Peter Barnes, 86, at the launch of The Living Rock in 2015

Growing old disgracefully... 

Peter Barnes 13.7.1929 — 4.8.2025

We didn’t regard ourselves as being the first to do anything but we were aware that people from earlier stages had done some adventurous stuff and we saw no reason why we shouldn’t do the same thing.

— Peter Barnes

PETER BYRON BARNES was a pioneer of climbing and climbing photography in Australia. Following his early exploration of Mount Barney as a teenager, over the next 70 years he became part of an influential and inspirational cohort of adventurers who made numerous memorable and first ascents in southeast Queensland and beyond. He leaves behind a legacy that few can match.

Peter was born in Southport but grew up in Applethorpe on the Granite Belt. His earliest outdoor experiences involved riding a horse to school and scrambling over the granite domes near his home, the area now known as Girraween. His initiation into more challenging objectives came when the 18-year-old was a student at the Slade School in Warwick. One of his fellow students, 17-year-old Jon Stephenson, told him how 12 months earlier — in 1947 — he had visited a place called Mount Barney. He had climbed to the summit in cloud and scrambled down to the saddle between North and Leaning Peaks which he described as a ‘frightening place’. When he suggested returning to the mountain during the Christmas holidays in 1948, Peter Barnes and one of their teachers at the school, Bevan Meredith (later Archbishop of Papua New Guinea), were willing participants. As Peter recalled:

It really started with Jon Stephenson. He’s to blame for everything… So when I was invited to go for a short walk from Wilson’s Peak to Mt Barney to have a look at this hunk of dirt, I thought: ‘That sounds like a darn good idea!’ It was a bit rugged — I’d fallen into a creek the first day. I only had very cheap wool socks, they had holes in them and I got blisters. Things were fairly bad. I didn’t have a rucksack — they weren’t invented in those days — we just had army haversacks slung one over each shoulder which were, of course, terribly, terribly uncomfortable. Jon Stephenson had a rucksack but we didn’t, so we really looked like a right trio of twits. That’s when it started, and since then, I went back to Barney two or three or four times a year and when I started at university in 1950, then the Glasshouses called, so I scrambled over those.

 

Peter Barnes (left) with Jon Stephenson in the late 1940s (Peter Barnes collection)

By 1952, Peter was studying dentistry at the University of Queensland while his school friend, Jon, was pursuing a career in geology. Peter was conveniently based in King’s College at Kangaroo Point and he and Jon soon established the first regular climbing routes on the main cliffs a short distance away. Through Jon, Peter was introduced to Geoff Goadby — who later introduced roped climbing techniques into the local climbing scene — and Raoul Mellish, later the director of the Queensland Art Gallery. Peter and Raoul made numerous climbing trips to the Glasshouses, starting a tradition of setting off fireworks from the top of Crookneck on Guy Fawkes Night (5 November). Peter reminisced: ‘Most of us were university students and being university students, if you could get out of doing what you should have been doing, it was quite good fun.’ Their passion for the heights at this time is exemplified in this entry from Peter’s diary in 1952:

Being a most glorious night and a full moon, Peter Marendy and I decided to ‘do’ Crooky. Just before we left at 8.00 pm, Tom Waters (who had never before climbed a mountain) decided to come too. Set off on T’s 100 [Triumph Tiger motorcycle] and made Glasshouse at 9.15 pm. Pulled up past Murphy’s and arrived at summit at 10.10 pm. Tom crossed the ledge [Salmon’s Leap] without any trouble or hesitation at all, both on the way up and down. Scene was as lovely as ever…Saw two paddy melons in the track before Murphy’s. Arrived back 12.45 am.

