The Pigeon House Mountain Trail

Pigeon House Walk

To really appreciate a walk and a panorama it has to be hard work, right? Well, if that's true you are going to love the Pigeon House Mountain trail. It's three hours of fairly hard slog. But in the end it's well worth it. You'll see the lower end of the Budawangs and get a 360 degree view which includes the Pacific ocean.

Named by James Cook who discovered it from the Endeavour on 21 April 1770, the Pigeon House was recorded in ship's journal as

" ... a remarkable peaked hill which resembles a square dove house with a dome on top".

The Aboriginal name for Pigeon House Mountain is Didhol or Dithol, which means woman's breast. The site was important for the Walbanja and Wandandian tribes because of its prominence and proximity to the tribes'trading routes.

How to get there
Head towards Bateman's Bay taking the Kings Highway and then when you hit the Princess highway turn left and head towards Ulladulla. Make sure you have a 4wd if it's wet. From there on you have two options:

The Wheelbarrow Road route which is off the Princess Highway about, 3km south of Burrill Lake. Wheelbarrow Road is unsealed and joins up with Woodstock road for the final sealed section before turning off at Ridge Road. As at October 2007 Wheelbarrow road had been regraded according to the Ulladulla visitor centre. Watch out for heavy rain falls as you must cross a few streams which can rise stranding you and be wary of protruding branches that can leave bad scratches on your car. I took this way and have done it in a Nissan Xtrail and a Holden Vectra (2wd).

Another route, once you have turned into Croobyar Road from Milton and then taken Woodstock Road, is the final road out to Pigeon House (Ridge Road). This is unsealed for much of the way and at certain times can be very rough. If you have concerns on taking your car there and can't afford car hire you could consider hiring a utility truck in Ulladulla. I have never taken this route.

The Walk

The area is famous for goannas and true enough I spotted a five to six foot goanna on my second trip. Unfortunately the photograph I took was not worth posting. The flys will not be daunted and seem to have developed a resistance to Areogard and for God's sake don't use the toilet if the seat is up. There will be many flys crawling around the bottom who will fly up towards you and probably land on you once you start to shower them. These things are bigger than sparrows and you will be unable to take evasive action if you are mid-stream. Before you set off take plenty of water. Getting there is hard work and you will need the odd drink. A return walk takes around three to four hours and can be quite testing. It’s around five kilometres long. There are basically 4 stages.

• Stage one is a climb of around 800 metres from the car park across a steep spur.
• Stage two is a pleasant level walk of around 1 km. This is a welcome break from the steep ascent of stage one and gives you time to recover for the next steep stage.
• Stage three another strenous ascent of around 500 metres, over some steps that have been cut into the trail. Towards the top of this third stage you will notice that the vegetation is noticeably taller, lusher and denser, because the soil gets deeper and contains more clay thn the lower reaches.
• Stage four is quite easy and takes you all the way to the top. This entails climbing a series of steel ladders and stairs. From the top you will see excellent views of the Budawang ranges in the expansive Morton National Park across to Byangee Mountain and the Clyde river valley from the west and the Pacific ocean to the South East. The first ladder is pictured below.

As you're eating your lunch I promise you that you will be awestruck by the view. Only around 600 people a year experience this panorama. This means that over the last twenty years, only 0.06% of Australians have even seen it. Sad isn’t it!.

Another Namadgi Trail

Yerrabi Trail

According to the trail guide the word "Yerrabi", means "walk" in the Aboriginal language. This trail takes you past a more wooded area of Namadgi, to a trig point. The area around the Yerrabi trail seems to have been be untouched by the 2003 bushfires which caused substantial destructon to the Northern parts of the park.

How to get there
From Tharwa, drive along the Nas road continuing past the point where it splits into Boboyang road. Past this juncture the Nas road is unsealed. You need to take the right fork which will place you on Boboyang road. Follow the road some time after it too, becomes unsealed and continue past the look out, until you arrive at the Boboyang Trig carpark. Be sure to stop at the look out on the way as the view from there is quite spectacular. See picture 1.

The walk
The walk commences with a gentle descent up until the point where the trail cuts across an area of swampy grassland and passes across Little Dry Creek. As you walk up the slope towards the trig point you notice a subtle change in the trees, with the occassional Snow and Mountain Gum becoming more frequent. The trees in the lower reaches of the walk are mainly peppermint gums. The Boboyang trig is at an elevation of 1459 metres. The view to the north east is the best panoramic aspect. However, the view from the Trig is not as good as what you can see from the lookout. The panaramic pictures I took show rain falling on the nearby mountains.

