Up high again
In Tasmania we developed quite a fondness for mountains, so we were very excited to get up high again! Armed with maps and info and tips from mountain lovers Cam and Lindy, we got onto the Great Alpine Road, and ended up first in the Mt Buffalo National Park.
Which we quickly realised had been quite severely burnt in the recent (and not so recent) bushfires - parts of the park were pure charcoal, and most of the rest of the park seemed to be regenerating from fires a few years ago. However we were glad to have not been forewarned because charred though the remnants were we still got to see the fabulous views from the mountain and also experience the impact of the fires firsthand.
Then it was onto Mt Beauty and camping in the shadow of Mt Bogong – Victoria’s highest mountain. We were right there and could have climbed it, but with a climb of 1000m and 8 – 10 hours we just didn’t have it in us on this particular day. I (Nic) like to say that climbing mountains (or conquering peaks) is a particularly Western male thing to do – or maybe that is just an excuse for being lazy.
So we did a couple of shorter walks around the Bogong High Plains, including to one of the famous old cattlemens huts, the Wallace Hut. We drove through the oddly out-of-season Falls Creek, with parked snow ploughs, alpine looking ski lodges and ski hire places everywhere in the sunshine, with not a bit of snow to be found. Unfortunately, most of the snow gums around the place seemed to be still in
regeneration mode from fires a few years ago. The snow gums seem to regenerate so slowly – if fires keep coming through so regularly you’d think this kind of country will never get a chance to regenerate.
In a typically mountain kind of way, the weather started rolling in, and we had a fairly damp night, and a very soggy morning. To the point where we gave up on trying to pack up and just made a cooked breakfast to eat in bed. The long road down to the coast took us through some badly fire ravaged country near Omeo and then into the startlingly green low country.
Which we quickly realised had been quite severely burnt in the recent (and not so recent) bushfires - parts of the park were pure charcoal, and most of the rest of the park seemed to be regenerating from fires a few years ago. However we were glad to have not been forewarned because charred though the remnants were we still got to see the fabulous views from the mountain and also experience the impact of the fires firsthand.
Then it was onto Mt Beauty and camping in the shadow of Mt Bogong – Victoria’s highest mountain. We were right there and could have climbed it, but with a climb of 1000m and 8 – 10 hours we just didn’t have it in us on this particular day. I (Nic) like to say that climbing mountains (or conquering peaks) is a particularly Western male thing to do – or maybe that is just an excuse for being lazy.
So we did a couple of shorter walks around the Bogong High Plains, including to one of the famous old cattlemens huts, the Wallace Hut. We drove through the oddly out-of-season Falls Creek, with parked snow ploughs, alpine looking ski lodges and ski hire places everywhere in the sunshine, with not a bit of snow to be found. Unfortunately, most of the snow gums around the place seemed to be still in
regeneration mode from fires a few years ago. The snow gums seem to regenerate so slowly – if fires keep coming through so regularly you’d think this kind of country will never get a chance to regenerate.
In a typically mountain kind of way, the weather started rolling in, and we had a fairly damp night, and a very soggy morning. To the point where we gave up on trying to pack up and just made a cooked breakfast to eat in bed. The long road down to the coast took us through some badly fire ravaged country near Omeo and then into the startlingly green low country.
posted by Tim and Nic at
2:39 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home