Mount Bogong - Hiking the Staircase and Eskdale Spur Track

At the top of Victoria

Had a fantastic (but challenging) climb of Mount Bogong last weekend.

Weekend in Marlo

We took a three-day weekend in mid-November and drove over the ranges to Gippsland, the eastern region of Victoria which extends all the way from the eastern Melbourne suburbs to the NSW border. By the map it is four hours away, but the road over and through the mountains is winding and I'm sure it took us at least an extra hour for the drive. Our route through Gippsland to the coast was absolutely beautiful - rolling green pastured hills, steep river valleys, and the striking eucalypt forests recovering from last year's fires.

Looking down to the town of Omeo

Driving through fire-affected areas near Tambo Crossing,
almost a year of regrowth on the eucalypt trees

Our destination was Marlo, a seaside resort and fishing village where the Snowy River flows into the ocean. Our first afternoon was pretty low-key, and after we booked into our caravan park we took an enjoyable walk along the estuary and through the coastal forest.

Snowy River estuary

Spotted some delicate bluebell creeper along our walk.

The next day we took an outing to the Cape Conran Coastal Park, where we walked from Sailors Grave to the East Cape. It was like no other walk we have done before - the entire area affected by last year's fires, the eucalypt and banksia trees were re-shooting and the undergrowth had completely come back. We saw massive areas of kangaroo apple, an interesting native plant in the Nightshade family, so prolific we wondered at first if it was an introduced weed. It was also very hot, an exposed walk without any shade.

Eucalypt regrowth

Banksia regrowth and open seed cones

Bushfires are of course not unknown to Australian native
plants - most banksias utilise fires to release the seeds from the cones - however
the magnitude and intensity of last year's fires were unprecedented.

A new banksia sprouting out of the sand

Ferns as far as you can see.

Kangaroo apples

It was quite a sight to see the ocean through the trees.

Burchardia, milkmaid flowers.

Because it was a hot day, we were looking forward to dipping our toes in the water when we reached East Cape, but unfortunately luck was not on our side on this day and the water was filled with blueys (blue bottles, Pacific man o'war jellyfish). But it was another thing to tick off our Australian list - I had never seen them before. A beautiful rocky beach nonetheless - we enjoyed walking around the rocks and the crash of the waves. And fortunately for us some cloud cover blew in, so the trek back to Sailors Grave wasn't quite so hot!

If you look closely you can see the water is full of them.

A very peculiar creature.

Through the bare kangaroo apple forest.

 

One of the highlights of our visit to Cape Conran was seeing the Xanthorrhoea grass trees all in flower. We have seen grass trees in Tasmania but this was like nothing else I have seen before, a really incredible sight.

 

Shape of the dunes under the trees.

Salmon rocks

Yeerung River estuary

A quiet beach

Warm afternoon light on the dunes

The weekend went much too quickly, but all in all it was a very enjoyable holiday! Next time I hope we have more than a weekend.

Falls Creek / Bogong High Plains

Four weeks ago we took a day trip to Falls Creek for a picnic and a hike through the Bogong high plains.

Falls Creek is (by Google) only an hour and twenty minutes drive from us, but realistically the winding mountain roads it is probably closer to two hours away. This was our first visit to the area and my first time over Tawonga Gap to the Kiewa Valley and through the neighbouring town of Mount Beauty.

Falls Creek is a popular ski resort in the winter and mountain biking spot in the summer. There were a lot of people on the road and the town of Mount Beauty was bustling, but there was hardly any traffic as we made our way up the winding roads toward Bogong and Falls Creek - due to it still being the shoulder season, but more likely largely impacted by the fact travel restrictions between NSW / VIC and for those living in Melbourne had not yet been lifted. We did see a few other visitors at Falls Creek, but overall it was extremely quiet.

A stop at Sullivans Lookout over Tawonga Gap: Looking down into the Kiewa Valley

Mt Bogong, the highest peak in Victoria.

Blue skies and the very blue Rocky Valley Storage Reservoir

Our first stop was for a picnic lunch near the Rocky Valley Storage Reservoir, which has been dammed for hydroelectricity and used to create snow for the resort in the winter. We had not quite anticipated just how cold the air and wind would be in early November! We had brought plenty of warm layers, but it was still quite surprisingly cold.

After lunch, we hiked and made our way to Mount McKay. The walking/hiking at Falls Creek is not extremely well developed, so our walk was both on tracks as well as the unsealed roads which traverse the resort area. The only real downside is that some of the paths were not well marked - a few times our path suddenly ended and we had to tramp through the heath to get back onto the road to continue our walk.

Once we reached Mt McKay we escaped from the wind and sheltered in the hut near the radio station. We watched currawongs and crows leaping from the rocks to glide on the currents down into the Pretty Valley. All in all, it was a beautifully clear and enjoyable day!

Spring flowers in Falls Creek

Alpine heathland

Alpine buttercups

The "Ruined Castle".
(A much better photo is available from Google here)

View looking north(ish), we could see smoke from a small fire north of Tawonga.

The Mt McKay summit (elevation 1,842 m (6,043 ft) looking down into the Pretty Valley.

View of Mt Buffalo from Mt McKay

The access road winds through the hills. In the distance, the blue of Rocky Valley Storage. 

Snow on Mount Buffalo (2019), part 2

Our next snowy visit to Mount Buffalo was mid-August 2019. When a snowstorm brought a decent amount of snow, we rented some snowshoes and some chains for the weekend, packed ourselves some muffins and some biscuits, the portable stove to heat water for coffee, and off we went.

It is pretty unreal to see eucalyptus boughs heavy with snow and of course it was magical to be walking in a quiet, snowy forest after such a long time. Since we went up first thing in the morning, the tracks we walked were pretty quiet (we only saw a group of cross country skiers on the track around Lake Catani) and it felt like we had the forest all to ourselves.

As it happens we had a bit of snow here last weekend, but unfortunately due to COVID-19 restrictions the park is closed. This year we had to make do with looking up at the snowy mountain (when it would come out behind the cloud) and remember our snowy winter experience from last year.