SiC – David Sidwell

Am fine and home now. But yesterday (Thursday November 5th) was a day of adventure.  A quick summary:

Forecast for Thurs and Fri was for lovely weather, so decided a quick trip to the Northern Grampians was the go. 280km each way, so should try and stay 2 nights at least.

Plan was to try Briggs Bluff again, a year after my ill-fated first attempt.  So decided on

• Two nights at Mt Zero Log Cabins (MZLC)
• Thurs: warm-up walk. Re-do Hollow Mountain, in preparation for…
• Friday: big walk: Briggs Bluff

But I didn’t get a chance to even start Briggs Bluff this time. (last time I got, err, umm, lost during the attempt).  So anyway:

• About halfway up Hollow Mountain I caught my leg on a tree or sharp rock. Didn’t hurt that much…
• … But a few mins later there’s red-stuff running down my leg.
• Cut was below the knee on the back of the leg
• I carry a small first-aid kit in the pack, so bandaged it up
• It wasn’t hurting, so I continued and got to the top
• Some photos now up at my Flickr page. Warning: some red-stuff shown, but not too bad.
• Got back down again and even did a bit of tourist things etc
• Back to MZLC about 4:30pm

Angela (the owner/manager there) was then kindly preparing some band-aids, new bandages and antiseptics, whilst I went off and washed my leg off.

When we both saw the cut we said “mmm, that’s gunna need stitches”.  Was ~3cm long and when I moved my leg it looked like a fishes mouth opening and closing!

How lucky is this: Angela said there was a major hospital at Horsham, only about 25 mins away. So I went off there and they put in 4 stitches plus gave me a tetanus shot, some antibiotics and strong pain-killers etc.  Back to MZLC about 9pm and very hungry!

No pain, slept okay. Didn’t touch pain-killers.  However doctor had said no more walks for at least a week, so decided to abandon the trip and come home today; barely 24 hours after leaving.

Stitches out in a week.   And I still haven’t got to Briggs Bluff.

Update:  a very warm Saturday 7th November.  I finally got to have a shower today.  And see my first ever stitches (sutures, they called them)  Please send congratulatory cards and telegrams  to me c/- ….

The Mt Macedon Loop walk is a great one to do, but it can be a bit daunting for those who may not like 16+ km, including the climb(s) and descent(s).  So I’ve been planning a hybrid walk, involving a 2-car-shuffle. It’s not that complicated; basically one car ‘up the top’ (on the summit)  and the 2nd ‘down the bottom’ (Mt Macedon village)

After putting the cars in their right places:

Car 1 near Memorial Cross 

Car 2 in main st of Mt Macedon village, near Douglas Rd

Then off we go, walking unless noted:

• Douglas Road (Mt Macedon village) climbing up to the Memorial Cross
• (Drive, Car 1)  Cross to Camels Hump Picnic Ground (PG)
• Explore Camels Hump
• (Drive, Car 1) Camels Hump to Sanatorium Lake  PG Car Park
• Explore Sanatorium Lake area
• Sanatorium Lake PG to Zig Zag Track
• Zig Zag to Hempills Track, then down the great Mount Towrong Track to Mt Macedon village (and Car 2)

This is a good compromise. The Car 1 bits are – to be honest – a bit of a drag if done by foot. Pretty much an hour+ of walking on level ground. 

Did it today and it works very well.  As I only had one car, I got a lift to simulate Car 1 (thank you to the bloke who helped me, if you somehow are reading this!).  Walkers really need good boots and a pole or stick to help with the steep, rocky descent of Mt Towrong. But apart from that, I’d vote it a Yes.

Used some maps and planned a new, shorter version of the earlier Mt Dandenong walk.  Basically the best bits and hence the name.  Today was the day to walk it to see how it goes.

