Lerderderg Gorge

Scotland was the last time that we had hiked and camped (August 2010!)  I call these overnight hikes, but when I told a workmate that we were going for an overnight hike at Easter, she asked if we walked with torches. No, we sleep in a tent at night!

Henceforth, to avoid confusion, I will be calling them n-day walks, where:

• n = the number of days we intend to walk; and
• n-1 = the number of nights we’ll be sleeping in tents.

Five days off in a row (both Nic and I had Tuesday off, too) meant we racked our brains for where to go, bearing in mind that almost everything we read suggested that campsites and holidays places filled up at Easter time.  Eventually, we decided on doing a three-day walk at Lerderderg Gorge, which is only 70kms or so from Melbourne.  We had recently purchased a map of the area, and identified a number of options for different circuit walks, depending upon how tough going we found it.

We packed the night before, trying all kinds of permutations to fit everything we would need into our two lighter packs (Nic’s smaller Macpac, which holds 40L and my Berghaus 30L pack).   Nic carried all the heavier stuff – tent, food, cooking equipment; while I carried the remainder – sleeping mats, sleeping bag (only 1; Nic carried the other), tarp, first aid kit.  Last time we had carried these packs was on Dartmoor and it was fairly easy to fit everything in because we were wearing our warm gear and rain gear.  These had to come along, but we were hoping they would not see much use. Thankfully, we did not have to carry too much water as the river had reasonable flow.

Day 1

Worried about holiday traffic, we kept our usual weekday alarm and were out the door  around 8am on Good Friday.  There was barely any traffic at all, and the roads – especially the Western Ring Road – were the emptiest I have ever seen them.

Our first aid kit was missing a strapping bandage, but there was nowhere open where we could buy one.  I thought one of the highway-side petrol stations might have some but the extent of their first aid selection were band-aids and hand sanitising gel.  Note to selves: do not get bitten by a snake or sprain an ankle.

We parked our car at O’Brien’s Crossing campsite, which was quite full when we arrived.  When did these people get up in the morning?  Still, the area seemed like it would be a lovely spot to camp when there are fewer people.  As we set off alongside Lerderderg River, we left most of the people behind to continue making their homes for the next few days.

The plan was to make our way alongside the river and camp when we found somewhere pleasant or got tired or both.  Unlike a lot of national and state parks in Aus, in much of Lerderderg, hikers are free to camp wherever they choose (provided they’re sensible!)

Further from the campsite, the path alongside the river was narrow, rocky and overgrown, sometimes obstructed by fallen trees or driftwood.  Much of the walking therefore involved picking our way through eucalypt scrub, with the occasional nasty spiky plant.  These seem most prolific when one is about to lose one’s footing and reaches for the nearest tree to keep one’s balance.

At about 11.30, we came across two men and a young girl resting on the path.  One of the men asked us if we knew where we were.  He looked kinda worn out.  Not entirely sure what the purpose of the question was, Nic replied, “Roughly. Do you know? Or do you want to know?”  The man wanted to know how far away was the next path that branched off from this one was.  Having not done the walk before, we did not know; although Nic could show approximately where we were on the map.  The man was out for a day-walk and trying to decide whether to turn back or keep on to the junction.  He decided to turn back as he was driving back to Melbourne that afternoon.

The other man and young girl asked if they could tag along behind us.  Sure! Why not?  Daniel and Ambrosia joined us; Ambrosia practically skipping along the path.  I could hear her impatiently behind me as I navigated a bit more carefully and slowly.  Eventually, Ambrosia overtook me and walked ahead with Nic, chattering happily away about an earlier trip she’d taken to Ethiopa and enumerating all the food she’d eaten, hotels she’d stayed in and people she’d met.  Daniel and I kept a more sedate pace, and our conversation, too, was less rambunctious.  Daniel told me he was happy that Ambrosia had someone to talk to as she could then keep walking all day, but he commiserated that Nic had to put up with Ambrosia’s yabber.  Well, when I’m not struggling with a heavy pack, I’m equally loquacious.  Nic’s used to the yabbering.

Near the junction of the Cowan Track, we paused for lunch.  Here, Daniel and  Ambrosia left us to return to the campsite.  It was lovely to have companions for a section of the walk, and such interesting ones, too, who have had plenty of adventures.

