Blinkwater Ravine
Location: The huge ravine making the divide between the Main massif of the Western Table, and the range of the 12 Apostles buttresses. NB Technically this route is closed and the SAN Parks notices at the bottom and at the top alert you that it is used at your own risk.
Overview: Blinkwater Ravine (formerly Stinkwater!) is not officially maintained by SAN Parks and the chains on the top rock scramble were removed after a rockslide lower down in the ravine made the whole route unsafe.
Route Description:
Start off the Pipe Track at a point right of the stream bed where currently (April 2012) SAN Parks have a Warning sign to use at own risk. The first hundred metres or so is a lumbago alley through thick bush, then the path opens up under a Tree canopy and moves further right to next to the cliff.
The route keeps right until some way above the seasonal waterfall where it is easy to traverse into the rocky stream bed. Higher up a large block bars progress. Here you move left around it then right to gain the stream bed again.(NB several sections in the stream bed are loose, especially the part where the rockfall occurred in 1982) Move with care, keeping to the left off the loose rock.
The watercourse narrows in places and some short tricky sections have to be surmounted, the most memorable being up to and around behind a prominent large tree. After negotiating Protea bushes obstructing the remains of the old steps, the ravine pinches out, and a 15m cliff on the left is climbed. (The remains of the anchors for the old chains are still there) Follow a narrow ledge out left, to stone steps, which apart from one short rocky corner section, lead easily to the saddle above Echo Valley.