Had a great time.  However, it became pretty clear that my ‘shortcut’ back to the car (Glasgow Track – see below) was so steep that it really wouldn’t have been enjoyable had others been with me.   Here’s a Google Earth image, showing the walk. Note the height exaggerated by 2 for impact:

A) Car is here near Kyeema cairn (Melways 66 E-1)

(pink line)  Along the top and then a zig zag down to

B) Doongalla site (66 D-5), lunch/break then explore this great area and then along…

(aqua line) almost level along the front of the mountain until…

C) The Climb (red line). Straight up the front of Mt Dandenong on Glasgow Track. Wow. I’m told this is used by those preparing for Kokoda. (update: and here’s some further info on this)  Rocky, dirt, mud in places. No polite zig zags to ease the gradient.

To give you some idea, these are direct from the GPS and not exaggerated by 2:

Pink line 2.3 km long and descends 280 metres

Red line  0.5 km (500 m) long and ascends 200 metres.

If you look you can see that Glasgow Tk continues down the mountain; seems to merge with Glasgow Road. And yes, I missed it whilst on the aqua line bit. It has no signs and is only about 1 metre wide or less.  I had a map and was able to loop back and pick it up at point C.

Mmm. Need to think more about how to get back from Doongalla to the car. Maybe just double back.

Anyway here’s the Google Earth file to explore in 3D.

<Oct 4th 2009>

There’s just something about this walk – and location – that trips me up every time. Not literally, but I have tried twice now and failed to finish it both times. It’s in the Little Peninsula and Big Peninsula tunnels area.

First time was late Jan 2008 and it was hot. Climbed up and down the roller-coaster hills near the Little Peninsular tunnel. Only to find the track closed from there on.  Worked out the way back to the car, without doing the roller-coaster again. But a bit later on, found I’d lost the map. Reached for the spare…and discovered it was back at home.

Remained calm and retraced my steps…finding the map on the side of the road. Just as a HUGE log truck came roaring toward it, threatening to hurl it into the creek. Just grabbed it in time.

Not quite out of trouble yet. Discovered room I was staying in had no fridge, a/c nor fly spray. So nowhere to store milk etc I’d brought for breakfast!  They let me put it in their fridge downstairs. But a hot night spent with buzzing mosquitoes ensured.

Found out later that the walk was officially closed due to logging, but someone hadn’t updated the Parks Vic web site.

This time it was the roller-coaster hills being dangerously slippery. After gingerly finishing them, I decided it was too risky to push on  with the exact route  (as it returned via these hills again).  This time, however, I used the map and worked out I could do most of the route and then ‘veer off’ down a road (c/f a track) and head back out the same way as during the Summer. Worked a treat.

Again the accommodation – but a different place – caused me grief. But partially my own fault. The room was BYO bedding.   What a time to discover my 15 year old, K-Mart special sleeping bag doesn’t work when it’s really chilly.   Woke up so cold it hurt.   Now, some places provide a spare blanket just in case, but not this one.  I had looked at a blanket just before leaving home and thought “nah, if I need one, they’ll have one…”

Got fully dressed and back in the bag. No real difference. Woke up about 10 more times, numbingly cold.  Found out it had been 0c down at Coldstream that night, so I reckon it was below freezing in that room.   There was an old, very  noisy heater; it sounded like a 747 taking off and even I couldn’t sleep through that.

So Take 3 looms, probably this summer. I wonder what will happen this time.

<August 18th 2009>

Ended up being a great walk today. Didn’t start out the best – think the instructions and/or map were quite old. But recovered to be just excellent.  Images – including 3D Google Earth view and Google Map links at end.

In summary:

• Start at Kalorama village, leave car
• Walk along ‘front’ of Mt Dandenong, but on tracks. Heading about S-W
• Visit the main Mt Dandenong summit area, including the cafe if you want
• Along the ‘front’ further to visit the cairn at the site of the 1938 “Kyeema” plane crash.
• Zig-zag down a track as the bush closes in and becomes more rain-forest in nature
• Pop out at the lovely Doongala homestead site (now a small park area with BBQs etc).  Even though you are close to suburbia, the view from here implies you are in the middle of the bush. See photo (link below)
• Make your way back along the ‘front’ but now the other way (N-E) towards Kalorama and lower down on the mountain.
• A final climb (bit of puff puff here) and you literally pop back out right near the car

About 18-20 km of walking, from memory.