After the junction, the path petered out and the walk became a Choose Your Own Adventure along the river.  This involved a bit of pushing through scrub and driftwood, some scrambling over rocks and numerous crossings of the river as we criss-crossed back and forth to follow the river downstream.  I was pretty worn out by this stage, and slowing down even more than careful walking accounted for, so it was time to stop.  We began to understand why the recommendation was to walk downstream: all of the vegetation leaned that way (as a result of floodwaters) and pushing against it would have been a decidedly less comfortable affair.

As our energies flagged, we began to keep eyes open for a pleasant campsite, eventually settling on a flattish space, large enough for our tent, and somewhat above, but still near, the river.  It was still surprisingly warm, despite being late afternoon, so we had a splash in the river to wash away the day’s sweat and muck.  Nic got a lovely fire going on the water’s edge and I tossed in gum leaves to scent our campsite.  After dinner of pasta with TVP-mince bolognese, it began to rain lightly and sporadically.  Nic attempted to put the tarp up but a lack of useful trees, coupled by the fact that we’d forgotten to bring guy-lines, thwarted that plan.  The rain gathered momentum and we curled up inside the tent just in time to enjoy lying cosy and warm whilst lightning, thunder and rain crashed down around us.

Day 2

We woke to a dry day, though it was a little difficult getting out of our tent (the little Coleman one that we took on the Overland Track) without getting everything else wet.  There wasn’t anywhere that we had to be, so we took our time packing up and having breakfast before setting off alongside the river again.

Today’s walking was more difficult than yesterday’s.  Clearly, even fewer people get down the river much beyond the Cowan Track, which is where the most sensible day-walk circuit takes one back to O’Brien’s Crossing.  So, more shoving through scrub, scrambling over rocks and gingerly (me, only; Nic more confidently) crossing the river.  It was plenty of fun, however.

We passed a lovely campsite, with a levelled gravel patch and premade stone fire pit near one of the junctions but, being only 11am, couldn’t really justify stopping for the day.

There’s not much else to say about today – we continued picking our way along the river and it continued to be fun.  We had a number of choices of how to get back out again and decided to take the Hogan Track back out to O’Briens Road.  This track was described as merely “Steep”, rather than “Very Steep” (as all the others were) and it looked like we’d have a pretty straightforward trek back to the car for tomorrow.

We camped therefore at Ah Kow Mine and here encountered our only other person for the day. A fellow hiker came up to the campsite and we had a brief chat. He was walking the length of the gorge from O’Brien’s Crossing to Mackenzie’s Flat. We’d contemplated this but, being a linear walk it required a car shuffle or some kind of organisation that was beyond our organisational capacity. He wanted to get further that day, so he continued on. We did finish a bit early – only about 3pm today – but heading any further down the gorge would have meant backtracking the following day.

Ah Kow Mine was the site of a group of early Chinese-Australian settlers, who sought their fortunes in this area.  The campsite was where their hut and vegetable garden had been.  How on earth they managed to grow vegetable in the tough earth, I know not.  There were plenty of deep holes in the ground as evidence of their diggings.  I hope they got something for their trouble;  I can only imagine the difficulties and loneliness of a place like this to make a living.  The solitude and untamed beauty is what we seek, but we seek it as leisure, not to make our living from it.

Nic got another wonderful blazing fire going and I cooked up a way too salty quinoa stew of sorts. My hiking dinner cooking abilities seem to have deserted me (last night’s pasta was rather bland)! The evening was spent poking and prodding the fire. I think I know how people used to keep themselves entertained before the advent of television.

Day 3

Today, we left the river.  It was a steep climb, straight up the side of the gorge, to connect to a forest management track – Hogan’s Track.  This climb was probably the most interesting part of today’s walk.  We paused near the top to enjoy our last views of the gorge and eat some muesli bars before heading on Hogan Track, which was easy, if a bit boring, walking.  There was nevertheless still a fair amount of climbing, and descending, and climbing again, but without any benefit of views at the top or rivers at the bottom.  It just seemed like they made that management track as direct as the could, cutting straight across all those pesky hills.  Guess it’s fine if you’re in a 4WD.

The track connected to a road and it was, again, fairly boring walking for a rather long time.  Only a very few cars passed us, and all of them courteously, slowing down sufficiently so as not to kick up too much dust. As we neared the end, a short cut track allowed us to skip a portion of the road as it took some hair pin turns up a hill and then back down into the gorge, and was a much more pleasant way to end the walk.  Back at our car, we discovered a nearly empty campsite, two-thirds of the people having unaccountably cleared out despite it only being Easter Sunday.

