Barrington Tops

Barrington Tops National Park protects the highest country between Sydney and Brisbane: a basalt plateau rising from near sea level to over 1,500m and holding one of the largest temperate rainforests on mainland Australia. The rainforest is part of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area, and up on the upper slopes Antarctic beech grows at its southernmost mainland stands — mossy, fern-filled forest of the kind that covered this land when Australia sat inside Gondwana. This is the Country of the Biripi, Worimi, Guringai, Geawegal and Wonaruah peoples, and the park protects ancient campsites, scarred trees and ceremonial places. Where the plateau breaks east and west it falls into escarpments and steep river valleys, and cool temperate, warm temperate and subtropical rainforest sit within a few kilometres of each other. Superb lyrebird calls carry through the gullies on the walking tracks.

Two landscapes shape a visit: the waterfalls, Antarctic beech and river forest of Gloucester Tops in the east, and the high plateau off Barrington Tops Forest Road, with sphagnum swamps, snow gums and the park's best lookouts. Which one you get depends on the roads and the weather.

What to expect

Reviewed 9 November 2026

You come at Barrington Tops from three sides, and the road is the first thing that tells you how high and how wet this country is. From Gloucester in the east, Gloucester Tops Road runs about 30km to the Gloucester River precinct — sealed at first, then winding gravel, with six concrete-causeway river crossings that rise quickly after rain. From Gloucester's north, Scone Road and Barrington Tops Forest Road climb about 45km to Cobark picnic area and on to the Polblue and Devils Hole precincts on the plateau; from the west, the same forest road comes up past Moonan Flat from Scone. NPWS warns that gravel roads like Barrington Tops Forest Road corrugate and develop potholes and that conditions vary with weather and use. A 2WD manages the main access roads in dry weather, but police close them to 2WDs, caravans and motorhomes during heavy rainfall or snowfall, and the plateau trails want high clearance with power at all four wheels. Fill up before you climb: there is no fuel anywhere on the plateau, and reception thins out as you gain height.

Gloucester Falls picnic area is the trailhead most people use: a car park and toilets at the head of the Gloucester River catchment, with the Gloucester Tops circuit signposted from here and the Gloucester Falls loop walking out to the twin-pluge falls. The circuit also has alternative starts at the Antarctic Beech Forest walking track, the Gloucester River walking track and Gloucester Tops picnic area, so you can break it up or shorten it. NPWS asks for some bushwalking experience on the circuit — the track is rough, with many obstacles, short steep hills and plenty of steps — and its standing warning is that heavy rain, cold weather and snow can occur here at any time of year.

Once you are in the rainforest, the scale of the vegetation takes over. On tracks like the Honeysuckle Forest track, the understorey closes into tangled archways of mossy branches and ferns overhead, with tree ferns and ground ferns pressing in from both sides; the walking is on dirt track, and fallen trunks lie where they came down. This is cool temperate rainforest, and the tree to look for is Antarctic beech, which reaches its southernmost mainland stands here and grows thickest above roughly 900m on the plateau's edge. Below that, warm temperate rainforest gives way to subtropical forest on the valley floors, which is why so much plant diversity is packed into one catchment. Superb lyrebird calls carry through these gullies in the morning, and in summer eastern water dragons bask on rocks around the streams. Give the ground layer a look too: the mosses, fungus and orchids are part of why the plateau's wettest country is closed to vehicles and managed as wilderness.

The plateau proper is different country again. After about 45km on Barrington Tops Forest Road you reach Cobark picnic area, and beyond it the Polblue and Devils Hole precincts: sphagnum swamps — the largest subalpine peat swamps outside the main southern alps — snow-gum woodland and grassy campgrounds high on the tops. NPWS describes the park's alpine camping at about 1,500m as among the highest car-camping in New South Wales, and warns that it can be chilly at any time of year, so pack as if you are going to the snow even in summer. Spring brings ground orchids and other wildflowers to the Polblue Swamp walking track. From the lookouts — Careys Peak at 1,545m, Devils Hole and Thunderbolts — the ranges run out in layers, and on a clear day the view from Careys Peak reaches the Stockton sand dunes near Newcastle.

What you are most likely to see is birds and their traces: the park holds a globally important population of rufous scrub-birds, along with flame and pale-yellow robins, paradise riflebirds, green catbirds and Australian logrunners, and the rainforest carries lyrebird calls on the walking tracks. Quolls, platypus and native rodents are in the park but reclusive, and feral horses, pigs and deer are common enough that NPWS runs control programs — pitch your tent close to your vehicle at Polblue, and expect the Gloucester Tops section to close intermittently at night between April and October while ground shooting runs. Keep to formed tracks around the phytophthora quarantine on the plateau: the Watergauge trail area between Beean Beean and Black Swamp has no visitor access, boot wash stations are in use and penalties apply. Reception is limited enough that NPWS tells visitors to download the Emergency Plus app before they arrive, because you need mobile reception to call Triple Zero.