The walk took about an hour and ten minutes, but it's rated a two hour walk of moderate difficulty. Despite the ascent the Yerrabi Trail is a relatively easy walk of about 4 and a half kilometres return.



Pictures: 1. View from the lookout on the way to the Yerrabi trail. 2 View from the trig. 3. Ascent to the Trig. Click picture to see enlarged image.

More of Namadgi

Yankee Hat Trail

Last weekend I did two walks. The Yerrabi Track and the Yankee Hat Trail. The latter provided an opportunity to see some ancient rock art. Both walks were in Namadgi National Park which is 40 km south of Canberra. The park, which takes its name from the Ngunnawal word for the surrounding mountains, was created in 1984.

How to get there
Drive to Tharwa and then continue along the Nas Road. A short distance past the point where the Apollo Road runs into Nas Road, it splits into Boboyan Road to the right and the continuation of Nas road on the left. This is unsealed and leads to a canola farm. Take the right fork you’ll be on Boboyan Road. Continue past Orroral road until you reach the turn off to the old Boboyan road. This is an unsealed road that leads directly to car park where the trail begins.


The walk
The early part of the trail passrs through a cleared area with marshlands surrounding Bagong creek. This area was cleared by pastoralists, creating the grass plains which sustain the many grey eastern kangaroos to be seen in the area near the marsh land.

The three kilometre walk to the foot of the Yankee Hut Mountain takes you to a strange rock shelter. Carbon dating of campsite deposits suggests that the area was first used about 800 years ago. The style of the artwork in the shelter is characteristic of the people who inhabited the southern tablelands of NSW. In the photo below some of the figures are orange. These are the newest paintings, with the oldest and most difficult to discern being dark brown. Other campsites in the surrounding area have been dated back to 1700 bc.

The scenery is striking, the wildlife abundant and the aboriginal art, a real treat. The six kilometre walk to the shelter took about an hour and twenty minutes even though it's rated a two and a half hour walk. Overall the trail is an extremely engaging and very easy walk. However, its too short. It would be good if it was extended to the top of Yankee Hat Mountain.



Pictures
1. Panorama, 2.Bogong creek and Marshlands, 3.Eastern Grey Kangaroos, 4.rock art and 5.Yankee Hat Shelter.

Brisbane Ranges National Park

BRISBANE RANGES NATIONAL PARK

How to get there
I had trouble locating the park entry using my TomTom GO. It didn’t even recognize “Balliang” so I had to resort to my trusty Melways. The park is around 60 km west of Melbourne via the Princes Highway towards Geelong (Melway Ref: 511 D3). Turn off at Werribee and then follow the Ballan-Geelong Road. An alternative way there, is to travel via the Western Freeway to Bacchus Marsh and follow the Geelong-Ballang Road, turning off to Boar Gully, Balliang or Anakie. I didn’t take the latter route. However, I think it’s the quickest way there from Melbourne.

Walk undertaken
This was my first visit to the park. I did the Slater Trail down to the footbridge and part of the Quarry trail. This wasn't exactly a highlight walk, but it was a good introduction to the park. I intend to visit again.

Main attractions
A feature of the park is the abundance and variety of flora. According to the visitor's guide there are some 619 native plant species (about one fifth of Victoria’s total) in the Brisbane Ranges.

For example, "Brisbane Ranges Grevillea, is only found along the Rowsley Fault; Velvet Daisy-bush is rare and found only in scattered locations across the state; Golden Grevillea is found elsewhere only in Gippsland.”

In spring there is a magnificent display of wattles, hakeas and bush peas. A variety of orchids can also be found throughout the area. The wildflowers were already starting to bloom at the time of my visit in August and there should be a good show in the next few weeks.






An illustrated guide to the wildflowers of the park has recently been produced by the Friends of Brisbane Ranges National Park. This can be accessed at:

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~fobr/plantlist.pdf

History of the Park
The Wathaurong Aboriginal tribe occupied the area around Geelong and small clans regularly occupied the Brisbane Ranges. To put it in the most diplomatic way possible, the indigenous population declined seriously following the uptake of pastoral runs around the Brisbane Ranges by squatters around the time Melbourne was founded. Most grazing was centred on richer lands along the Moorabool River to the east of the Ranges.

