Former NSW state premier Bob Carr once called this view from a mesa called The Castle Cooyoyo in the northern Budawangs (in the south of Morton National Park) the best view in the NSW Parks system. 

Geologist Phil Smart and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service officer David Duffy re-enact the geological rebound forces that created the uplift of rock that we know as the Great Escarpment, which runs from Mt Bartle Frere in Queensland right down through Tasmania. 

Stephen Dolphin is in the lead, as a group of Sydney Bush Walkers club friends make their way through Ettrema Gorge in the west of Morton National Park. This is a regular hike for the fast friends of more than 20 years, two of whom met on a walk and are now married. It involves a bush-bash and scramble down a steep 300m incline into the gorge (not for inexperienced bushwalkers). As evidence of the many pitfalls of wilderness hiking, shortly after this photo was taken Grace (second from the left) fell and broke her wrist and had to be evacuated by helicopter. 

Colin Watson, 92, is a passionate bushwalker and campaigner for the Budawangs and the National Park system. He lived in Sydney most of his life, but has been travelling to hike in the Budawang Range since the 1940s. He helped with the creation of a map known by some as the ‘Budawang Sketch Map’, which was drawn free-hand by an old friend George Elliott after after hiking the region with Colin in the 1950s and ’60s. The map was published by the Budawang Committee, which Colin founded in 1967 to promote the area, and versions are used by hikers to this day. Before the sketch map, says Colin, all he had to hike with was a parish map,with just a few vague topographic outlines and nothing more. The sketch map opened up the area to hikers, many of whom had no idea it was there previously. The Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife named Colin Friend of the Century in 1999. 

Riley O’Carroll, 10, plays on a large twisted vine.

Morton’s wild interior is a sanctuary for wildlife, particularly large arboreal fauna. The powerful owl, Australia’s largest owl, roosts in the big trees around Riley. Occasionally, you’ll come across gruesome evidence in the form of fluffy glider tails underneath a tree.

“It’s the first thing they do, look at that bit of fluff and think, ‘I can’t eat that’ – and snip it off,” says NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service officer David Duffy. These large predators need a range of 400–4000ha per breeding pair, and David says they only live in the hollows of trees more than 150 years old.

“When you hear about animals like that, you realise how important it is to have such a large wilderness park.” Morton National Park is almost the size of the ACT. 

Geologist Phil Smart, points to the fossilised indent of a shell in a piece of rock leftover from when the Sydney Basin was covered by an ancient sea.

“That’s the fauna that was living on the seafloor here 270 million years ago. By 200 million… this was no longer the coast,” says Phil.

“The Tasman Sea opened up from about 84 million years ago. By 60, it was completely opened up, and the rebound lifted these rocks up hundreds of metres all the way from Mt Bartle Frere in Queensland right down through Tasmania – that’s the eastern highlands of Australia.”

Phil Smart and David Duffy run landscape tours of Morton National Park. David admits that sometimes he doesn’t know where to begin when telling people about the huge park. Before this gig, David lived in the Red Centre and wrote the manual used to teach rangers how to show people around Uluru. Here, David and Phil stand looking out over the park on the George Boyd Lookout. 

Writer Natsumi Penberthy scales a mesa known as The Castle in the northern Budawangs. This hike, she says, was not for the faint of heart and involved some steep and often hairy climbs. It’s all part of exploring a wilderness area, which are left as untouched as possible and where not everything has been safeguarded for tourists in the way non-wilderness areas often are. Do your research before you go, she says, and if you’re not an experienced hiker make sure you go out with someone who is. 

The sunrise from The Castle, a 847m-high mesa in the northern Budawang Range. The view takes in Byangee Walls and the small square nub of Pigeon House Mountain Didthul in the distance. Its lonely, sheer-sided nub of brittle Nowra sandstone is defying the elements, and is perched on a gently curved conical base surrounded by mesas. 

NSW National Parks and Wildlife officer David Duffy, trailed by 10-year-old South Coast resident Riley O’Carroll, in the east of Morton National Park. Near this area was once part of a defence force firing range and hikers are advised to stay on track in case there are unexploded ordinances left over. 

The shoulders of Yarrunga Creek canyon, in to which Fitzroy Falls empty, are made of hard Hawkesbury sandstone. The uneven wearing of this layered landscape creates the mesas and drop falls that decorate its green glory. 

Geologist Phil Smart and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service officer David Duffy show how the movement of the continent over volcanic hotspots have created some of the formations that can be found in the region. They are at George Boyd Lookout in the east of the park. 

Inveterate hiker Terry Moss is a member of the Sydney Bush Walkers, one of the oldest bushwalking clubs in NSW, dating back to 1927. Here Terry skirts deep pools of water found at the bottom of Ettrema Gorge.