Mt Cabre Bald, Barrington Tops National Park, NSW

The Barrington Tops, in NSW, is renowned as the watershed of 14 different rivers including the once mighty Manning, the Karuah River and the Hunter. These rivers flow out of the Tops like arteries. And between each river valley, runs a long finger of forest-clad ridgeline, spreading from the subalpine heights of the wild plateau to the farm land far below. 

Along one of these ridges, sits a peak called Mt Cabre Bald — one of the most unique, ancient and rare landscapes I have ever visited. The view from the top of the mountain should be enough - it is a vast, 360 degree panorama. The Barrington Tops stands in the north like a Great Wall of forest. I can see east down the Hunter Valley to farmland and dams and the nearby peaks of Mt Royal and Mt Allyn loom either side. But it is not for the view that I am lugging an overnight pack and kilos of water up the steep final pinch to the top. At the grassy summit, Caz and I drop our gear to begin searching for the true treasure. 

Revealing Mt Plagyan & The Pinnacles - Mount Kaputar National Park, NSW

This is one of those walks where I cross my fingers and hope the route will 'go'. Especially as we pop out onto the first high point and realise we've tracked a little bit too far north. Which is not surprising as we have no topo map to hand and bugger all pre-trip research that can help us navigate a route.  Even the access road proved so anonymous it took a day to find it. This is becoming one of those walks that we keep re-thinking, on the fly. 

We are trying to find Mt Plagyan - an ancient mountain tucked away in a rarely visited parcel of land at the southern extreme of Mt Kaputar National Park, in north-west NSW. It's one of those spots we have taken a punt on. We spotted it while camping at Camel's Hump in the main section of Mount Kaputar National Park - visible way off in the distance (read here, WAY OFF). But, close enough to entice us on this wild goose chase through the unchanging, sameness of acre after acre of cypress and box woodland. And that first high point, saves us. As we 'pop out' of the woodland onto the rocky hill, Mt Plagyan is visible and close. It also looks spectacular. The punt has already paid off. There is a sweeping wall of rock along its north-west flank. This towers over a deep gully. At the head of the gully is a collection of awesome, rounded, chunky rock pinnacles. Man, I hope our new route goes.

Call of the Wild - Washpool Creek wilderness

Without a second thought, we begin what is now a familiar routine.  We drop our packs, thread our walking sticks through the straps then launch the packs into the long pool of water ahead. We jump in after them, boots and all.

The rainforest creek we are following, has suddenly become gorge-like. Its sides are bare and sloping rock. The water is deep and black. Dense forest lines the steep valley slopes on either side. 



As we swim behind our packs, cicada noise pulsates in deafening crescendos. A flock of wonga pigeons takes flight across the narrow band of sky above. At the end of the pool we drag our water logged packs onto a rocky beach. Ten metres further on, we repeat the entire process, throwing ourselves into the next pool as we struggle our way through day three of our adventure.

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This blog post is the story of one of our favourite wilderness walks ever - following Washpool Creek, through the middle of Washpool National Park in northern New South Wales, travelling from the creek’s headwaters through remote rainforest to the other end of the park, 35 kilometres away. With no tracks to follow, and just the creek to guide us, it quite literally immersed us in a rugged wilderness experience.

But this is an old story, and an old adventure (we completed the walk in December, 2012). So why post it now?

Mt Gingera, Namadgi National Park, ACT

At the start of this track is a sign - “Very Steep” it reads. I brace myself, but I have done “steep” before. And besides, one of my earliest lessons as a writer was to never use the word ‘very’.  Something is steep. If it is steeper than steep then the writer’s job is to find a better word, not add ‘very’. 

As we begin walking, there is no warm-up. The acclivity starts metres from the carpark as the track begins its climb of 900m in elevation from the wall of Corin Dam outside Canberra, ACT, to the 1,855m summit of Mount Gingeri on the edge of the Bimberi Wilderness. The first 500m in elevation is the boldest and most sudden. Fortunately there are excellently wrought steps. Not too big, not too small. Slowly but surely we gain height as the morning wears on. I have hours, and many steps, ahead of me, to come up with a better word than ‘very’ steep.

Mt Giles, Tjoritja (West MacDonnell National Park), NT

Woke with the alarm at 4am! Walking by 6:15am. Still dark and we use head torches for the first 1-2km before there is enough light to walk by. But, it is a beautiful clear morning - there’s a pink glow in the sky. At the bloodwood tree we stop to put on our gaiters, then, head off track as the first sun hits the peaks around us. Walking through the magnificent bowl of Ormiston Gorge in Tjoritja (West MacDonnell National Park) we are encircled by beauty. Ahead looms our distant destination - Mt Giles, bathed in the light of the day ahead.

The third highest peak in the Northern Territory, Mt Giles, is a well established off-track destination  in the West Macs. It offers vast and spectacular views. There are track notes in print and information online - Chapman, Daly, blogs both old and new. So with all that information out there on the world wide Webber I’m going to let Caz’s photos do the speaking and the inspiring. I’m going to focus on experience and what can be discovered under the surface of the landscape, and the bushwalker.