 

Peter Barnes and his Triumph Tiger 100 heading for Mount Barney circa 1952 (Peter Barnes collection)

Peter Barnes in the Glass House Mountains circa 1950 (Raoul Mellish collection)

Using rope back then was optional. They climbed in Hong Kong-made gym boots — a canvas boot with a couple of rubberised patches over each ankle with very spongy soles. When they felt it was necessary — with inexperienced climbers — they used a 20 metre hemp rope (‘a piece of string’ as Peter always referred to it), tying it around their waists for safety. One of the group would lead the climb with the old-fashioned adage, ‘the leader never falls’, ringing in their ears. Once at a stance, the leader would then bring the rest up the pitch. Peter recalled: ‘If it was just our group then we wouldn’t bother but if we were talking somebody who wanted to have a go, then we’d take a piece of string along just in case.’ He remembered introducing a number of dental and vet students to the delights of the east face of Tibrogargan, south Crookneck, and west Beerwah.

Following the second ascent of Beerwah's south face in 1953, (from left) 
Geoff Goadby, Peter Barnes, Alan Frost and Jon Stephenson (Peter Barnes collection)

In June 1953, Peter met up with Alan Frost who had arrived from Melbourne to undertake a course in Veterinary Science at UQ. The two were in adjoining rooms at the college and hit it off immediately with Alan — six years his junior — impressed by Peter’s climbing knowledge and his possession of a motor bike — a Triumph Tiger 100. It meant that access to the mountains was guaranteed. Thus began a long friendship that saw them climb to virtually every summit in southeast Queensland over the next few years multiple times, often by new or the most difficult routes. Peter recalled that their proximity to the Kangaroo Point Cliffs was a perfect training ground for the two young climbers:

We started top-roping, not in the way people top-rope nowadays. Top-roping for us was some twit up at the top, standing on a rock with the rope over his shoulder and some twit he couldn’t see with the rope tied around his waist with a bowline — a 1 1/2 inch (3.8 cm) hawser-laid manila rope — and if he fell, you had him. We started scrambling up and down the nursery cliffs and we did what we called the Big Buttress, what’s now called Cox’s Corner — I think it was probably about as early as 53–54 or so we used to just solo that, tear up and down. I remember on one occasion I got up to the top — there’s a little traverse just below the top — and I was inching along the traverse and a swarm of wasps hit my hand, the one I was hanging on with. And this was soloing it so it was a bit awkward.

 

Peter Barnes in action on the Kangaroo Point cliffs circa 1953 (Peter Barnes collection)

Summit of Mount Barney 1954 (front roe from left ) John Comino, Geoff Goadby, Alan Frost 
(back row) Felice Benuzzi and Peter Barnes (Peter Barnes collection)

Peter and Alan were fit and climbed very quickly, setting fast times for various routes around southeast Queensland. Their first new route was an ascent of the Pinnacle — the West Peak of Glennies Pulpit — in 1953. In November that year, they joined Jon Stephenson and Geoff Goadby for the second ascent of the South Face of Beerwah, a challenging multi-pitch route that has rarely been repeated. In May 1954, Peter with Jon, Alan, Geoff Goadby and Geoff Broadbent, climbed all of the Nimbin Peaks, including a first ascent of the Monk’s Cowl. With Jon leaving for London in July that year to complete his PhD on the geology of Mount Barney, the group of friends decided that a fitting farewell for him would be reaching the last unclimbed summit in southeast Queensland — Glennies Pulpit — which they did, with the four summiteers (Jon, Peter, Alan and Geoff) building a cairn on top using a huge quartz crystal they had discovered en route. 

In 1954, Peter met up with the new Italian vice-consul to Queensland, Felice Benuzzi — also a climber. Benuzzi had published a book, No Picnic on Mount Kenya, two years earlier, describing his internment in a POW camp in east Africa and his audacious escape with two companions to climb to the lower peak of Mount Kenya, Point Lenana. The trio then returned to their prison camp to the astonishment of their British captors. The group of Queensland climbers — Peter Barnes, John Comino, Alan Frost and Geoff Goadby — guided Benuzzi to the summit of Mount Barney via the spectacular Leaning Peak. Peter and Felice remained in contact for many years after the vice-consul returned to Italy in 1954. 