I’d thrown our flip flops into the car, so off came our hiking shoes, giving our feet a bit of blessed respite from hiking shoes, and into the car we hopped for the short drive back to Melbourne.  We’re rather pleased to discover somewhere this wild so close to Melbourne (shhh!)  The rest of the Easter long weekend we spent eating, and reading on the sofa!

We’re looking forward to heading back in to explore the southern half of the gorge someday — an advantage of not walking it all it once!

Wineglass Bay & Freycinet NP, Tasmania

We spent a wonderful five days at Edge of the Bay Resort, near Freycinet National Park in Tasmania, with Helen, Tony & Claire.  It was a very relaxing five days, spent walking, cycling, reading, cooking and, of course, eating. Barring the first day, we had magnificent, warm, sunny and clear weather!

Edge of the Bay Resort, Cottage # 7's living room and view

Edge of the Bay Resort's beach

We chose the only evening that it rained to have a BBQ!

Together we all walked up to Wineglass Bay lookout, down to Wineglass Bay beach, along the Isthmus track over to Hazards Beach and then back to the carpark near Wineglass Bay lookout – a 10km fairly easy circuit walk.

Walking along Hazards Beach

The following day, we borrowed bikes from the resort and had a little ride around the townships near Coles Bay.

Dead end down a hill? No, thanks! We can see the view from here.

For Helen’s milestone birthday,  we had dinner at Freycinet Lodge’s restaurant.  Although all our meals were spectacular, I only took photos of the butter.  It was very impressive butter …

Butter balls!

Helen, Claire, Nic and I ascended Mt Amos, described as a “steep and strenuous” hike, not to be undertaken during wet conditions.  Luckily, it was a baking hot day.  The walk certainly was steep and strenuous; the steep bit starting about 1km into the walk and from there was pretty much straight up huge granite boulders.  Helen and Claire paused about halfway up, while Nic and I continued clambering to the magnificent summit, where we had 360 degree views of the bay.  It was just as hairy coming back down again, involving lots of crab-like scuttling.

Pausing, on the way up to Mt Amos.

Oanh scrambling up Mt Amos.

Freycinet Peninsula from Mt Amos

We also drove up a steep and winding road to visit Tourville Lighthouse.  Well, the lighthouse was not really the attraction – the views from the lighthouse surrounds were!

Freycinet NP from Tourville lighthouse

Another treat (thanks Tony!) was going on a cruise of Wineglass Bay.  By this stage, it was seeming to be a trip during which we would attempt to view Wineglass Bay from every possible angle.  I don’t think any of us, however, got sick of seeing it, nor did we cease to marvel.  We failed, however, to see any dolphins during the cruise, and only caught the flipper of a sea lion (the tour guide – Dan – informed us that they hold their flippers in the air as a cooling device).

Slant of Land.

Exactly like a bunch of shags on a rock.

(All the rest of the photos,here.)

Macedon Ranges

by Oanh

The next week, we took on a more ambitious walk: The Macedon Ranges Walking Trail, which is a 20km path taking in all the highlights of Macedon Ranges park, including three peaks, Mt Macedon, the Camel’s Hump and Mt Towrong.

The walk started from the township of Mt Macedon (not to be mistaken with the township of Macedon), where our instructions were to leave our car outside the Mountain Inn, now sadly closed.  It did look like it was undergoing renovations, so hopefully there will be a place to pop into post walk.  After a short walk along the road, admiring the large houses with rather English gardens (oaks and bluebells!), we entered the park itself and started climbing, quite steeply, almost straight up to the top.  Many people were coming down while we were going up, so there were plenty of opportunities to rest as we stepped aside to let them past on the “one person at a time only” path.  The side of the hill was fairly well covered in spindly snow gums, the hill being just high enough (1,000m) for them to flourish.  There were also plenty of very prehistoric-looking ferns in amongst all the gums and, rather surprisingly, lots of bright blue forget-me-nots.  I think they’re an invader, but at least they don’t smell as terrible as lantana!

At the top, we joined up with a paved path to the memorial cross that marks the top of Mt Macedon.  Near here there is a car park and a tea room as the road actually goes all the way to the summit, so it was kind of strange to emerge huffing and puffing with our back packs to find people in brogues or high heels walking about.  Probably they thought we were a bit strange too.

