The Green Gully Track is NSW’s Only Official Hut-to-Hut Multi-Day Hike

There’s only one official hut-to-hut trail in NSW – The Green Gully Track. Found deep in Oxley Wild Rivers National Park in the state’s New England region, this 65km, four-day track is best kept for Explorers who like to get their feet very, sopping wet.

We Are Explorers acknowledges that this adventure is located on the traditional Country of the Dainggatti people who have occupied and cared for the lands, waters, and their inhabitants for thousands of years. We pay our respects to them as the Traditional Custodians and recognise that sovereignty was never ceded.

Quick Overview

The Green Gully Track is a 65km, Grade 5, hut-to-hut, multi-day hike through the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park in Yarrowitch, NSW. It’s about 1.5 hours from Walcha, or 2.5 hours from Port Macquarie, and takes four days to complete.

Read more: Remember to leave no trace

The Green Gully Track Quick Facts

Distance: 65km
Duration: 4 days
Elevation gain: Approximately 2,264m
Nearest town: Yarrowitch

About The Green Gully Track

The 65km Green Gully Track is found in Oxley Wild Rivers National Park, in NSW’s Northern Tablelands. The park itself is World Heritage-listed, showcasing unique Gondwana rainforest, sheer gorges, untouched rivers, and an abundance of wildlife, including the endangered Brush-tailed rock-wallaby.

The featured cottages along the trail were originally used by stockmen in the 1900s to shelter in while mustering cattle, and the old stockyards can be found close by the huts.

NPWS has done basic refurbishment of the trail cottages and they have the essentials, but don’t expect much in the way of luxury. A night spent at Cedar Creek Cottage is factored in before the first day’s walk, to allow hikers to arrive in no rush, rest, and start hiking the next day.

Bookings need to be made well in advance as only six walkers are allowed to start the trail each day as this is all there’s space for in each hut. Each booking is $300 per person.

Oxley Wild Rivers National Park History

Numerous archaeological sites, including rock shelters, marked trees, and artefacts, have been found throughout the park, highlighting the significance of the area to the Traditional Owners of the land, the Dainggatti (also spelt Dunghutti) people, who lived in this region for thousands of years before European settlement.

John Oxley was the first European to visit the New England region, passing through the area that’s now Oxley Wild Rivers National Park in September 1818. Not long after John Oxley passed through, an influx of loggers sought after the highly valued Cedar trees within the gorges. This was followed by cattle graziers, the remnants of which can be seen today.

Oxley Wild Rivers National Park is part of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area and was declared a wilderness area under the Wilderness Act 1987 after the park was established in 1986.

How to Get to The Green Gully Track

The Green Gully Track is about a 6.5-hour drive north of Sydney and 2.5 hours west of Port Macquarie.

The roads through this area have suffered from severe weather events over the last few years and are full of potholes and damage, so take it easy.

Once you’ve booked through NSW National Parks, detailed directions will be sent to you. These include instructions on navigating well-maintained gravel roads that travel through private property and farms until you finally come to a locked gate that requires a code to access.

Where to Stay on The Green Gully Track

No need to lug a tent or even a sleeping mat on the Green Gully Track. Huts are located along the way with camping stretchers and basic cooking equipment inside. They’re also fitted out with non-flush toilets, solar lighting, and rainwater.

There are three huts along the track – Birds Nest, Green Gully, and Colwells – and one at each end – Cedar Creek Cottage and Cedar Creek Lodge – and you’re required to spend a night at each hut along the trail so as not to catch up with the group a day ahead of you.

Skill Level

Advanced

The Green Gully Track is a remote and fully self-sufficient hiking experience.

You have to carry your gear; there’s no reception, there are steep ascents and descents, multiple water crossings, and the trail markers are limited, so being able to read a basic map is useful.

