ONE OF NSW’s lesser-known national
parks, Coolah Tops, offers a brilliant long
weekend escape for families. About five
hours’ drive from Sydney via the town
of Coolah, the park is relatively small
at slightly more than 12,000 hectares,
but it packs in a tonne of attractions for
visitors including some of the country’s
biggest timber (what’s claimed to be the
world’s tallest snow gums), massive grass
trees, the largest population of Australia’s
biggest possum (the greater glider),
beautiful waterfalls, and a number of
bushwalking and cycling opportunities.
Coolah Tops NP is a semi-oasis of wild
Australia, with the rugged plateau smack-
bang between the Great Dividing and
Warrambungle ranges and surrounded by
grazing country. The park is reached by
taking Vinegaroy Road from Coolah, then
left onto Coolah Creek Road before a
final right onto State Forest Road, which
takes you to the park’s main entrance.
The tracks in the park are all pretty
tame, with the only caveat being they can
become quite slippery after rain. There
are also numerous side-tracks to explore,
which branch off the main Forest Road
that transects the park.
Talbragar River Road is one we’d
highly recommend. This loop track isreached approximately 11km from the
park entrance and is roughly 3km in
length, taking you through dense, lush
forest to a small carpark. From here you
can walk to a lookout that offers a great
view over Talbragar Falls.
This track is pretty steep and gets
slippery after rain, but it’s a cracking
short drive in good conditions. Other
waterfalls found inside the park include
Rocky Falls, Bald Hill Creek Falls (both
of which drop high over the edge of the
park’s northern plateau) and Norfolk
Falls – the park’s most well-known and
one that, with a bit of balance and nerve,
you can access at its bottom pool.
A definite highlight of the park is its
population of snow gums, with a Snow
Gum Loop walk in the eastern section
of the park taking visitors through a
large population of eucalypts. Owing to
the fact the park is subalpine, the snow
gums thrive here and reach heights
unknown to anywhere else in the state.
The theory is that the park is high
enough for the snow gums to grow, but
not too high – thus not too exposed to the
harsh alpine conditions – to impede their
growth. Rather than the stunted, twisted
examples synonymous with Australia’s
alpine regions, the snow gums here arestraight and
very tall.
Shepherds
Peak Trail,
a few
kilometres
further east from the Snow Gum Loop
walk, leads to a lofty viewpoint offering
more expansive views back over the
Liverpool Ranges east toward the town of
Merriwa.
For keen bushwalkers and mountain
bikers, there are some great tracks to
choose from including Racecourse and
Grasstrees Trails (the grass trees are
estimated to be more than 400 years old)
for walkers, and Mullion and Bundella
trails for cyclists. They’re a fantastic
way to explore more of the park before
heading back to camp, and none of them
are particularly arduous, making them
ideal for all ages and abilities.
Coolah Tops NP has three campgrounds
and one rather unique ‘other’
accommodation option: Brackens Hut.
The three campgrounds – Coxs Creek,
The Barracks and The Pines – are free.
Coxs Creek and The Barracks are both
located off Pinnacles Road, while The
Pines campground is next to Forest Road
and is the largest in the park. For thoseCOOLAH TOPS NP
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EXPLORE CAPITAL CITY ESCAPES, SYDNEY
The landscape is
diverse and far
removed from the city.