The nominal purpose of the trip was to try to find a stone house I helped to build during a week's Summer holiday in the 1970's. Joc and I had almost got there during an earlier trip to Queensland about 5 years ago in our Toyota camper van, but we were stopped by deep water. We didn't find it this time either...

All I remembered was its general location near Scone in the Hunter Valley, crossing a stream many times in a Renault R10 towing a trailer, looking up at forested mountains, and being told that the narrow road we were on led on up into the Barrington Tops National Park.

Armed with this information and a map of the Hunter Valley, we narrowed the search to Stewarts Brook and Noonan Brook, about 40 km from Scone. 'Stewarts Brook' sounded vaguely familiar, and I thought I remembered a tiny wooden church where the stone house owner (a preacher) was said to preach. Nevertheless, Stewarts Brook gives no access to Barrington Tops, while Noonan Brook does. It should be said that in this part of NSW, 'brook' denotes a sizeable stream, especially in Summer, the rainy season.

During the earlier trip we had driven up the Stewarts Brook road until about the second or third fording, at which time we started to get some peculiar looks from the locals and decided that it was not a good idea to push the van any further. The road and stream crossings had seemed vaguely familiar, but after 30 years or so, I could not be sure.

Because Noonan Brook came after Stewarts, Joc logically pointed out that we ought to try Stewarts Brook again first, so we set off up the familiar one-track bitumen road that branches off just beyond the historic country house of Belltrees.

The road winds up a misty valley before narrowing and changing to gravel.

Old buildings and cattle grids are followed by the first glimpses of Stewarts Brook, a crystal clear stony stream. For the benefit of foreign readers, such a thing is by no means common in Australia.

The fords we meet are concreted, although I remember at least some that we forded 30 years ago were stony bottomed.

In fact I remember being up to my knees in water pushing the Renault R10, a remarkable car, over huge slippery rocks.

(There are two wood ducks on the far bank of the above picture on the right, nicely camouflaged in stone-grey.)

There are some interesting old buildings and structures along the road...

and even a camping ground. The notice on the right deserves closer examination by those unfamiliar with the Australian Way Of Life: here is a link to a larger (800 X 600) picture. Yup, that is Stewarts Brook in the foreground, official garbage dump on the banks...

Unfortunately, shortly after the camping ground, the road narrowed, turned to red earth, and there was a gate across it. It did not say Private, but I did not remember anything like this before. There was also a notice which specifically said, 'No Access to Barrington Tops', so we turned back and headed for Noonan Brook.

This was probably a mistake. I did not remember the pub at Noonan Flat, nor the ancient petrol bowser. There had indeed been a tiny weatherboard church along Stewarts Brook road, but there were none along Noonan Brook road. The road was similar, and some of the later fords had no concrete base, but that road too eventually ended in gates which this time specifically said 'Private, Keep Out' etc. - but there was a 'tourist drive' turnoff to Barrington Tops.

We were none the wiser. The house we were looking for must have been beyond one or more of the gates, most probably at Stewarts Brook. We may never know. In any case, the area was still lovely, a hidden valley all the more appreciated after the smell and noise of the Hunter Valley coalfields. It was notable that there was *nothing* for sale anywhere along the 40 or 50 km of either road.

We took the tourist road up to the Tops. Above is a panorama from part way up, where we stopped for lunch. If you click on it, it will load a bigger one - unfortunately the colour balance changes a bit in different parts, and it was heavily cropped by the panorama stitching software because I had no tripod to keep the camera level.

Barrington Tops National Park is a high plateau, perpetually draped in cloud. The trees drip moss and mist and cloud often blocks the view...

     :

but it has its beauties.

The plateau is shared with the State Forests, where they have experimented with various types of plantation tree. Improbably, here is a thriving plantation of Mexican Pine...and then we descended back down through the mists to sea level again, and decided to make a run down the freeway to squeeze between Sydney and the Blue Mountains.

The less said about this part of the trip the better. We wanted to visit the Shoalhaven area, which promised lots of art and craft for Joc, but it turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, at least as far as art was concerned. Perhaps it would repay a more detailed and slower examination. There were also lots of "small" National Parks that we did not have time to visit, although while we were travelling through dense forest we did stop at a sign that said "Fitzroy Falls National Park", and barely a hundred metres off the road was this...

and right beside the road was a lyrebird scratching away. The other bird is a Pied Currawong.

We struck the coast at Bateman's Bay and stayed the night, travelling down the coastline the next day calling in at many of the small fishing and holiday settlements.

This part of NSW has wide and abundant rivers, but we were most interested in how they often ended in a lake only metres from the sea. Typically a sandbar, often only about 25 metres wide, separated the freshwater from the salt. This is like Victoria's Lakes Entrance used to be, where foolishly they have bulldozed through the dunes to the sea for their fishing boats, allowing in the salt water and completely ruining the freshwater ecosystem behind. The panorama below shows one of the NSW lakes, from the sandbar, and also links to a larger version if you click on it.

From time to time we cut inland to visit craft and historic centres. Here is the restored old town of Central Tilba, where Tilba brand cheese comes from, and which seems to live entirely from tourism.

Joc found a long-sought pure cotton nightdress there, and even I found things of interest - for example the sign reads 'Spotted Gum Internet Cafe' :)

But all good things come to an end. We took a dislike to Bermagui, Eden and such overdeveloped places, and and decided to make a run for home, stopping overnight at Lakes Entrance out of sheer exhaustion. It was cold at night in NSW, but the days were warm enough...Morgans Beach in Winter was a bit of a reality check. Roll on Spring!

JH & Joc, July 2003