Throughout his years of exploring the heights in southeast Queensland, Peter insisted that he and his companions regarded themselves as climbers rather than bushwalkers. The Brisbane Bush Walkers (BBW) had formed in 1948 and catered for different interests. There were some climbers in the BBW (such as Neill Lamb) but most members were not comfortable on the heights. Peter recalled running into groups from the BBW when he and Alan were out on their own:

We often ran into them camped on the Logan River — that’s when we made an early start and went by — a huge group of them, all with tents (we just slept in sleeping bags on the ground) and they had their Kellogg’s Cornflake packets and things like that. We didn’t take the Brissy Bushies too seriously. Probably more than anything else, we regarded ourselves as tyro rockclimbers, very tyro rockclimbers, and more as miniature mountaineers. We didn’t use the word bushwalking. It was more like ‘Let’s go off and knock off a hill’!

In 1955, the BBW invited former Lakeland climbing guide, Bill Peascod, to Queensland to impart his knowledge of climbing techniques to a large and enthusiastic audience gathered at the Kangaroo Point cliffs one Saturday morning. Peter was impressed by the ‘strange-looking equipment’ Peascod showed them:

So then we bought some carabiners and we made our own piton hammers out of bricklayers’ hammers. And then, because Geoff Goadby could splice a rope together so well, we made ourselves a sling out of climbing rope…It started off that the only pitons we had were the ones that Geoff Goadby made — he’d cut them out of mild steel. We sort of went on from there. We knew there were better things available but we didn’t have much at our disposal. But the basic principle was: the leader doesn’t fall; the second is protected — and we didn’t climb anything above about Grade 10.

 

Peter Barnes leads out on the second nascent of the west Beerwah chimney in 1956 (Peter Barnes collection)

The following year, Alan and Peter claimed the 1st ascent of Pages Pinnacle near Springbrook. While crossing a creek, Peter dropped his trusty Leica camera into the water. Unperturbed, he dismantled it on the spot, leaving it on a rock to dry out while they finished their climb. In the same year, with Geoff Goadby, they made the second ascent of the West Beerwah chimney — Alan had made the first ascent of the route a few weeks earlier with an inexperienced dental student, as Peter recalled:

Alan Frost said it was the most frightening experience of his life so he reckoned it should be done properly and that the boys better go and give it another nudge. He and I and Geoff Goadby screamed up there one day and had a great time — [consults diary] 20 October 56…

In that same month, Peter and Alan set off on an audacious attempt to traverse all of the main peaks on Mount Barney, a feat that remains as big a challenge today as it was back in 1956. Peter recalled they actually planned to do the traverse as a two-day trip so were carrying heavy packs:

The big problem was that we’d bitten off too much to chew. We were unfit but it wasn’t because of after exams. The greatest problem of all was that there was a temperature inversion on and it was hot, it was humid and there wasn’t a breath of wind. We nearly died. So we got up over the top of the Isolated Peak—we went up the Eagles Ridge—and by the time we got there we looked over at the Leaning Peak because in those days we used to go up to what was called the Great Gash, the cleft. We started to go down towards it and we said, well this is just not good enough so we just turned right down the creek. We ran out of water and by the time we got to Barney Creek which was our first water, our tongues were swollen, we were thirsty and in a bad state so we got out our mugs, a mug of water, two teaspoons of salt; two or three of those—the most beautiful drink you’ve ever had in your life.

It wasn’t until 1964 that Alan Frost teamed up with Tim Cassidy and Barry Smith to complete the All Peaks’ circuit — in a single day! Since then, Alan has repeated it 11 times — three solo.

