Barrington Tops – South

We had just driven across the northern part of Barrington Tops – which had been brilliant – and had 3 days to visit the southern side. We were stunned by the beautiful countryside of the area and loved the headwaters of the Williams and Allyn Rivers, especially as the rivers were pounding. Dungog was also a surprise package – lovely historic town. A wonderful few days.

We explored the southern parts of Barrington Tops between 17th, 18th and 19th March 2020

Getting There

We were in Gloucester after driving across the Northern area from Scone (click here to read that post). We had a day around that town before heading south west to Dungog.

Gloucester > Dungog (64kms)

Kerry’s snippets in fuchsia

History

Barrington Tops lies at the boundary of three Aboriginal territories: the lands of the Worimi people of the south-east, the Biripi people of the east and the Wonnarua people of the west. Evidence of their occupation of the Tops includes camp sites, artefacts, scar trees and ceremonial places. Many of the roads and tracks in use today likely followed routes used by Aboriginal people.

Settlement by Europeans took place in the 1820s and 1830s. Timber getting was one of the first activities, concentrating on the Red Cedar of the sub-tropical rainforests of the river valleys. Cattle grazing followed as land was cleared. In 1840 the Australian Agricultural Company was granted 1 million acres from Port Stephens to the Manning River. The area around Barrington Tops was known as the Back Country. But the plans for a massive sheep station proved elusive and gradually the AAC reduced their activities.

It is believed that Captain Thunderbolt (Fred Ward) hid out on Barrington Tops in the 1860s. A hut on Edwards Plain, south of Polblue Swamp, was built by W.H. Edwards in 1910. This became a focus for adventurers and naturalists, exploring the natural features of the Tops. Increased interest in the recreational value of the Tops in the late 1920s and early 1930s coincided with a significant increase in tourism to places like the Blue Mountains. Myles Dunphy promoted the idea of a Barrington Tops primitive area after a 1924-25 walk across the Tops with the Mountain Trails Club. Barrington Guest House was built in 1925.

In 1945 a De Havilland Mosquito crashed near the Tops. The wreckage was not found until 1946. In 1948 a Douglas DC3 crashed killing 13 people. In 1981 a Cessna 210 crashed killing five. The wreckage has never been found.

In 1969 the first area of park to be gazetted as Barrington Tops National Park was created from about 14,000 ha of Crown Land and the smaller Gloucester Tops National Park. A major addition in 1984 was secured as part of the Wran Rainforest Decision and the larger Park was included in the World Heritage area, along with other northern NSW rainforest parks in 1986. Outcomes from the Northern Comprehensive Regional Assessment (CRA) process saw additional areas added in 1997 and 1999, when significant areas of the National Park were also declared as wilderness. In 1986 the National Park became part of the World Heritage Gondwana Rainforests of Australia.

The Barrington Guest House burnt down on 24 September, 2006. In 2007 Barrington Tops National Park was added to the Australian National Heritage List.

Barrington Tops National Park and State Conservation Area make up an area of about 83,000 ha of reserved land. Additional forested land is managed by the Forestry Corporation

Day 1 – Tue 17 March – Around Gloucester

It was a cloudy and damp morning and we started by having a look around the town. We had planned to go out to Gloucester Tops and do a few of the walks out there. But I had just seen on the Parks website that the road was closed for maintenance for this week. Timing is everything.

The Memorial Park is a good place to start – an excellent park with lovely roses. Lovely perfumed roses that were really well looked after. We did pull a few weeds out while we were there!

There was a lovely house opposite the corner of the Park.

We then drove out to the Gloucester River on the other side of sports complex – which is amazing, they have every sport covered. The river is in full flow and we talked to a woman who told us that it had been bone dry once a month or so ago. I chatted to her for a short while – about the river, the platypus and how they survived the drought and dry river, and the fish. She said they were all back. Amazing.

The town is a very busy place in a great setting, but it does not have many large historic buildings. We really only saw the large imposing structure on the corner as we came in from Barrington Tops which is now a solicitors office, the Court House, the Museum and the building next to the Catholic Church. The Museum was closed because of the coronavirus.