Gold was found in the Anakie hills in 1851 and miners began arriving soon after. This also had a deleterious impact on the native peoples. In 1855 many gold reefs were found near what became the town of Steiglitz. By 1862 there were over 600 miners in the area. The town’s fortunes slumped between 1876 and 1890, revived briefly until the early 1900s and then declined to the present ghost town status.

The gold years had a considerable impact on the ranges, as much of the forest was cut to provide mine props, building timber and firewood. One can see evidence of diggings throughout the Park.

The park was established in 1973. It comprises an area of some 77.18 km² and is located near the town of Meredith.

Birds and other wildlife
Among the mammals of the ranges are eastern grey kangaroos, wallabies, echidnas, possums and gliders. The small number of koalas has been increased over the years with stock from Phillip and French Islands in 1957 and 1977. They are reputedly common in the park and a research grid has been established by the Friends of the Brisbane Ranges to monitor their numbers. Unfortunately I didn't see any on my visit. The ranges were severely damaged by bushfire in January 2006 and some walks such as the Anakie Gorge walk are closed.

On my walk, I disturbed three eastern grey kangaroos near the junction of the Quarry Trail and the Slater Trail. They took off too quickly for me to take a photo.

Over 170 species of native birds have been recorded in the park. Three species of particular note are the Yellow-tufted Honeyeater, White-throated Nightjar and Rainbow Bee-eater. Bird lists are available from the Anakie Information office .



Challenges
A serious problem in the park is the presence of Cinnamon Fungus. This organism invades the fine roots of many native plant species, causing root rot. Infected plants have difficulty absorbing enough water through their remaining roots, particularly in summer and may die. There is no cure for the disease and several trails are closed in an attempt contain the spread of the disease by preventing the movement of infected soil.

I also noticed that several parts of the park appeared to have been burnt out by bushfire. l quite like this park. There's a large number of walks to do and it's proximity to Melbourne means you can do half day walks. Allow one hour driving there, an hour back and three hours walking. Perfect.

I'm sorry I'd not visited it earlier. I will put up an update of the park after my next visit sometime in September.

Trip two to Namadgi

Trip two to Namadgi

Today I drove to Namadgi for a quick walk to Smoker’s Flat and Square Rock. The walk to Square Rock was an easy one and took me between two and three hours…It was gradual ascent but one that was ultimately very rewarding …the view from Square Rock is magnificent and about 600 metres before you arrive there’s a lookout that’s almost as spectacular. (see photo one). This is a good walk as which anyone can manage. There’s a small ladder climb once you arrive at the rocks. If you go up with kids you'll need to watch them around the top asthere is a sheer drop.

In places the rocks hover ominously over a sheer 80 metre cliff face and you feel uneasy moving around the top, but it’s a splendid place. I had a brief meal at Square Rock before returning…On the drive home only twenty kilometres from Tharwa, I saw dozens of kangaroos and about 30 galahs. The only animal I spotted on the walk was a wombat. Unfortunately, I couldn’t manage a photo in time.

I plan to do another trip to Namagdi in a few weeks and walk to Coronet Peak along the track that connects to Kosciuszko National Park. Click on the Photos to see enlargements.

Namadgi National Park, Australian Capital Territory

Pictured above is a view from Booroombra Rocks. This shows 6 images pasted together using photostitch.

Walking through Namadgi National Park one can see evidence of both sandstone and granite formations. The oldest exposed rocks in the Namadgi park area are sedimentary sandstone, mudstone and shale. These were deposited between 470 and 440 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. In some of the rock formations here, the remains of small marine animals called graptolites have been found. These remnants indicate that the sediments were deposited in fairly deep seawater. At that time most of southeastern Australia was underwater. Forgive my ignorance but I'm not sure whether it would have been part of the Tasman or the Atlantic. Even though Namadgi is close to Canberra and is, in fact, the only National Park I'd visited in the ACT, it's taken me some time to get to there. Perhaps that's because I simply cannot equate a good time with remaining in the ACT. Perhaps in part, it's because the 2003 bushfires which devastated much of the park lead me to expect some fairly drab scenery and reduced its appeal. I guess I was curious about the countryside and I was interested in seeing how much damage had been done to the park. Fire is a natural occurance in the park but the severity and damage caused by the 2003 bushfires was without precedent. The areas comprising Namadgi NP collectively amount to 106,000 hectares and make up almost 45% of the land area of the Australian Capital Territory.

