When we were planning our trip from Brisbane down to Tasmania, there were so many factors that came into play. Of course, we wanted to spend Christmas with my family in Grindelwald, a gorgeous little Swiss Village just 15 minutes north of Launceston, but we also wanted to see things we haven’t seen, visit places we haven’t been and show our kids something completely different.
For the last 3 years we have ventured to Far North QLD and loved every second of it! We have some wonderful memories and visited some magical places. See trip one here, and trip two here – I still haven’t written up our trip from last Christmas! Slack, I know.
So, this year we finally decided to ‘just do it’ and booked our tickets across on the Spirit about 6 months ago. Then we had to choose coast road, or inland. So, we had a look at what there was on both routes, and we decided that inland was the way to go. It turns out that the coast road is flooded from Sydney to Melbourne, so we definitely made the right choice!
One of the deciding factors was what we could visit while staying in Narrabri – the CSIRO Telescope Centre and the Sawn Rocks. And wow – we are so glad we came this way!
We’ve heard so much about Sawn Rocks, and have seen so many spectacular pics, that we really wanted our own happy snaps in front of ‘nature’s castle ruins’ as the kids have called it.
This meant leaving Brissy about 4:15am, booking in at the Narrabri Big Sky Caravan Park, eating a quick lunch upon our arrival at about 1:30pm and then jumping back in the car to make the 45 minute (or so) drive to see this natural wonder for ourselves.
We stopped off to check out the telescopes at the CSIRO centre on the way for a while (which was insane! Stay tuned for those pics 😁)
Once you get the location correct in your GPS, Sawn Rocks can be easily found in the northern section of Mt Kaputar National Park and is an amazing reminder of Kaputar’s volcanic past. It is one of Australia’s best examples of the geological formation known as ‘organ-piping’.
I can remember being taken to see the The Organ Pipes National Park in Victoria when I was no older than 3 or 4, and I can still remember it! I know the Sawn Rocks have had the same impact on our 3 youngest.
To get to the rocks from the car-park it’s just a short 750 metre walk along a lovely track that was dotted with little signs filled with information about the park, and according to one of these signs, once was lined with gorgeous flowers and shrubs. Today we saw some tiny purple flowers amongst lots of burnt trees. It was still beautiful ♥️
Once you get closer, there is a viewing platform which gives you the perfect photo opportunity of the towering wall of pentagonal basalt pipes that is the sheared off remains of a basalt lava flow from the Nandewar Volcano many years ago, and then some stairs that wind down to the base.
This is what we found the most intriguing … all the huge broken clumps of pipes that have crashed to the ground at the base of the wall. Home to many snakes I would imagine! Not that we were lucky enough to spot anything other than ants, moths, birds and a cute little lizard that Aylah tickled until it ran (really fast!) into the scrub.
Over many years, huge chunks of rock have tumbled down to rest on the bed of the (now dried up) Bobbiwaa Creek. I’ve read that these are buried about 60 metres into the ground below!
Cooper said that it reminded him of ancient ruins of a temple or castle – he was absolutely right! It was just like that.
There is also a great car park, toilets, and BBQ’s and tables/chairs.
What a top spot! We totally rate it 👌🏼