Early in 1958, Peter left Queensland for Papua New Guinea where he worked as a dentist until his return in 1975. During his time in PNG, he explored caves, climbed Mount Wilhelm (4509m) three times, Mount Giluwe (4537m) several times, and Mount Lalibu (3148m). He also climbed Mount Lamington (1680m) — an active volcano — three times before returning to Brisbane. Back in Queensland he took on senior roles with the South Brisbane Dental Hospital, lectured in oral surgery at his old alma mater, the University of Queensland, and was involved as a dental surgeon in the Head and Neck Cancer Clinic, based at the QE II Hospital until his retirement. But the mountains continued to call…

I didn’t touch rock or rope since I left Brisbane at the beginning of ’58 until my son was 8 or 9 and started taking him up places like Tibrogargan, Beerwah or Crooky at night, of course. Then I ran into some like-minded people who were geriatrics like me but who’d just done a rope climbing course at the South Brisbane TAFE. We were walking together at that stage and they’d just done this rope course and they started climbing with Rob Bray at Kangaroo Point Cliffs so I started getting back to that. So I started climbing almost every Saturday morning. I took them around to places in the Glasshouses they hadn’t been before and then Col Smithies said to me one day: ‘You’ve been up the chimney in the west of Beerwah, haven’t you?’ And I said: ‘Yes’. He said: ‘Would you like to take me up?’ He was in the process of writing his guide to the Glasshouses at that stage [mid-1980s] and I said ‘O yeah.’ So we went up the chimney on the west of Beerwah.

 

Jon Stephenson (left) and Peter Barnes in Townsville in 2010 (Peter Barnes collection)

Peter Barnes climbing at Frog Buttress in 2010 (Peter Barnes collection)

Throughout his life, he maintained his undying passion for the natural world and our place in it and once reflected:

I think if we separate ourselves from that environment, I think we are the loser… I get fairly touchy if I can’t get out into the hills. I don’t spend any time on the beach, I like to get out into the hills, into the rainforest, the waterfalls, the creeks. I like lying back and looking at the stars at night, looking at flowers and birds and animals—if possible, photographing them. I think that’s where I belong. I’m a country lad at heart and being forced into this urbanised suburban environment doesn’t suit me all that well. I can survive but I’m not all that happy. In order to be happy I have to get out into the bush.

He had a comparable passion for photography and always had a trusty Leica camera or equivalent with him on his climbing trips from the late 1940s. His collection of climbing photographs is a definitive documentary of climbing activity in 1950’s Queensland. Until the end, he persisted with film cameras and has amassed a remarkable photo library of high quality mountain imagery from his many excursions to remote regions around the world. This, coupled with his meticulous diary records, offers a unique insight into an era that shaped postwar climbing in Australia. He once observed: ‘… the aim of the exercise really was to wander over the top of something — go and sit on a high place and contemplate nature. Look at the clouds, listen to the wind, look at the wildlife and the flowers, and I always carried a camera.’

Despite Peter’s penchant for self-deprecating humour and understatement, his considerable achievements on the heights and his professional contributions to society speak for themselves. Frustrated by increasing ill health in recent years, he nevertheless managed to maintain a connection with the natural world with selfless support from his long time partner, Vivienne Taylor. As the ability to climb to the top of the highest point on the horizon became increasingly unattainable, just being able to observe the beauty of the wilderness that captured him for most of his life was some compensation. Peter’s climbing partner and friend, Alan Frost, recalls the lasting impact that Peter’s values had on him:

I certainly got from Peter Barnes a great joy and gained the insight of not just rushing up and climbing but looking around and looking at plants or objects or rock formations or whatever it was and to appreciate what the real world was. And I guess when you start doing that, it never leaves you really, does it?

 

The tyros: (from left) Peter Barnes, Geoff Goadby and Alan Frost in 2012 (Peter Barnes collection)

Like most of his peers, Peter Barnes always downplayed his role in the history of climbing but his achievements tell a different story. He was a very private person but helped to build pathways for those of us who were inspired by reading about his exploits — often in company with his good friend Alan Frost. Peter influenced a generation of new climbers — myself included — to explore the heights and to go where few others had gone before. We will forever be following in his footsteps and forever in his debt.

We were just interested in hills and in the Australian context we called them mountains and we used to just like getting out into the open air for a bit of physical activity, social intercourse and misbehaving ourselves. Growing old disgracefully…

— Peter Barnes