Now that the growth of Canberra has pushed the population to 335,000 people, the park is destined to be an environmental flashpoint around water and land use. In fact, I saw plenty of placards in the park (or perhaps private land) protesting the dam proposed for the Naas river. The human intrusion is evident when one considers the proximity to to new housing in the Tuggeranong valley.

How to get there
Take the Monongo highway to Tharwa and then turn into the Nas Road. Drive a little while past Tharwa and you'll come to the Namadgi National Park visitor centre. The park is large and has many points of interest. I drove to the Northern part of Namadgi and did the short walk to Baroombra Rocks followed by a 12 kilometre walk along the Old Boboyan Road. All of the photos are of the Baroomba Rocks walk.

Above: New gowth amongst the remains of a dead firedamaged tree

Geologicial History
Having been underwater for most of the Silurian period, towards the close of the Silurian period approximately 400 million years ago, the area was intruded by a huge body of granite known as the Murrumbidgee Batholith. The many fantastic granite boulder formations that are to be found in the park resulted from this intrusion. There were major earth movements throughout the whole of southeastern Australia between 400 and 350 million years ago. Rocks were folded and raised into high mountains by tectonic forces. A walk along the Yerrabi Track in the southern end of the park reveals two distinctive geological zones that meet near the Boboyan Trig. The eastern approach to the trig consists of sedimentary rock laid down when the area was under the sea. To the west is granite that intruded into the sedimentary rock. The sedimentary rock overlaying the granite has now worn away, exposing the weathered boulders seen today.

Namadgi has a rich heritage of human history. A rockshelter at Birrigai, just north of Namadgi National Park, contains evidence that Aboriginal people were living in the region during the last ice age 21 000 years ago. That’s actually in the Tidbindilla nature reserve. Clues into the lifestyle of the local indigenous people are found throughout the park. These include quarry sites where stone was gathered for tool making, campsites with discarded fragments of stone and animal bone, ceremonial stone arrangements on the high peaks, and rock painting sites. Other information comes from the journals of 19th century European settlers written in the brief period before the Aboriginal people were decimated by introduced diseases, and dislocation from their lands.

The first pastoralists settled in the broad valleys at the southern end of the park in the 1830's. They faced a struggle to establish themselves in a remote area subject to severe weather. Today the story of their efforts is told by the fences, yards and homesteads that remain. In the 1860's fortune seekers travelled the Kiandra gold trail from Tharwa to Yaouk. Parts of the trail are still visible in the Gudgenby area. Space tracking stations operated from the early 1960's to the early 1980's at Honeysuckle Creek and in the Orroral Valley. They were instrumental in monitoring the Apollo program. Honeysuckle Creek was the first place on earth to receive the images of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. Today the site is abandoned.

Flora
Namdgi has a wide range of plants, many of which are found only in Australia's alpine and sub-alpine environment. Even along a short walk, vegetation and wildlife can change dramatically, particularly with increasing elevation or a change in aspect.

Woodlands
Low open woodland covers most of the park, although a great portion were damaged in 2003.
Broad-leaved peppermints, as seen along the Boboyan Road, dominate the lower altitudes whereas snow gum woodland, as seen along the Mt Franklin Road, is found at higher altitudes. Wet forests occur in the sheltered locations, especially on the western side of the park. Stands of ribbon gum follow watercourses; alpine ash grow on suitable south-facing slopes; and brown barrel eucalypts tower above tree-fern gullies.


Above : Another view from Booroombra Rocks

Large open grasslands occur on the eastern side of the park such as the Orroral and Boboyan valleys. These grasslands were extended by graziers last century and sown with introduced grasses. They remain treeless due to the cold air that drains off the hills at night; frequent frosts make it difficult for trees to re-establish. It was diffficult to gain insight into what the park was like, as the areas I visited had sustained heavy damage from the 2003 bush fires. There was substantial evidence of fire damage and regrowth in the areas I walked through, the grasslands as one would expect are quite resilient and show no evidence of bushfire.