We drove out to the Copeland Tops State Conservation Area – back out the Bucketts Way, through Barrington and then Copeland – only about 20km. The park has rainforest walking tracks to and around a number of historic mines. The literature says that there were two types of gold in the area. The first was ‘red gold’, which was red cedar highly sought after by the early settlers. It was the early explorers who came to log along these mountain ridges who then discovered the shiny type, and gold-mining took off too.

Today, Copeland Tops, is home to the most accessible tract of rare dry rainforest in the Gloucester district. It is a lovely walk on a good track, through dry rainforest following Copeland Creek beneath a canopy of dry rainforest trees. Dry rainforest is a term used to describe vegetation, where rainfall is low because of topographic conditions. The main track takes you to the loop section, where the mining relics can be seen. There are beautiful trees and lots of creeks flowing after all the rain we have had recently. So many little waterfalls, and the colour of the bedrock of the creeks is an unusual green. I don’t remember ever seeing so many creeks with bedrock as a base… the water was crystal clear – just beautiful.

There are many remnants of the area’s mining history and we are warned not to leave the track as there were many deep holes, shafts and tunnels. We saw adits, which are tunnelled entrances to underground mines and the boiler from Criterion stamper battery, which used to provide the power to crush ore from the nearby mines. It was hauled in by a team of 30-40 bullocks.

Hidden Treasure gold reef was discovered in 1877, and the mining petered out by 1890. Despite the name, the treasure did not really stay hidden for long, and this mine became the area’s second most productive, yielding 269kg of gold after its construction. Now that the miners have left, microbats have moved in and travel back and forth from the cave through the open mesh grill at the mine entrance.

We saw the large Fig Tree near the mine entrance – which is getting a bit overgrown – and some beautiful trees on the way back out. The fig in the 3rd and 4th photos below is a giant.

Day 2 – Wed 18 March – to Dungog

We woke to a very misty start to the day, but the forecast was for perfect weather. We left Gloucester for Dungog aiming to go to Jerusalem Creek to do a walk there on the way through. I had asked at the NP Office about driving up to the Telegherry Forest area but they advised against that because of the extensive wet weather that had been experienced in the area.

The drive south was through some lovely countryside – endless rolling green hills bounded by various mountain ranges.

I had seen on the map that we would pass near the Monkerai Bridge, built in 1882 and the second oldest timber truss bridge in NSW. So we turned right just after Weismantels onto Monkerai Rd, and quickly came to 2 camels grazing. We were soon on a gravel road as we drove through more delightful countryside.

Unfortunately the signposts we came to had little relationships to the maps we had with us so we were unsure where were were heading. But we did get to the bridge – only to find it under major repair and the road was closed. We walked down as far as we could until the workers told us to stop, and got one picture of the bridge.

We backed up and made our way around to the other side of the bridge – lovely scenery, crossing the Karuah R at a pretty spot. There we could see the bridgeworks from the other side, with the deck laid out. Apparently they were putting the deck together on the road on rollers and were then going to haul it into place.

We the followed Monkerai Rd down to Dungog. There we went directly up the Chichester Dam Rd (secondary bitumen road) to get to Jerusalem Creek. Unfortunately at the turnoff this is not signposted, but there is really only one road to turn onto – Wangat Trig Rd (a dirt road).

We got to a parking area with a sign to the Track. It was listed as an easy 4km return walk and was a lovely walk except for one thing – leeches. We had forgotten to spray our shoes and socks with repellant and they were out in big numbers. Every few hundred meters we had to stop to check and then pull the leeches off our shoes. And I managed to catch one big bugger that had just latched onto my ankle… Fortunately it hadn’t got past the suctioning-on stage. They are incredibly difficult to pull off though.

The track was good with a few bridges over the little creeks along the way. There are some stunning trees there – glorious colours on the bark – and lots of stumps covered with lichen.

Eventually we came to a point just off the track where we could watch the Creek as it cascaded down-river via a small waterfall. It was a very pretty spot but I could not get a photo of the waterfall beneath where we sat.

Kerry decided to wait there while I walked on a bit further. I met a man who said that the picnic area was still some distance away, and we certainly felt like we had already walked a lot more than 2km (half the stated total return distance). But he also told me that there was a lookout not far up the track with a lovely waterfall. So I walked as far as that. The falls were lovely twin falls, which I guess may not be operating in very dry times.

From there we returned to the carpark. We made it back to the carpark – seeing the magnificent trees from a different perspective, and after removing many more leeches from our shoes.

