous onslought, and Romper Stomper - one hell of a great dog -(may he rest in peace). Having lived in Picton for a number of years, and having found the beer down there way too good and the cycling way too expensive (in legal fees), your correspondent now teaches maths and computing studies on the NSW mid north coast. He lives in Taree with his wife and new dog.