Martins Creek & Grant Head (25-27 Apr 2026)

Grant Head had been on the to-do list for a while. We regretted not getting out there in the aftermath of the 2019 fires, and knew we’d be in for a scrub-fest to go there now, with 6 years of regrowth.

In 2025 I had a Grant Head trip on the club program for ANZAC weekend, but 50mm of rain forecast on the latter part of that weekend nixed the plan. This year though! The forecast was ideal – well maybe a tad warm – but warm, still days with no rain in sight.

We oscillated between 3 and 4 starters in the days leading up to the trip, but in the end it was 3 of us: me, Tom & Jo. Given the paucity of campsites nowadays I wasn’t unhappy about the small team. We ironically all ended up at the same petrol station the same 15 minutes late on the way in. There was one other car at the Wattle Ridge car park when we arrived, and another group arrived while we were getting ready (and were off before us!).

Then it was into the unknown. We picked up the “horse track” pretty easily not far from the car park, and were very happy to be walking an actual bush track for the first few kilometres. We made it across Martins Creek without getting wet feet, then picked up another track to lead us up to the Long Nose Ridge Fire Trail (seems the trail bikers have been busy). The hour or so on the fire trail was more than enough – none of us fans of fire trail walking. We found a rock with filtered views for morning tea, and then it was time to see what the vegetation was going to serve up.

We had a relatively straight-forward descent back into Martins Creek (much further down obviously). Fortunately we found a scramble through the cliffline immediately above the creek.

We were immediately pleased with what we saw – Martins Creek at the moment is quite attractive. Rock platforms, ferns, and flowing nicely. However, we soon discovered the rocks were incredibly greasy and it was with great care we picked our way along the banks hoping not to come a cropper. I had a trip report from 1983 where that party reported the “creek turned into wall to wall thick jungle of sword grass, tea tree etc…. lacerations from sword grass”. Fortunately for us the floods of recent years, along with regular animal tracks, meant the vegetation wasn’t too difficult.

We crossed the creek numerous times, as it wiggled frequently, and we tried to keep to the inside banks.

We stopped for lunch just before the “canyon” section started.

The canyon was full of immense boulders and was fun… at first. Then it was interesting, and then we just were ready for it to be over. There was plenty of problem solving, a lot of squatting and scrambling. And on the odd occasion some serious route finding. We passed several attractive waterfalls, and the water in the creek was stunning. I kept thinking the creek was flattening out and then we’d hit another section of house sized boulders. Eventually it did give way to smaller boulders and less drops.

Not long after the creek flattened we came to a nice spot to camp. It was a tad earlier than we’d planned to camp (both time and distance wise), but given how physical the day had been, and low expectations for frequent campsites, we decided to take it. It was a lovely spot, and we enjoyed the ambience and chance to sit down! Jo’s dinner was not quite so enjoyable – a spicy ramen that almost blew her head off. Restraint was shown in not drinking all the port on the first night – even if it meant we had to carry it up the hill the next day.

Our second day wasn’t particularly long so we didn’t get going particularly early. We woke to fog covering the valley, which Tom hoped meant he would get valley cloud the next morning when we had our high camp. Away from camp by 9am, we rock-hopped along the now quite flat creek. Tom occasionally stuck his head up onto the bank to look for the old road – it was evident but not great walking. Our decision to camp where we did was justified as we didn’t see any other real options for at least an hour downstream.

At the base of our intended spur we had morning tea and drank copious amounts of water.

The spur was a delight – either it didn’t see much fire in 2019, or the soil was so rubbish, or both, that it felt like we were back in pre-bushfire walking days. The main (only?) challenge was that it was 500m ascent and we were carrying water for the next two days.

As we got close to the top, the nose narrowed and we scrambled a lot more. We were initially foiled by one cliffline, only about 4m, that didn’t have an obvious break. There were many options, depending on your climbing/risk appetite. Eventually I convinced Tom we should head up to the immediate right of the point. Of course, with him going first. It looked easy from below, with plenty of footholds…. turned out the top was loose conglomerate, but Tom made it up despite the lack of handholds. Hauling the heavy packs was hard work… and since the tape was set up for the packhauling, Jo & I decided why eschew it!

From there it was more scrambling, and squeezing through/past trees on the narrow nose, and eventually we popped out on top. To my delight there was a nice rock with views for a very late lunch. Less fortunately (though arguably somewhat fortunate) Jo’s pack strap decided to snap on the final balancey scramble to the lunch spot. Fortunately Tom was on hand to grab hold of the pack and stop her tumbling backwards. Some maintenance was applied over lunch and it survived the rest of the trip.

As it was 2:45pm by the time we finished lunch we didn’t have as much time as expected to explore Grant Head. We did go looking for some caves (didn’t find any worth noting), and checked out views from different spots, but then it was back to our chosen spot to set up camp.

It was a delightful evening with no wind. Happy hour on the cliffs was great, then we retreated closer to the tents for the rest of the evening. It was a warm night, and with no wind the tent was saturated in the morning.

Tom was up for pre-sunrise Golden Hour, though disappointingly for him there was no valley cloud.

That meant we could get away on time though! By 8:30am we were fortifying our minds for the scrub-fest that awaited us. The first kilometre was interspersed with frequent rock platforms and relatively easy going. On one of the ridge twists we ended up on the wrong side of the knoll and in scrub hell, but fortunately sections like that were infrequent, and we generally made about 2km/hour. It certainly made the bashing easier as we’d come prepared with full body protection (trousers, gaiters, long sleeved shirts, gloves). Even though it wasn’t dreadful going, it was still fairly warm (low 20s), and after 4 hours of ridge-bashing we were ready for a change of scenery.

Rather than continue on the ridge back to the road, we opted to drop down into the creek which runs alongside the Nattai Road above the switchbacks. Getting down to the creek involved a completely different type of scrub (so we got our change of scenery!?). Eventually we made it into the creek and then out the other side for a very well deserved lunch above a waterfall.

From there, we made our way up the Nattai “Road” to the fire trail, and then, the always painful, 1.5 hour fire trail bash back to the car park. Jo & I got back just after 4pm and waited for Tom to arrive (he’d been distracted by photographing plants). It was only after Tom got back that he noticed there was note attached to our windscreen & written in the dust on the back window. Fortunately not police tape this time! The writers of the note appeared about 30 seconds after we’d read it. We were very pleased to see Paul, Alex & Rob and exchange stories about the weekend, and walking the Nattai in general.

This was a wonderful long weekend in the bush. It was particularly satisfying knocking off two things from the bucket list (Martins Creek & Grant Head) in one weekend.