Wonderful Warrumbungles

Challenging hikes, plants and bird watching in the heritage listed Warrumbungle National Park.

Unusually for national park camping, Warrumbungle NP provides some powered campsites, as well as hot showers. For our EV travels, having a powered site meant we could arrive from Dubbo with a low battery charge, and charge overnight to be able to drive around the area. Despite the near-freezing mornings and nights, we have always been cosy and warm inside our little camper without heating.

Having had a long day of driving, we arrived at Camp Blackman in the dark. The morning revealed a spectacular landscape, with rocky outcrops, domes and spires. The impacts of a severe fire in 2013 were clearly visible in parts, although much of the vegetation appears to be recovering well.

We liked this park so much, we extended our initial three night stay to six. During this time we managed several short walks, and took on more challenging walks. The Breadknife and Grand High Tops walk was the most difficult, but by far the most awe-inspiring. Having had doubts about our physical abilities, we were both glad we attempted and managed to complete this walk. The walk passes steeply up past the Breadknife which is a 90 metre high rock wall or ‘dyke’ that is only 4 metres thick in places.

There are great views from the Grand High Tops lookout at the top of the walk, and spectacular views of the spires and rock walls along the way.

We encountered a range of plants and animals on our walks and in the campsite.

Our bird list for the area included 52 species, with some of the special ones for us being the night bird calls (Tawny Frogmouth and Southern Boobook), King Parrots, Yellow-tufted Honeyeater, Restless Flycatcher and Double-barred Finches.

Responding to reader feedback we have made special effort to include more flora photos.

At the end of our time in the Warrumbungles, we head to the Pilliga area to the north. A map of our trip can be found on our Trips page.