Media release - Restoring Jenolan Caves Road

July 25, 2024

There's some more work to be done, and more road closures.

Vital slope work the next step in restoring Jenolan Caves Road near Hampton

Published 22 Jul 2024

Critical work to remediate another slope known as Carlos Creek near the Hampton section of Jenolan Caves Road is the next step in the ongoing restoration of the flood-damaged route.

Fixing the damage. Photo supplied

Four mini drilling rigs, known as marinis, will hang off the side of the road to help crews complete this important stabilisation and drainage work, and using the marinis will drastically cut the number of days the road will be closed to all traffic.

Transport for NSW Acting Regional Director West Damien Pfeiffer said the extent of damage at Carlos Creek was fully revealed during work to rehabilitate the Hampton downslope, which started in January 2024 and is now nearing completion two months ahead of schedule.

"Jenolan Caves Road has been hit by a series of natural disasters in recent years, starting with bushfires in 2019 and 2020 and then flooding in 2021 and 2022 that extensively damaged the road network," Mr Pfeiffer said.

"We're proud of the work by contractor McIlwain to complete the project at Hampton ahead of schedule and now their attention will turn to restoring the road and slope over Carlos Creek." 

The appointment of McIlwain to complete the work at Carlos Creek will benefit the community by allowing for an expedited start of work that will fully restore this section of Jenolan Caves Road sooner.

"Already having a contractor on-site with the skills, equipment and expertise to start this work immediately upon the completion of Hampton downslope will save up to six months in time and significant costs in procuring another contractor," Mr Pfeiffer said.

"We did not understand the full damage at Carlos Creek until crews were able to carry out extensive investigations during full road closures as part of the Hampton section of work, and the decision was made to add this vital repair work to the ongoing list of work being carried out on Jenolan Caves Road."

The investigations at Carlos Creek indicated the embankment failure would require a construction solution beyond that of routine maintenance work to remediate the slope. 

Transport for NSW explored several plans to remediate the embankment slope before settling on the solution of installing grout injection piles to improve the shear characteristics of the existing fill material prior to the installation of 10-metre long soil nails and shotcrete.

"Crews face another challenging repair job at Carlos Creek which will mean more full road closures over the next nine months but it's important work that will help us finally return this section of Jenolan Caves to pre-disaster condition," Mr Pfeiffer said.

"The first full road closures will be from Monday 22 July to Friday 26 July with a detour in place via Oberon, Bathurst and Lithgow using Duckmaloi Road, O'Connell Road and the Great Western Highway in both directions. Motorists should allow up to one hour and 40 minutes of additional travel time.

"The next series of full road closures will be from Monday 5 August to Tuesday 20 August, and we will continue to advise the community of any more road closures after that as they are confirmed.

"The good news is that the availability of four marini drilling rigs means crews will be able to complete the job with about 42 full road closures rather than the original estimate of about 80."

The start of work at Carlos Creek follows last week's announcement that contractor McIlwain had also been engaged to oversee extensive slope and road strengthening repairs on the Two Mile section of Jenolan Caves Road.

As was the case with the Hampton restoration, the challenging terrain at Two Mile means specialist crews will again be required to abseil down the slope to install up to four rows of soil nails, up to eight metres each in length, with more than 1200 nails expected to be installed.

Crews will also replace three culverts with larger culverts and other drainage infrastructure to better handle surface run-off during rainfall. New kerb and guttering will round out the drainage improvements.

Check Live Traffic for the latest updates on traffic conditions on Jenolan Caves Road.

More information and updates on works being conducted along Jenolan Caves Road can be found here.

See also: Media release - Fixing Two Mile

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