Summary: The Barrow Lookout looks out over Govetts Leap and Grose Valley. It's reached via either the Braeside Walk or Cliff Top Track between Evans Lookout and Govetts Leap Lookout.

One of a few lookouts along the Cliff Top Track in Blackheath, the Barrow Lookout looks directly over Govetts Leap, and down into Govett Gorge towards the Grose Valley. It was named after Isaac Le Pipre Barrow, a surveyor and cartographer who worked for many years in the NSW Lands Department.

Barrow Lookout was first documented by Assistant Surveyor William Romaine Govett in a letter to Surveyor General Major Thomas Mitchell on 1 July 1831:

The Creek near ‘Blackheath’ after running about two miles and a half falls abruptly after the manner of the cascade at the ‘Weatherboard’ into one of the Gullies of the Grose River; at a point near this fall of water you have a grand view of two cascades, and that break of rock which forms such a particular (feature) in this Survey. Indeed I have not as yet seen a view which shews (sic) so well the character of the mountain feature….

Peter C Rickwood and David J West, Blackheath Today from Yesterday” 2005, p 131

Getting to Barrow Lookout

Barrow Lookout is reached via:

  • Cliff Top Track from Govetts Leap (0.9km one-way) or Evans Lookout (2.4km one-way)
  • Braeside Walk from McNicole Road (off Braeside Road) in Blackheath (1.5km one-way)

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