Barrington Tops National Park

Barrington Tops National Park is a 745 km² large national park in the Australian state of New South Wales, about 270 km north of Sydney .

Barrington Tops is a plateau that stretches between two peaks of the Mount Royal Ranges, part of the Great Dividing Range. It also forms the watershed between the Hunter and Manning Rivers. Barrington Tops sits on top of a volcano and reaches an altitude of 1586 m.

At 3 December 1969 the region between Mount Barrington, Mount Royal and the Gloucester Tops was declared a national park. Since 1982 the park has been listed as part of the Gondwana rainforests of Australia as a UNESCO World Heritage Site; as such, it is the southernmost of the affiliated national parks.

History

The Barrington Tops area was home to various Aboriginal countries, namely the Worimi and Biripi in the east and the Wonnarua in the west.

From around 1820, European settlers began to settle in the region, using the areas to cut logs and as grazing land for cattle. Gold was also searched here.

In the early 20th In the 19th century, tourism became popular through horse riding, hunting and fishing. The Barrington Club, founded in 1948, campaigned for nature conservation. In 1959 the first areas were placed under protection.

Ecosystems

The park includes ecosystems of tropical rainforest in the protected valleys and gorges at heights between 400 and 600 m. At altitudes of 700 to 1400 m there is cool temperate rainforest, where Nothofagus moorei predominates. This is followed by an alpine zone with alpine woodland and subalpine peat bogs in the summit regions.

Eucalyptus forests with various species predominate across all heights: Sydney and Messmate eucalyptus dominate the valleys and, on the slopes, and the southern beech also dominates the higher areas. On the other hand, the cold-resistant snow eucalyptus predominates on the plateau.

Thanks to the remote, inaccessible location of the park, a diverse fauna including some species that have already been considered extinct has been preserved. A butterfly, three spider species, three worm species and the crustacean Crenoicus harrisoni are endemic to the park.

Eastern gray kangaroos, red-necked wallabies, red-necked filanders and bare-nosed wombats also occur. Nocturnal mammals are also present. Echidna and platypus also find their habitat here. The koala is difficult to observe, the Australian mouse Pseudomys oralis is a critically endangered species. The Australian wide-toothed rat occurs only in a few places in Australia.

Birds include lyre-tails, cockatoos, flat-tailed parakeets, kookaburras, strangler crows and grouse. The black cockatoo is rarely seen. The most common reptiles encountered here are the black otter, tiger otter, copper-headed snake and brown snake.

References

Official website of Barrington Tops National Park at environment.nsw.gov.au