Below: Dead Trees and regrowth


Fauna
Namadgi provides a habitat for a wide range of native fauna. Over 222 species of vertebrate fauna have been recorded to date with several threatened and rare or uncommon species. For example the broad-tooth rat Mastacomys fuscus, northern corroboree frog Pseudophryne pengilleyi and river blackfish Gadopsis marmoratus. The northern corroboree frogs live exclusively in the subalpine areas of Namadgi and adjacent parts of NSW. They are currently under threat of extinction. I didn’t see any animals on this walk. Just a few skinks and there was an absolute plague of Mountain grasshoppers. I did spot a group of gang gang cockatoos.

This was my first visit to the park. All in all, it's been a good experience.

Kinglake National Park

Kinglake National Park is the largest of the national parks within a 100 kilometre radius of Melbourne, with 216,000 hectares of rolling, forested hills and fern gullies. The park is notable for its tall forests, fern gullies and population lyrebirds. The park is located on the Great Dividing Range some 65 kilometres north east of Melbourne.

How to get there?
There are three main routes. I drove there via the Heidelberg - St. Andrews Road from St. Andrews. It’s a slow route because the road is windy and rather narrow, but it gives you time to admire the scenery.

The park consists of four separate blocks of forest that are physically separated from each other by freehold land (mostly pastoral and residential holdings). These are the Sugarloaf block to the west, the Everard Block to the south-east, the Wombelano Block to the north, and Wallaby Creek Designated Water Supply Catchment area to the far west.

The basal rocks of the Kinglake area are sedimentary mudstone and sandstone that formed on the bed of an ancient sea. Around 440 million years ago, the Kinglake area lay under a shallow sea in the “Melbourne trough”. At this time the only animal life consisted of marine creatures such as trilobites, echinoderms, sea sponges and graptolites. Primitive land plants had only just evolved.

The very warm, wet climate meant that there was massive erosion of mud and sand from surrounding areas into the Melbourne trough, trapping many of these marine animals which now appear as fossils in the mudstone. This process continued for about 50 million years resulting in a layer of mudstone over 1000 metres thick, 45 metres of which is exposed at Masons Falls which are pictured below.

Kinglake National Park has three main types of vegetation, although there are many variations of these main vegetation communities. The plateau supports tall, wet eucalypt forests. The eroded ridges support dry eucalypt woodland. Between the ridges in the deep gullies are found lush ferns and mosses along with a host of wet gully plants. Aspect, soil types and climatic variations determine these different vegetation types in the park.


The open forest on the plateau country is dominated by Narrow-leaved Peppermint and Messmate Stringybark. It has layr of mostly shrubs such as Common Heath, Hop Goodenia and many different types of native peas. Hazel Pomaderris, Wonga Vine and Forest Clematis occur in some wet gullies.

In the gullies, Mountain Grey Gum and Manna Gum are the main trees, but in some sheltered sites in the east, pockets of Mountain Ash are found. The understorey typically includes Blackwood, Silver Wattle, Hazel Pomaderris, Blanket-leaf, Musk Daisy-bush, with a dense understorey of treeferns - Soft Treefern is found in the base of the gully while Rough Treefern occurs a little higher up.

In some gullies where drainage is impeded, Swamp Gums form an open forest. The understorey here is often dense. A small pocket of this vegetation type occurs on the other side of the road from Island Creek Picnic Area. These plants require ricer soils and the wash of water from higher areas generally sweeps down richer sediments and nutrients.

The vegetation types conserved in Kinglake National Park are typical of those that once occurred over much of the foothills and southern slopes of the Great Divide in Central Victoria. Of course these were cleared by squaters and pastoralists long ago.

There are said to be 36 native species have been recorded in the park. They include the Eastern Grey Kangaroo, Swamp Wallaby, Brush-tailed Possum, Common Ring-tailed Possum, Feathertail Glider, Sugar Glider, Greater Glider, Yellow-bellied Glider, Common Wombat, Long-nosed Bandicoot, Brown Antechinus, Dusky Antechinus, White-footed Dunnart, Swamp Rat, Water Rat, Short-beaked Echidna, Platypus, and a number of bats. Several hundred koalas were reintroduced into the park in the 1970s after having been almost totally wiped out during bushfires in 1926 and 1939.

There are also said to be introduced species such as feral cats, pigs, black rats and common house mice. I saw a wombat and an echidna and various parakeets on the day I visited .

Pic 1 Matt Checking out tree


Pic 2 Bush panorama


Pic 3 Hiking through the bush


Pic 4 Daniel with echidna


Pic 5 Thin woodland