Page 77 - Our Favourite Walks by Brian Everingham

The Diamond Head Loop Walk

Crowdy Bay National Park

Brian Everingham
At a conference I attended in 2019 the delegates were asked to name their favourite national park.
That put me in a quandary. How does one choose a favourite park after all those years of visiting, of
walking in, of camping and of simply being in our national park system. It was an impossible task but
soon enough I would be forced to provide an answer.

I wondered should I name Royal, the park whose nooks and crannies I had explored for the last 45
years. It was tempting. I owed it a lot. Or should I name Kosciusko, a park to which I had taken
parties on close to fifty multi-day full pack walks? I was tempted to say Morton, whose “negotiable
routes” had all been successfully negotiated over many a rather scratchy walk!

But the more I listened to others speak the more it became clear. People were naming the park that
first introduced them to the outdoor world. Well the outdoor world was all around a lad who grew
up on a dairy farm and whose western and eastern boundaries abutted forest but the national park
just had to be Crowdy Bay.
Situated north of Harrington and south of Laurieton, Crowdy Bay National Park is a special coastal
heath country with delightful beaches and headlands, coastal lakes and hidden gems.

And within that park there is one, small, easily walked track that still gives pleasure! That is the
Diamond Head Loop walk. It takes one from the Diamond Head beach and camping area, over the
headlands to Kylie’s Lookout and on down to Kylie’s Rest at the northern end of Crowdy Beach.
Along the way there are spectacular seascapes and if one does turn one’s head – and I always do –
one sees the Three Brothers. And that, to me, was home!

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