Finding Little Roar Gill

Finding Little Roar Gill

I had seen photographs of Little Roar Gill before, particularly of the waterfall when there was considerably more water flowing through it. It had been sitting somewhere in the back of my mind as another local place I wanted to explore, but also as somewhere that might offer another place for me to connect with water.

So I went looking for it.

Tucked away amongst the houses of Hastings, the gill is remarkably easy to overlook. There is no grand approach to it. Instead, a twisting path leads down between the trees and into the narrow valley, following the contours of the land until the world outside gradually begins to disappear.

The waterfall itself was rather less dramatic than the photographs I had previously seen. After all the dry weather we have had, that was hardly surprising. Instead of water tumbling through the gill, there was mostly a trickle finding its way between stones and along the stream bed. I will have to return after a period of proper rain to see it flowing more strongly.

Yet standing beside the waterfall, I realised that the amount of water was not really the important part.

The place felt strangely liminal. The high, enclosed sides of the gill seemed to shut away the world beyond them, blocking much of the sound from the nearby roads. In its place came the quieter sounds of the water: trickling over stone, slipping between rocks and echoing gently within the narrow valley. The shape of the land seemed almost to gather those sounds and channel them through the space. Even with so little water flowing, its presence seemed to fill the gill.

Perhaps that feeling was strengthened by the way I had entered. There is essentially one twisting path leading down into the gill and the same route leading back out again. Once inside, surrounded by steep banks, trees and ferns, there is a sense of having crossed into somewhere separate. The ordinary world has not gone anywhere, of course; it is remarkably close. Yet for a while it becomes difficult to hear or see.

At the bottom I found a deeper, pool-like section, although at the moment it is filled with fallen logs and branches. It immediately made me curious about how the whole place might change when the rains return. Perhaps the pool deepens, the waterfall begins to roar again and the little trickle running through the stones becomes something much more substantial.

But perhaps there is also something to be said for meeting a place like this quietly first.

I have increasingly found that connection with a place does not necessarily happen simply because I have arrived there. Some places reveal themselves gradually. They need to be visited under different skies, through different seasons and in different states. A gill during a dry August is not the same place after days of autumn rain, just as a woodland in summer is not quite the same woodland in winter.

For now, Little Roar Gill offered something quieter than the waterfall I had gone searching for: cool shade, steep wooded walls, the soft movement of water over stone and that curious sensation of having stepped briefly outside the ordinary world.

I think I will return when the rains come.