Read more: Navigating With a Map & Compass

Essential Gear for The Green Gully Track

• Water bladder or bottles (at least 2-3L)
• Water purification tablets or a filter for the rainwater tanks and rivers
• Sun protection
• Swimmers (in summer, winter too if you dare!)
• First aid kit
• PLB – this is essential due to the remote location of this hike
• Warm layers – it gets really, really cold here, believe me
• Wet weather gear
• Walking poles for those steep hills

Read more: How To Purify Water in the Bush

What it’s Like to Hike The Green Gully Track

The Green Gully Track had been on my hiking radar for a long time. Now it’s in my top three multi-day hikes I’ve ever done – the remoteness, untouched gorges, freezing rivers and streams, abundant wildlife, and sense of adventure this track brings is one I’ll never forget.

Day 0: Cedar Creek Cottage

We arrived at Cedar Creek Cottage around 4pm after an exciting encounter with a quoll on our way in. Such a rare sight was surely a sign that this journey was going to be something very special!

We were the first group to walk the trail since the storms in July 2022, which resulted in the creeks flooding and many other hikers having to cancel their hike.

We enjoyed dinner by the warm fireplace before retiring early, ready for the next day’s adventure to begin.

Hint: It’s gonna be a lot of this

Day 1: Cedar Creek Cottage to Birds Nest Hut

Distance: 17km
Duration: 7 hours

After a hearty breakfast, we were off, marching along the management trail at a steady pace. Following the ridgeline, the management trail continued up and down, hinting at some nice views through the tall eucalypts across the valley.

The recently maintained trail was hard on the feet, and a side trip down to Colwells Stockyards for morning tea was a nice change of scenery. We finally descended towards Birds Nest Hut, which was situated in a shaded gully close to the creek, for our first night on the trail, and made an afternoon of cards.

We even had our first wildlife encounter – a local bandicoot appeared at dusk around the campfire.

Day 2: Birds Nest Hut to Green Gully Hut

Distance: 15km
Duration: 7.5 hours

The temperatures must’ve dropped well below freezing overnight (I recommend bringing a good sleeping bag – mine wasn’t adequate), as the entire valley, including the old stockyards, was covered in thick, crunchy frost the next morning.

As we climbed out of the valley, the sun reflected off the ice, making every piece of frost-laden vegetation glisten. The track turned off the management trail onto a single track, and we navigated upwards through the damp foliage. At 1200m, Birds Nest Trig was the highest point on the track and proposed a sunny spot for morning tea while we prepared for the steep descent that followed.

Green Gully Lookout and The Rocks Lookout are two small side trips not to be missed. Both showcased panoramic views over the gorges and distant valleys as far as the eye could see, with no sign of human existence.

The descent down the ridgeline was steep and hot, even in July. Tiny loose rocks were underfoot, which caused one hiker trying to get a photo to thump and tumble down the hill – luckily, it sounded a lot worse than it was.

We came to Brumby Creek mid-afternoon and got a small taste of what was to come the next day as we navigated several creek crossings on the final 1.5km to Green Gully Hut. Along the final stretch, we came to Brumby Pass, where an old stock gate still survives, as well as an inventive stock fence that’s designed to swing up as floodwaters rise.

Green Gully Hut was the most picturesque and luxurious of all the huts, with a fireplace that actually produced heat without filling the room with smoke, and an outdoor shower that trickled water just a few degrees warmer than the outside air temperature. After a sweaty afternoon, it was heaven!

Green Gully Hut is also home to several Brush-tailed possums that have no fear of humans and come out in droves at night to feed on the clipped grass and dance all over the hut roof.

Day 3: Green Gully Hut to Colwells Hut

Distance: 13km
Duration: 8 hours

Day three’s route was to be determined by the first three creek crossings. The recent flooding had occurred only a few days before our arrival, and caused the creeks through the gorges to rise rapidly.

We were told that if the first three crossings were waist-height, brown, and moving fast, we’d have to turn back and take the alternate route to Colwells Hut, up the steep ridgeline from the day before. Everyone packed their bags carefully so their gear would hopefully survive a dunking if they fell in the water.

The creek crossings were brown, moving fast, and one almost came up to my waist height (the shortest of the bunch), but didn’t tick all the boxes for taking the alternate route, so we unanimously decided to continue following Green Gully Creek upstream, helping each other cross when needed.

It’s advertised that you could cross the creek up to 35 times during day three, but after the first dozen, we lost count and estimated we’d zig-zagged about 40-something times by the end of the day.