The maps we had again did not seem to relate to each other (maybe because they were prepared by 2 organisations – NP and State Forests), so rather than pushing on to see what else was in the area we turned back and made for Chichester Dam. I remember this as a very pretty dam. We were in luck as the dam was spilling – very spectacular.

It was then a lovely drive back to Dungog spotting an echidna on the way.

Back in town we walked around admiring so many heritage buildings – it is a very pretty town. We particularly liked ‘Coolalie” from 1895. This was built as a private residence for a shopkeeper. Extensive use of local cedar and marble (6 fireplaces) remain and the same family have lived there since 1954. Beautiful building.

Others we liked were the 1884 Commercial Banking Company, the Bank Hotel and a few others.

We spied an old Ford in a garage and some lovely stained glass on some of the shops. A very pretty town.

On the way to our accommodation we crossed the Williams River, in good flow.

Day 3 – Williams/Allyn Rivers

We woke to a beautiful morning – so looking forward to getting near the headwaters of the Williams R and then the Allyn R. I had only recently been told that you cannot take a car past Williams Top. So the walks up there are limited. All of the upper trails require you to walk in at least for 3 hours from the carpark, steeply up hill, before you even start. First, though, is a pic of our accommodation – nice and isolated, virus free. With only some wallabies, kookaburras and other avian friends and we could hear the koalas hooting in the morning.

The drive up the along the Williams R was gorgous, with lush green hills in every direction – this really is stunning country. We passed a couple of rickety old churches. The bitumen road deterioriated a fair bit as we drove north. I’m sure you all know the type of road – a bit of bitumen to hold the potholes together.

We walked the Blue Gum Loop Track at Williams Top, rated as a 3.5km circuit. This is a great track, a riverside walk through patches of untouched forest. From Williams River picnic area, the trail is paved up to the high level bridge crossing the magnificent Williams River, with rugged cascades on either side of the bridge. The down-river side looks like a constructed channel – amazing. Amazing to see all this bedrock with a river right on top of it.

It was a good walking track, although a bit mucky in places after all the rain. Delightful walk, especially as we had liberally sprayed our shoes and socks with repellant and only got one leech on Kerry’s shoe. Lovely fallen trees and rocks covered in little ferns and lichen. Someone had left a little painted stone in one of the tree stumps.

Passing through the magnificent Sydney blue gums, we saw signs of past logging along the track. There were many tall stumps with notches cut in for climbing boards. On the boards, the axeman could get above the thicker and often defective base of the trees to make their task easier. The trail crosses many little creeks and small rock pools.

Further on, a short detour leads to the scenic Fern Creek cascades, just a delightful place.

Some creatives had made little rock piles – we had seen these in many places around the country. We added the closer one.

Walking out from there we saw a lyre bird scuffing up the track. We had seen quite a few of these on this trip.

Then we came to the second high level bridge crossing the River – we had thought the first one was impressive but this was spectacular. On one side a great waterfall with 3 arms, and on the other side a chute of water before disappearing down a steep rapids.

Lots more big trees, and creeks and that lovely moss like ferns on the rocks and tree stumps on the walk out. It was a terrific walk although it certainly felt a bit longer than the 3.5km stated.

From there we continued on Williams Top Rd on a narrowing roughish gravel road. We got to an intersection with all signs pointing to the left with nothing pointing to the right. Most likely that would have taken us to Lagoon Pinch, where there were no walks except perhaps a walk to Rocky Crossing, but we were uncertain. So we turned left. Then we came to the junction with the Allyn River Rd. We quickly parked and got the camera going to capture the stunning waterfalls and rapids.

The signs at the road junction pointed south for Ladies Well, and in a short distance we came to a length of river with good access to the river and the very vigorous rapids. Then we were at the Allyn R picnic area, which I think is the Ladies Well, though there were no signs.

Beautiful stretch of water – what a river this Allyn is! This is best seen on the video.

The drive back to Dungog was through lovely farmlands and more lush rolling hillsides. We were close to the river a fair bit, and crossed a “wet” causeway at one point.

Then we came to a field with hundreds of sneakers tied along the barbed wire fence – weird. Then a nice old church, a high cliff next to the road and then more and more amazing country. We called into Gresford and East Gresford but there was not much there.