Day 102: A day trip to Mt Barker and Porongurup National Park

 The sun is shining again today but wet weather is expected to return this afternoon.



Our first stop in Mount Barker was the tourist information centre, which in it's previous life, was the Railway Station. We got some ideas and maps and first drove to the Rotary Club Lookout on Tower Hill.


There were great views of the country side with yellow fields of canola quite prominent.



We can also see Porongurup National Park in the distance, a mountainous area of granite with a unique lookout of their own. We intend visiting there after Mt Barker


Porongurup National Park in the distance

Mount Barker is one of WA's prime wine producing areas and we are keen to visit at least one winery whilst we are here. I am quite keen to go to West Cape Howe Winery, as I have bought their white wines over the years. A visit to the winery would provide a chance to taste their reds.


West Cape Howe Winery

The cellar door was pretty quiet when we arrived, and the service was excellent. There was no pressure to pay for tasting. A wide range of wines were available for tasting including most of their reds, which are surprisingly good and by WA standards, fairly priced. Their Cabernet Sauvignon was very good.  We spent quite a bit of time there, bought 8 bottles of wine and moved on.

It is too early for lunch and we intend to drive to Porongurup National Park, we decide to call in at the Mt Barker Country Bakery to get something for lunch that we can take with us and eat when we get there. The choices were very good, but the ham and cheese baguette caught our eye as it looked just like a genuine French offering.

Porongurup National Park has a huge tourist attraction, The Castle Rock Skywalk. A stainless steel walkway hanging off the side of a massive granite outcrop.

The drive to Porongurup is 27 km, and as we arrived we looked for somewhere to get a cup of coffee to go with our baguette. We found a cafe and general store where we got quite a good coffee.


The picnic area at the base of the Castle Rock Skyway Walk is only a few km down the road. We found a nice picnic table, enjoyed our coffee and the baguette was excellent, nice crusty bread and very good quality ham and cheese.

It is not immediately obvious where this famous tourist attraction is. We cannot see any visual evidence of a mountain of granite with a stainless steel walkway attached to it. Further investigation was a bit deflating. We found the entrance to a walkway that will take us to Castle Rock. It is a 2.2km, all uphill, walk to the attraction and the same distance return. 

We have come all this way, so we set out. It is hard going and after 45 mins we have done 1.5 km of the 2.2 km walk. The track is soggy and getting slippery, but still relentlessly uphill. By the 1.7 km mark we talk to a European couple, a bit younger than us on their way back down. They advised if we thought the bit we had done to here was tough, the next 700 metres is a lot steeper. They showed us some photos of the top and said they could only access the lower level of the walkway as for them, the upper level was too dangerous for old people to attempt. This had already taken a lot more time than we expected and the prospect of steeper and more slippery footing caused us to turn around. We were not well prepared for these conditions. 

Once you arrive there you then have to climb up ladders to get to the walkway. The advice was to allow 30 minutes for this viewing experience and access once you got there. It turned out it was a 3.5 to 4.5 hr exercise, mush more time than we would ever have imagined for a 2.2 km hike each way and a bit of time to look around.


An early part of the trail looked OK


A fallen tree had been dealt with


We were hoping for it to flatten out, but the climb was relentless


This is a picture of part of the walkway on an information board in the picnic area

It was disappointing not to get to Castle Rock, but we really didn't have that amount of time to waste, nor we were equipped properly for the hike.

As we are leaving tomorrow we have a bit of restocking to do, so when finally back at the carpark, we drive back to Albany to get the washing off the clothesline before the rain comes and then go shopping to replenish our food supplied. Our visit to West Cape Howe put our wine stocks back in order. 












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