At the cross, it started to drizzle.  Supposedly, one gets a view all the way to Port Philip Bay and Melbourne from the cross but we were not to be favoured with such delights.  We pretended to admire the view for a bit and then continued on our walk, stopping into another lookout about 500m from the cross, where we saw a flame robin and learned from a plaque that Mt Macedon, the ranges and some of the area was named for Philip of Macedon (Alexander the Great’s father and in my version of Ancient History a much more impressive character than Al) by Matthew Flinders.  I mean, I should have realised but it nevertheless came as a surprise.

Once past the tea room, we returned to spindly gum forests, where the walk took us past a few signs to picnic grounds and then through a large one, with barbecue spots.  Noted: place to take visitors!  From here, we descended ever so slightly to then climb to the highest point of the walk: The Camel’s Hump.  We passed through another carpark, before turning onto a steep gravelled path heading straight up.  Shortly before the summit there was a sign: to the left – Dangerous Cliff Edge; straight ahead: Summit Viewing Platform.  Now, I would have blithely kept on straight ahead had it not been for that sign, so we set off left to explore the Dangerous Cliff Edge.

A short stroll brought us to some big rocks messily lumped together and a view towards farmland and Hanging Rock.  The rocks in the Macedon Ranges are of the same stuff as Hanging Rock (formed by volcanic action a really, really long time ago).  We’ll get to Hanging Rock one of these days, maybe even have a picnic there.  I promise not to disappear.

Our bellies suggested this might be a perfect place for lunch, so we found a comfortable rock.  The sun stayed out but, oddly, it started to hail.  Teeny tiny hail stones pinged off the rocks and our lunch.  It quickly passed (that is, before we’d even finished our sandwiches).

From the Camel's Hump.

Snow Gums on the Camel's Hump.

Shortly after lunch, we had a minor mishap.  I announced that I was going to explore, “over that way,” which Nic mistook as a euphemism for something else.  When I returned from my exploration, Nic was nowhere in sight and I called his name a few times but got no answer.  Allegedly, he did answer but I just didn’t hear him.  I then struck off back to the main path, thinking he’d headed off to the summit viewing platform, while he watched me disappear up the path in the distance, ignoring his responses.  When I got to the summit, Nic wasn’t there so I turned around and headed back to our lunch spot.  Thankfully, Nic was just then walking to the summit himself.

From the Camel’s Hump, we retraced our steps down the steep hill towards Sanatorium Lake.  Amusingly, right after Nic announced, “This path is very well signposted,” we spent a few frustrating minutes trying to find where the path restarted after we’d been ejected into another large, lovely barbecue spot.  Sanatorium Lake was tiny.  We circled it, as the walk notes suggested we should.  Nic made some of his well-loved reflection photos and we continued on towards the Zig-Zag path which was true to its name but not as exciting as I had hoped.  It was only a series of hairpin turns and the path was wide enough for a car, and obviously used by trail bikers and horse-riders (signs told us so and the same signs told us the path was closed.  I don’t think it meant for walkers.)

Reflections of snow gums in Sanatorium Lake.

Our final hill for the day was Mt Towrong, which Nic, to deflect any hopes I might have of a view informed me was on an entirely wooded hill.  There wasn’t much of a climb to it as the walk had been mostly downhill after the Camel’s Hump.  Shortly before Mt Towrong, however, we spotted this weird creature:

Bright Yellow Worm, Possibly a turbellarian. I'm sure this colour isn't good for long term survival.

The summit was a rock cairn, indeed surrounded by view-blocking trees.  But the descent was wonderful: it was steep, exposed and had great views down to Mt Macedon township and across the valley to the memorial cross, marking where we had walked from.  I always love seeing how far I’ve walked.

But best of all, as last week, we caught sight of an echidna on the steep side of Mt Towrong, busily hunting out ants.  They’re usually such elusive creatures, it was a real treat to see another up close.

Echidna does "Salute the Sun".

After that, it was a fairly boring walk along the road, back to our car.  We passed some more grand houses and rather a lot of “For Sale” signs, leaving me to muse about how I would go with the commute into Melbourne if we lived out here…  I mean, it’s only an hour and a half by car.  And there’s even a train. Imagine all the books I could read on the commute!