Two ‘Tops’ Days Out - Barrington Tops National Park, NSW

Tuesday, two weeks ago, I was rock hoping down a narrow creek. Tea tree crowded the banks. The rocks were black and the water a dark trickle. Beyond the edge of the riparian zone stood tall mountain gums with pepper bush, banksia and snow grass in an open, rocky forest.

Tuesday, one week ago, I was rock hopping down a narrow river. Sub-tropical rainforest pressed in either side. The water was fast flowing and crystal clear. Huge Blue Gum emergents towered above the steep sides to the valley. There was red cedar, giant stinging trees and lush green moss and lichen. 

For both adventures, I was in the same national park. As the crow flies, just 22km apart. As ecosystems go, it felt like a millennia of difference - the ancient Gondwana rainforest species so vastly different to the more recent dry-living xerophytes. Both of them exploiting the topography of the high plateau of the Barrington Tops: the wet, shaded, rain-soaked southern slopes and the exposed, dry western fall of the mountains. 

Tops Day Out No 1:

We love visiting the relatives and this is another one. Marked as 37r on the Moonan Brook 1:25000 topographical map, we first walked to this waterfall a couple of years ago and immediately liked its abseil potential. 

Two weeks ago we gathered up some work mates, threw 60m of rope into a backpack along with other essential hardware, and set off from Horse Swamp Campground. There is a signposted walking track below the campground that follows Polblue Creek to Polblue Falls, a small 4m drop. The NPWS interpretative sign here shows that the creek drains from Polblue Swamp higher on the plateau, and is in fact the headwaters of the mighty Hunter River. 

Just before Polblue Falls viewing platform, a narrow impact pad veers down to the creek. We followed this pad then simply began rock hopping and scrambling through the scrubby scrub heading downstream. Water levels were low. The sun was shining and the first stop was to strip off our long sleeves and thermals. Just an hour later we were putting those thermals back on, after the first, fun waterfall - a 20m drop that forced us to abseil down a narrow slot. Icy water pounded our heads as we grappled for footing on the slippery walls. A pair of wedge tail eagles cruised slowly overhead as one by one we disappeared off the abseil ledge and into the plunge pool below. 

Another 40 minutes of rock hopping downstream lay 37r. This is a picturesque, open waterfall. The view from the top of the falls takes in the Polblue Creek valley as it twists its way westwards, falling from the Barrington Tops to the farmland below. It also shows the steep, dry, forested slopes we would have to walk up to get back to our cars. The first challenge, however, was did we have enough rope. The first drop of the abseil is about 30m and ends in a hanging pool whose only exit is another abseil off the next drop. There are few options for re-rigging in the pool and so it meant a bouncy, single rope abseil the full length of our 60m. The hanging pool, however, was delightful. A cool and secluded spot that knows few visitors.

Tops Day Out No.2

With autumn fast approaching, the chance to tick off an adventure in Paterson Gorge was high on our list of priorities. This has been an adventure that we have been talking about for many years. The Paterson Gorge is listed as one of the Seven Wonders of the Hunter Valley by author Greg Powell in his fabulous little book Bushwalks in the Hunter Valley. 

There is very little information online about access to the gorge and at the time of planning the adventure we didn’t have access to Powell’s book. We looked at the Barrington Tops 1:25000 topographic and took a guess about where to go in and where to pull out. The walk starts at the carpark for the NPWS Burraga Swamp Trail, below Mt Allyn. But where exactly on the Paterson River the gorge began was a guess. However, that is the best part of any adventure; working things out as you go, heading off into the unknown. 

It took a little over two hours for us to reach the river - first following an old logging trail with a faint impact pad worn in from previous adventurers. Then, an off-track scramble down through lush rainforest to the river below. Rock-hopping down the Paterson was slow going. The river is narrow and the rocks too small to offer good footing. There was barely any river bank that we could use. There was, however, one fun slide down a small cascade into a waist-deep pot hole. The water was refreshing. A couple of early, short sections of “gorge” were a taste of what was to come.

Paterson Falls marks the start of the true Paterson Gorge. It was a surprisingly good drop - twisting and corkscrewing 8m before dropping into a deep green pool tucked beneath some impressive walls of rock. Without abseiling equipment, the only way around the falls was on river left. It was a short traverse before a slippery climb down a steep gully. We used a short rope for safety and emerged, finally, into the wondrous, luminous green of the Paterson River Gorge. 

Not far downstream of the falls lay the most scenic section of the river - a 100m long stretch of gorge just 5m wide. Its square, straight walls rose 10m either side. It felt like a long, green hallway. It owned so many shades of that one colour. 

For another hour we waded downstream, never getting more than waist deep, and all the time hemmed in by the straight walls of the gorge. Two enormous logs lay jammed in different parts of the river. The age of the original trees must have been impressive. The force of water that had moved them, equally so. As we waded and stumbled along, small blue and orange crayfish darted from under our feet to hide in the drifts of fallen leaf litter at the bottom of shallow pools. Rufous fantails danced on the vines overhead. The sun was out, which made photography tricky but kept us warm at lunch.

Eventually the gorge walls became less prominent. At the first accessible ridge, we decided to push upwards hoping to loop back to our car. By counting the number of gullies we had passed on our left and right, we had a rough idea of where we were. But, not until we got ‘up’ would we know for sure. Keeping one of those gullies constantly in sight we followed it out of the valley. The trees on this exit ridge were magnificent - huge big blue gums that would need four people for a hug, an equally large stringybark (maybe a Tallowwood), and enormous rainforest trees - Giant Stinging Trees, Figs, and others that defied our limited knowledge of the region’s flora. 

It was a longer ‘off-track’ exit than expected but, with a quick bit of compass work once on the flat higher ground, we found the original trail in and followed it just a few hundred metres back to the car. It is impossible here not to appreciate the towering Antarctic Beech trees that surround Burraga Swamp. It is a peaceful and unique ecosystem. Yet another piece of patchwork that makes up the amazing diversity of landscapes to be found in Barrington Tops National Park. 

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