Climbing to the top of the Evans Crown Track rewards you with stunning views and a huge collection of giant granite boulders, which create a fun and whimsical landscape. We headed up for sunset - which didn’t disappoint - the sky was magnificent, and we were the only ones up there if you don’t count a few shy wallabies!
Evans Crown is a sacred site for the Wiradjuri Aboriginal people and therefore visiting the area must be done sensitively. Although the boulders would make for a brilliant scrambling adventure, we chose to stick as closely as possible to the dirt trails to avoid clambering over the boulders and causing offence.
Here’s everything you need to know about visiting Evans Crown.
The Evans Crown Track
The stats
Distance: 2.4km return
Elevation: 135m
Difficulty: Easy
The Evans Crown Track follows a well maintained path until you get to the top. It’s a climb most of the way but it doesn’t take long at all. From the top, the trails are unmaintained, but not difficult unless you do some serious scrambling - which is not encouraged due to the significance of the site to the Wiradjuri Aboriginal people.
In all honesty, if you obey the signs and don’t go scrambling, you can’t explore too far and wide, but we still had a great time up there and would recommend it nonetheless.
Climbing up to Evans Crown
The walk heads into the bush on a well maintained path. The first 200m is all on steepish staircases, with little in the way of views.
After the initial climb the path flattens and you’ll get some good glimpses out to rolling farmland.
There were also plenty of wildflowers sprinkled along the trail when we visited in summer. After a few hundred metres of relatively flat track, you’ll begin climbing again.
It’s all on well formed staircases and you’ll soon start to see some giant boulders.
After 800m (from the start of the trail) you’ll reach the junction and the end of the formed track.
Although the signpost said to allow 45 minutes to get to this point, it only took us 15 and we weren’t rushing.
Exploring right of the junction
To the right the path is nice and obvious, however it’s a bit more overgrown than it’s been up to now. It takes you through some grassland and out to a big patch of boulders.
Unfortunately, unless you scramble up on to them, there is little in the way of views on this section.
We could see that it would be great if you got a little elevation from climbing the boulders, but we chose to stick only to the path.
In all honesty this does make this side of the track a little underwhelming, but luckily you can explore more to the left of the junction.
Without scrambling this part of the track was only around 250m.
Exploring left of the junction
Happily the left path had more to offer without breaching the advice not to scramble up on the boulders.
We did walk over a few rocky slopes though, which we hope was still ok to do - if you don’t use the rock at all you really can’t see much!
A couple of hundred metres beyond the junction you’ll see a rocky slab you can walk up and over to a small boulder cave which was a fun little spot.
The rock is nice and grippy when dry, but can get a little slippery in places if wet.
There are huge boulders perched in what look like precarious positions all around you which makes for a fun landscape.
Some are balancing in the most unlikely places and yet must have been that way for thousands of years!
Continuing on the main dirt path and you’ll pass through some boulders which are covered in pink lichen which make the rocks look even more unusual.
You’ll then come to a path that climbs slightly up to a big boulder pile. It’s a dirt track and then up onto a rocky slab.
You can pass through a small gap in the boulders and out onto more rocks which is where we watched the sunset.
We know that higher up along the rocks the view would be uninterrupted, but we still love the spot we got to. It looked directly to the setting sun and out over the forest and distant granite tors.
We were treated to a spectacular sky and the peace and serenity of the whole area was very special.
Although we hadn’t realised ahead of time that we wouldn’t be able to climb all the boulders, we still had a wonderful trip and would recommend a visit.
It was an easy walk down in the twilight after watching the sunset, taking less than 15 minutes.
Getting to Evans Crown
The Evans Crown Reserve is located 30km and 30 minutes from Lithgow and 47km and 40 minutes from Bathurst.
There is a small gravel car park but no other facilities. The last 2km into the reserve is on a gravel road. It had many potholes and a few corrugations, but would be passable with any car if you drive slowly and carefully.
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