The Secret Waterfalls of Barrington Tops National Park, NSW

I know, it looks amazing. But, we’re not telling. 

The creek has no name anyway. And, if we told you, well, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore.

It is beautiful though, one of the prettiest creeks in the Barrington Tops. The waterfalls are only small but they are immensely scenic, surrounded by ferns and Antarctic Beech cool temperate rainforest. Perhaps someone else has walked into this spot, but there is no evidence of previous explorers - no disturbed soil or footprints, no broken branches, no path. It feels like we are the only visitors in a long, long time. 

Grattai Wilderness - Mount Kaputar National Park, NSW

From atop the rocky cliffs, the views are uninterrupted. The vast, clear sky burns orange at sunset and again at sunrise. But it’s been *@!# hard walking. If I hadn’t experienced this kind of off-track challenge before I would have left after the first night. Instead, I’m leaving after the second.

Just two days of moving through this wilderness and the emotion that spills out can’t be hidden. I try putting a ‘gloss’ on the place. Then decide on honesty - it’s fuckin’ shite off-track walking. Even the good open forest has so many sticks that trip you, poke, slap, scratch, snag in your gaiter strap on each forward step. Then there’s the sections of dense, sticky hop bush, scratching everything. We have had to push through it with our arms and the weight of our whole bodies. There’s the downright evil spikey-leaved shrub on the rocky plateau above Waa Gorge (pronounced War Gorge, appropriately enough). My back aches, my legs are exhausted, my knees and feet ache and my body craves replenishment. I have burnt so much energy - carrying water and tackling the ridiculous terrain - I can feel kilos dropping off me. 

We are in Mount Kaputar National Park, exploring its northernmost reaches around the spectacular Waa Gorge, Mt Waa and Mt Bobbiwaa. It is incredibly scenic country - from a distance.

The Stone Library – Mutawintji National Park, NSW

Descending from the Bynguano Range, we come upon a dead goat, hanging upside down from one of the mulga trees; its rear leg trapped in the fork of two branches. Unable to free itself, it has been a slow death. The grisly find brings home the unforgiving nature of the terrain around us. The air is still and the smell fetid. Our view has disappeared in the hot, close scrub. Trees scrape on our packs as we push onwards. Old branches snap underfoot. And yet, this wilderness has a beauty and magic to it. 

In the July/August 2018 issue of Wild magazine, they published a story of ours about Mutawintji National Park in western NSW. The article described the park’s many walking trails, its Historic Site as well as two 'Wilderness Zone' overnight trekking options. The information had been gathered the previous winter, when we spent 10 days exploring Mutawintji. And the park, left a strong impression. It possessed such an immense sense of space and timelessness. The landscape seemed durable and eternal; the scenery vast and beautiful in the evening light. 

So, we have decided to share here our more personal observations of how and why this place resonated so strongly with our aesthetic and sense of wilderness. For detail and track notes, see Wild mag. But for the special beauty, read on.

Crabapple Kingdom - Whispering Gully, Barrington Tops National Park, NSW

14/4/19 5:41pm

I am writing this to you from the forest; sitting in the tent. The ground is lumpy but soft. The creek is just a few metres from the door and it is noisy over the rocks. It is day 2 of our walk. My lower back is aching, sitting hunched over my notebook. Caz is rustling around beside me searching out the lumps under his sleeping mat. He extracts a stick and then a rock. He flattens some dirt. He has filled one bad hollow with his spare socks. 

It has been a long day. I am tired and my eyes just want to close but it seems a ridiculous time to go to bed. It is dark outside. The rainforest trees are so thick, the valley we are in so deep and shaded, that the evening gloom set in at 3:30pm. The scrubwrens are still chattering outside. I envy their energy. I know the first thing you will ask me - was it a hard walk. I’d say no, but it also wasn’t easy. It certainly was not what we planned.

Capturing the Ephemeral - mist and fog in the Australian landscape

This is an old, but strong, memory: Caz and I standing on the edge of an extinct volcano at dawn. Mist, settled in the valley below. In the distance, the volcanoes remnant central vent, Wollumbin (Mt Warning), and 600m below my feet lush farmland now covering the ancient crater. We are at Pinnacle Lookout in Border Ranges National Park, entranced and awestruck by the day’s first casting of shadows. 

The sun’s morning light is soft and golden. Birds are calling in the rainforest behind me. The metal lookout fence is cold beneath my arms. The sky is clear. And, the mist is making this moment magic. It has thrown a thin veil over the landscape below. The trees, the paddocks, the farmhouses and dams are a mosaic of light and dark - long rays of shadow streak across the hills like the strands of a fine and delicate tapestry still being woven.

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. 

Marching Orders - Cape Le Grand National Park, WA

It takes time, to find the emotional distance one need's, to re-tell a traumatic story. Finally, I am ready to write about the first and only time Caz and I have been kicked out of a national park. 

And not just any national park, but the stunningly beautiful Cape Le Grand in the south-west of Western Australia with its granite peaks and deserted white sand beaches, its turquoise ocean; whales frolicking in deep bays, its unique flowers decorating the low heathlands and our overnight off-track adventure that was, at the time, an absolute joy.