Right to Climb

Walkabout article from February 1969 provides a good description of the summit walk. This was before the chain.  It's still the same "on hands and knees" job these days especially as NSW NPWS have ripped out the chain. Just about everything NSW NPWS say about the summit walk is a lie!

Quadrant have been a great supporter of efforts to allow the Australian public to use long-established walking tracks in our National Parks they pay for through their taxes. Our recent article summarising the lies and fabrications being told about the magnificent walk to the summit of Mt Warning available via this LINK .

I had a call from Bronwyn Herbert, ABC Lismore, earlier in the week regarding my discovery that the summit chains had been ripped out at Mt Warning .  We spoke for quite some time and covered a range of issues about Mt Warning including the misrepresentations NSW NPWS had been promulgating about the climb and exaggerated safety claims, the beauty and majesty of the walk and the views from the summit, and the conflicting Aboriginal claims about accessing the summit that have not been explained by NSW NPWS. I passed across a substantial amount of information and reference material.  On Wednesday Jan 13, 2021 ABC North Coast radio broadcast a very short news report (link HERE ) that repeated the standard NSW NPWS line about the summit walk. One of these is that two people have died on the mountain in recent years. Without context it sounds that these deaths are associated with the chain section but, one death was due to a lightning strike and the other occurred to an elderly woma...

Germaine Greer's book White beech explores her purchase of a property in the rain forest in SE Queensland across the border from Mt Warning. The book raises many questions about Aboriginal Cultural knowledge about Mt Warning and further highlights misrepresentations and missing details by NSW NPWS in its official Park Literature. In a chapter in which she seeks to trace the Aboriginal name for her acreage she writes about the Ngarakwal/Githabul and Bundjalung claims about Mt Warning: On August 31 2009 Ngarakwal/Githabul activists made a submission to the Tweed Shire Council protesting against the perpetuation of the Bundjalung myth, the misuse of information from Indigenous elders and the lie of the dual identity of Mount Warning. According to Githabul elder Harry Boyd, Mount Warning is not Wollumbin the cloud-catcher and has nothing to do with any warrior king. The whole caldera is Wulambiny Momoli or 'scrub turkey nest', a `djurebil' or increase site where hunting is...

" This claim is a modern day invention." Wijabul elder Fletcher Roberts NSW NPWS have the following description about Aboriginal attitudes to people climbing to the summit of Mt Warning on their webpage about the walking track: Wollumbin, which means ‘cloud catcher’ to some Aboriginal People, is a traditional place of cultural law, initiation and spiritual education for the people of the Bundjalung Nation. Under Bundjalung law, only certain people can climb the summit. Out of respect for their law and culture, consider not climbing the summit. These claims, including the very name applied to the mountain, are contested and it seems there is another story that NSW NPWS have not properly acknowledged and have long kept from public attention. Yesterday we posted the wonderful positive message about the summit walk by Ngaraakwal Elder Marlene Boyd RIP: "I do not oppose the public climbing of Mt Warning - how can the public experience the spiritual significance of this land ...

"How can the public experience the spiritual significance of this land if they do not climb the summit and witness creation."   Ngaraakwal Elder Marlene Boyd RIP   NSW NPWS have the following description about Aboriginal attitudes to people climbing to the summit of Mt Warning on their webpage about the walking track: Wollumbin, which means ‘cloud catcher’ to some Aboriginal People, is a traditional place of cultural law, initiation and spiritual education for the people of the Bundjalung Nation. Under Bundjalung law, only certain people can climb the summit. Out of respect for their law and culture, consider not climbing the summit. These claims, including the very name applied to the mountain, are contested and it seems there is another story that NSW NPWS have not properly acknowledged and have long kept from public attention.  We came across this article from the Daily News February 24 2007 about Ngaraakwal Elder Marlene Boyd that makes for interesting reading. ...

The current situation is a disgrace and an insult to Park users and all Australians.  The Minister must instigate an independent audit and review of NSW NPWS management of the Park and develop a brighter vision of the Park's future.  The walk to the summit of Mt Warning in northern NSW is an iconic experience of the natural world. Views from the summit on a clear day provide an unrivaled vista over the Tweed River Valley, lush rainforests, eroded volcanic landscape and beaches on the coast. They fill visitors with a sense of awe and wonder. From a geological perspective, it is arguably the best-preserved erosion caldera in the world.  The 4.4km (8.8km return) track was completed in 1909 but the hike was firmly established as a popular tourist attraction in  1929  with the declaration of the area around the mountain as a National Park. The opening ceremony was attended at the summit by 200 people, some rode horses up the trail. The standard of the early track con...