Burbie Canyon
Burbie Canyon
A gentle walk through one of the park’s narrow valleys where the rock walls lean in, the air cools, and the track follows a shallow, usually-dry creek. It’s an easy trail to slot into a bigger Warrumbungles trip, especially if you’re looking for something low-effort but still a change of scenery. This is Burbie Canyon.
Quick Details
Length: 2.2km
Elevation: Almost none — Couple of short staircases
Grade: Easy
Best season: After rain
Suitable for kids: Yes
Starting the Trail
It was our first morning in the Bungles, and our group had already scattered in three different directions. Michael and Logan had jumped in the car to explore the lookouts around the outskirts of the park, while Annie had left at 5am to run the Seven Summits. The four of us remaining decided to ease into the day with a simple trail through Burbie Canyon.
We jumped in the car and headed down the road — the car park isn’t much more than a patch of dirt by the side of the road. We got out and threw on our packs — stopping to watch a couple of noisy cockatoos arguing over a hollow in the trees above us. While many tracks in the park are all about the sweeping views, this one is about what’s right in front of you.
We made our way across the road to the trailhead and up a short flight of stairs. The track is wide and easy to follow — it’s also quite short, making it great for kids who aren’t keen on a long hike.
It was the perfect trail to ease into the day's adventures. The smooth, flat path led us gently through the forest. Even though the trees were dense on either side, we could see through them easily — we figured we have the resident feral goats to thank for that. Most of the branches close to the ground had been stripped bare.
All except for one plant with purple flowers. We’re not sure what it was, but we saw it on a few trails over the weekend. Maybe the goats don’t like it, because it was pretty much the only flower we saw the whole trip.
Pretty soon the trees thinned out as the rock walls rose either side of the track, and we picked our way through the boulders around us. A dry creek bed sits between the walls. It would be great to see this track again when the creek is flowing — it would look completely different to what we saw on this trip. But as most creeks in the park are ephemeral, they were all dry during our visit.
What’s an Ephemeral Creek?
It just means the creek doesn’t flow all the time — instead, you’ll only see running water through them soon after rain. This is because most of them don’t have a groundwater source, so the only time they see water is when it rains. The dry creek beds of the Warrumbungles also hide a secret when they’re dry — Pobblebonk frogs!
Pobblebonks (also known as Banjo frogs) burrow deep into the creek bed when things are dry. Once there’s water in the creek, they make their way to the surface to eat, drink, and party like it’s 1999. They get their name from the bonk sound they make — a funny little call that carries surprisingly far. It’s one of those small Warrumbungles moments you only get when the weather lines up just right.
Back to the Trail
The canyon section is quite short overall. It’s nice — but nothing to write home about. There isn’t a big finale at the end of the track — no lookout, no sudden reveal, no jaw-dropping Kodak moment. Instead, it’s a chance to slow down and appreciate the “smalls” of a Warrumbungles trail: the trees, the rocks, and… the goats?
It’s a strange sight to see goats bouncing around on a stone wall in the Australian bush. As we reached the end of the canyon, we watched a young kid practising its jumps across narrow handholds of stone with an agility that would make any rock climber jealous. Mama goat wasn’t far away and kept a close eye on us, so we continued on our way.
A staircase led us up the hill and away from the stone walls, bringing us back onto a winding track through the forest. It wasn’t until this moment that we realised the canyon section was done. I suppose because we’re used to Blue Mountains slot canyons, which look a lot different to this. So it was a bit of a surprise to walk out the other side and realise that yes, that really was the canyon.
The forest opens up, and for whatever reason there isn’t much undergrowth here aside from grass trees. It looks completely different to the forest on the other side of the canyon. It was actually our favourite part of the track. It was just something about the bigger trees and the space in between.
All too soon the trail met the Burbie Trail, a fire track that leads back to the main road and the car. Of course, we ended up taking quite a detour before getting back — that’s the story of how we came to hike up Belougery Split Rock. All in all, Burbie Canyon may not be the most impressive trail in the park, but it’s still worth a wander.
Getting There
Warrumbungle National Park is around 150km north of Dubbo, or 35km west of Coonabarabran.
Burbie Canyon car park is around 2.5km westward from the NPWS visitor centre on John Renshaw Parkway.
Tips and Tricks
This may be a short track, but still make sure that you have water, and slip, slop, slap.
If you’d like to see more photos from this hike you can check out Rob and Edna on Instagram.
You can read about our other Warrumbungles hikes to Tara Cave, Belougery Split Rock, and Grand High Tops in the Trail Journal.