The path on the riverbank continued to appear and disappear, making the shortest day in distance one of the longest in time.

The water was freezing, and it didn’t take long for all feeling in the feet and legs to disappear. We managed to find a sunny, rocky island in the middle of the creek to have lunch, thaw out, and empty our shoes that’d accumulated hundreds of tiny river rocks.

After hiking for several hours, an excited shout came announcing that a Brush-tailed rock-wallaby had been spotted! As our eyes zoned in on the small nimble rock hoppers, more and more tiny faces appeared, and we could see families of them dotted through the rock crevasses, staring down at us.

There was plenty of evidence on the creek banks of other wildlife, both native and non-native, including horses, dogs, and feral pigs, two of which were startled by our presence and raced off up the hill.

As the day drew on, the rocky walls on either side of the creek drew closer together until they were almost vertical, blocking out the sun and making the rock scrambling slippery as we neared the canyon.

Green Gully Canyon was almost the halfway mark for the day. While deep, the water flow through the canyon wasn’t overpowering, and once we were almost across, we could grab the rock wall and pull ourselves up and along to save our packs from getting too wet. We felt triumphant after this crossing, and the rest of the day breezed by.

It’s rumoured that the last crossing is the deepest and most challenging, and that we’d have to come up with an ingenious way of getting our bags across, then swim to the other side. It turned out to be a disappointing calf-deep trickle!

Colwell Hut was situated in a pleasant, open grassed area surrounded by eucalyptus, and was very similar to Birds Nest, as the fireplace produced zero heat. Only four people could sleep in the hut, while the other two slept in the well-made lean-to outside.

The cold evening made for epic stargazing before reading the hut’s logbook, which hosted tales of people being swept downstream, countless injuries, sleeping in the bush after not making it to the hut, and one incident of a zombie apocalypse. This walk is not to be underestimated!

Day 4: Colwells Hut to Cedar Creek Lodge

Distance: 17.5km
Duration: 7 hours

After a night spent half awake from the persistent rustling of the resident rat, we got up early to tackle the last day, starting the steep 600m climb over the first 3km up the fire trail.

The scenery was obscured by fog, and so views of the ancient Gondwana rainforest remained in the imagination, but evidence of Yellow-bellied gliders was everywhere once we knew to look for tell-tale horizontal scars and leaking sap on specific eucalyptus.

We arrived at Cedar Creek Lodge quicker than anticipated, driven by the thought of a hot shower and BBQ dinner. The afternoon at the lodge was spent relaxing, playing cards, kangaroo watching, and listening to a lyrebird in the distance.

The last night was spent warm and comfortable, and everyone was in good spirits the next day as we packed up, thankful for the opportunity and weather window to enjoy this hike to the fullest.

Tips For Hiking The Green Gully Track

• Book well in advance – it costs $900 for 2-4 walkers with additional walkers costing $300 (prices as of September 2025)
• There’s a minimum of two people and a maximum of six per group
• Take plenty of warm layers and don’t underestimate how cold it gets at night!
• Pack waterproof storage bags for the creek crossings so your gear doesn’t get wet
• Take hiking poles – these were useful for the steep hills and aided with the water crossings
• Take a grippy pair of water shoes/sandals for the creek crossings, as the rocks can be very slippery
• Make use of the food storage boxes in the huts and hang your packs up to deter rodents
• Keep an eye out for the elusive Brush-tailed rock-wallaby on day three

FAQs The Green Gully Track

How hard is The Green Gully Track?

The Green Gully Track is a Grade 5 hike. Hikers are required to be fully self-sufficient and have a high level of hiking experience, including some navigation.

How long does it take to hike The Green Gully Track?

The Green Gully Track is a 65km 4-day 5-night hut-to-hut hike.

Do you need a permit to hike The Green Gully Track?

Bookings are required to hike the Green Gully Track and can be made on the NSW National Parks website. There are fees associated with the hike.

When’s the best time to hike The Green Gully Track?

This hike is open all year round. For milder temperatures, choose spring or autumn. For the opportunity to swim, choose summer, and for a winter adventure, well, choose winter. We went in winter, and it was amazing despite the cold.

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