Dargan Arch is a picturesque natural sandstone arch tucked away in a lesser visited part of the Blue Mountains. It’s the result of a long collapsed cave and it’s a fun and unusual spot to explore. It’s not signposted and tends to see few visitors so it’s likely you’ll get the whole thing to yourself.
You can walk over the top of it and scramble down to view it from underneath. It’s a really short walk to get there making it one of the easier hidden gems in the Blue Mountains to check out.
Here’s exactly how to find it.
The walk to Dargan Arch
The stats
Distance: 1.6km return
Elevation: 100m
Difficulty: Easy but involves a little scramble to get to the very bottom
This isn’t a difficult walk and the hardest part is knowing where to start and where to aim for when you’re getting close! There’s no trail for the last 250m, which can be a little confusing. We’ll detail everything you need to know to get there, including the co-ordinates for where to park, directions for the trail and co-ordinates for the arch itself.
We recommend downloading the local area as an offline map on Google Maps just in case you lose signal.
The walk to the top of the arch
The walk from the trailhead to the top of the arch is 730m. The first 550m is along fire trail, heading gently and then more steeply downhill.
It’s an easy path, but occasionally the small rocks underfoot can be a little slippery.
When you reach the end of the fire trail there is no set path but you start making your way over the rocky area.
Just be careful not to tread on any of the wildflowers - there were plenty of gorgeous Flannel flowers on our visit.
As you make your way down over the rocks start heading left and you’ll soon see the gaping hole that marks Dargan Arch.
You can walk right over the arch with ease as it’s nice and wide, even if you don’t like unfenced cliff edges, it’s unlikely you’ll have a problem with this one as you don’t need to go anywhere near the drop.
The walk to the bottom of the arch
From the top of the arch to the bottom is only 70m and it’s definitely worth heading down to see it from another perspective.
Again there isn’t a path as such, but when you’ve crossed over the arch you’ll see the way to start heading down.
You have to climb down the rock (pictured above) but it’s extremely grippy (when dry) so it might look steep, but it’s actually quite easy.
You’ll then come out at the bottom of the rock and make your way right, over the fallen tree, towards the arch. There’s a hill inside the arch which is easy to climb up and offers more unique views.
It’s a great spot, it feels so quiet and untouched. If you love photography it also offers the chance to take some interesting shots.
The walk back up
The walk back up to the car park is uphill most of the way but you don’t need to worry about any slippery terrain so it’s very straightforward. We walked up in 15 minutes and I was taking it quite slowly.
As Dargan Arch is only a short adventure, you might want to combine it with a walk at the fantastic Goochs Crater, a 30 minute drive away - although you will need a car with decent clearance as the road is not in the best state.
Finding the trailhead
Dargan Arch is located close to the town of Bell, and is just inside the boundary of the Blue Mountains National Park. The car park is just a patch of dirt.
The hardest part about visiting Dargan Arch for us was working out where the trail actually starts from. It was easy to find out that it begins somewhere along Sandham Road, but that was about it!
It took us ages to find, but happily that won’t be the case for you as we made a note of the coordinates. The car park is at - -33.4862408, 150.2631044 and you can click here to find the exact location on Google Maps.
You can park your car next to electricity pylons in a clearing, and there are yellow tags wrapped around a tree and a metal pole to show you that you are at the right place.
Dargan Arch’s exact location is -33.481237, 150.266006. You can click here to find the exact location on Google Maps.
Sandham Road is unsealed, but at time of writing is in very good condition and you don’t need high clearance.
As well as the coordinates, other identifiers for the trailhead are two telegraph poles, a metal pole with some tape tied around it (right beside the path), and several piles of log debris.
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