Barrington Tops, NSW
 

For a while I wanted to visit Barrington tops National park. But the distance prevented me from doing it in one day. Solution was to camp the night
there. After few days of planning what to carry and checking google maps, exploroz.com to where I wanted to go I was ready for the trip. I also
wanted to do it before school holidays which starts very soon. :wink:
http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/8492/img5052h.jpg
In the distance Barrington Tops can be seen.

http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/6365/img5060f.jpg

http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/3581/img5065w.jpg
Temperature was very pleasant around 26c (78.8f)

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/416/img5069c.jpg
No vodafone coverage here.

http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/1078/img5078rh.jpg

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/6550/img5080f.jpg
Map of different camp spots.

http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/989/img5099nh.jpg
This is Manning river on its journey to Pacific Ocean. Also my camp site for the night.

http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/2613/img5110z.jpg
Early morning of 2nd day. What I learned is no matter how much you think you are prepared some things will still suprise you, like how cold it gets
here during the night. I packed and started my second day of exploration through the mountain.

http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/4567/img5128q.jpg
I came across few acres of pine trees which was planted in 1970. They had different varieties of pine trees. Some planted even before 1970.

http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/7581/img5161n.jpg
Pine trees. Once you walk inside it doesn't feel like you are on earth but rather on different planet. It was very cool. Perfect spot for picnic.

http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/8749/img5126eh.jpg
More pine trees

http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/733/img5134bg.jpg
This is where forest boundary ends.

http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/7392/img5136f.jpg
Looking behind the gate

http://img607.imageshack.us/img607/2215/img5138e.jpg

http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/2207/img5139c.jpg
From here you can continue through upper hunter shire, but I turned around.

http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/4803/img5150h.jpg
But not before i checked this Lookout not far from that gate. Unfortunately visibility wasn't that good. There were some big fires around Forster
few days earlier.

http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/161/img5197dp.jpg
Polblue Swamp

http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/6581/img5201d.jpg
It covers a big area.

http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/5762/img5177r.jpg
Early explorers.

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/7535/img5184o.jpg
Saw this shrub with white flowers, near swamp area.

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/2996/img5186v.jpg
Walking track that goes all around the swamp.

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/181/img5206ei.jpg
Another map that shows how big is Barrington Tops. 32.0528° S, 151.4936° E

http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/7453/img5207q.jpg
1510 meters (4954 feet) in elevation. Air is superb on this mountain.

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/9223/img5208xd.jpg
Main road through the forest. It looks smooth but far from it. There are many other tracks for 4wd and bush walking tracks throughout the mountain.

http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/9486/img5213q.jpg
This was another road to a campground i wanted to check. It was very rocky and it's 4wd only. I was bouncing all over the road. On this road to the
camp i saw one Bramby and one Dingo, but they were too fast for my camera.

http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/1655/img5219m.jpg
Very colourful flowers.

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/8374/img5220h.jpg
Arriving at the camp site. Only basic facilities no water. Coming to Barrington Tops you basically have to bring everything with you. That day I visited
few camp sites and didn't see anybody camping. But where i camped there were few people. But very soon this place will have more visitors.

http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/6571/img5230po.jpg
This is Thunderbolts lookout. It was very memorable experience. Definitely a place to see if you are in this area.

Awesome ride and great pictures. Looks like an amazing adventure. Great packing job, and photography. Beautiful weather and country/continent! :P

Thank you for posting the wonderful ride report, Pliskin! I am happy you are enjoying the warm weather "down under." ;) As always, your Zong looks great! :D

Spud :)

Terrific ride report! Excellent pics and write-up, and your bike looks good. I know what a dingo is, but what is a bramby?

Thank you FastDoc. I was really suprised myself how it all clicked. :lol:

Thank you Spud. I am already thinking of my next camping trip. :wink:

Thank you Weldandgrind. Sorry about the typo i wasn't sure of the spelling myself. It should be Brumby. It's a feral horse. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brumby
I saw many more animals and some i haven't seen before but unfortunately didn't take pictures of any, just too fast and the air was making me slow. :wink:

beautiful! have you been up putty road?

Maybe you need to ship yourself and the Zong over for the winter.

That's fascinating. I'm amazed to learn that there are 400,000 feral horses in Autralia!

Thank you Zingshoen. Sounds familiar but wouldn't really know. If you had the coordinates i could double check. Anything interesting there?
What I also noticed is google names and road names on the ground are sometimes different. :?

I was suprised myself. If you want a free horse you just need to catch one. :lol:

We have them here too. In Washington State and Nevada. Maybe other places but I don't know offhand. They are called Mustangs. Every now and then they get rounded up and auctioned off.

I wish I could! :lol:

Spud :)

Just looked. Oregon has them also.

Some nice pics of wild horses from my area. I did NOT take them. They are beautiful and worth sharing though.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ses-1482-2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...Horses-103.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...0-Edit-541.jpg

They look like they live in nice places to ride dirt bikes as well as horses. :P I think bikes are safer, at least for me.

As Spud will attest riding in areas with wild horses is a challenge. They tend to be obstinate or homicidal... :wink:

Indeed, even domestic horses can pose a challenge on occasion. :? Practically everywhere I ride is open range, and the bovines are even more troublesome than the horses. ;)

Spud :)

Beautiful pictures of horses.

I was reading 2 wheels magazine today and they had article on bike of the year 2012. They tested 10 bikes and took them from Sydney to Gloucester
with crossing of the legendary Putty Rd. Is this a coincidence. :) First Zingshoen mentioned it now I was reading about it in magazine. So had to
check where it was. Is this the road Zingshoen you had in mind? No I haven't been there, but looks like a cool road. By the way bike of the year was
Kawasaki's zx-14r.

http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/2627/catsowg.jpg

mate, there are no coincidences, only intersecting chains of cause and effect which we don t comprehend :-)

yah, putty road will take your breath away. i ve done it by car, in the panelvan and the coupe, both ways, going from brizzo to melbourne via the blue mountains, but avoiding sydney.

http://www.bikescape.com.au/?p=1683

http://motorcycleparadise.blogspot.c...stralia-9.html

to do it as a race is probably not the way, the views are what you want. i think they are better going from south to north. i went during the week, it was very quiet. you ll see some open cut mining as you approach singleton, an army town.