Here’s a Google Map of the approximate route.

And a few photos up there at Flickr.

<July 24th 2009>

Have done a few walks up Mt Macedon, but today was first time I did the Big One; the 19km loop. Was a great day and met 2 very nice fellow walkers, who ended up doing the same route as me. We actually  – initially – went our separate ways, but then met up before the halfway point and hooked up from there.

Walk starts in the main street of the Mt Macedon village.

First bit is a walk up an ascending semi-rural road (houses etc), which suddenly ‘goes bush’ when you hit the national park. The ziz-zag climb up the mountain begins and you pop out at the memorial cross.   This leg = 3.6km.  Quite steep climbing

Second section is relatively level as you walk over to the Camels Hump look out. Walking along west side of the mountain. With sidetrips (i.e. trying to find a track that didn’t seem to be there) this was 5.2km.  [added later: it was there, we just missed it]   About halfway through the walk.

Third and final leg was from Camels Hump along the east side of the mount, then doing the steep, rocky descent of Mt Towong, which seems to be a spur of the much larger Mt Macedon. The track wasn’t that dangerous and we took our time. But you do need to be careful.  This bit was 10.2km

I’d estimate over 5 hours, walking a fair bit of that time.

Grab the Parks Victoria Macedon Regional Park – Walking Trails  PDF.  It describes this walk,  and others, plus it has a map. I’ll use their numbering system from the PDF:

* Park car in main st of Mt Macedon village, near Douglas Rd

3 Douglas Road (Mt Macedon village) to Memorial Cross

4 Cross to Cameron Picnic Ground (PG)

5 Cameron PG to Camels Hump

10 Camels Hump to Days PG

11 (Days PG) Sanatiorum Lake to Zig Zag Track

12 Zig Zag to Hempills Track

13 Hemphills to Mount Towrong Track

14 Mt Towrong Track to Mt Macedon village (and car)

Took the still fairly new Garmin GPS out for a walk yesterday. I started work just after I got it, so have hardly had time to get to know all the cool features it has. So with an unusually warm day forecast for this time of year, it was back to tackle Mount Macedon again.

The main reason I got it was for logging, that is not for telling me HOW to get somewhere, but to actually RECORD where I’ve been.  Later on I can take these GPS logs and do a number of interesting things with them, including:

• Show them on a computer map
• View the log (and hence bush walk) on a 3D ‘map’ in Google Earth

Both of which – and photos of the walk – are shown at my Picasaweb album page.

The Mt Macedon walk is very enjoyable and a bit of a challenge. I guess I am somewhat fitter than when I tried it earlier this year, as I found the first bit – a zig zag climb of some 1.5km – much easier this time around.  The weather played its part too, it was a sunny, windy day, but the trees protected me from the worst of it. I really felt how strong the wind was at the summit area; on Camels Hump. It was actually getting dangerous being on the exposed rocks, with large drops all around, and the gusts pushing me towards the edge!

Was a sunny but cool day today, so decided to take the new GPS out for a spin and get some exercise at the same time. The Organ Pipes is a natural rock formation quite close to Melbourne; the exit is literally off the Calder Freeway near Keilor.  They were formed millions of years ago when lava cooled slowly and cracked into quite regular columns. Erosion exposed them and they are now on the side of a hill on a river bend. And yes, they really do look like organ pipes.

Before I left home I knew there were at least a few interesting things to see whilst visiting this Park; the Pipes themselves plus another interesting formation called the Rosette Rock. I wanted to get their exact GPS locations (latitude and longitude) and put them into the GPS before I left. I’m still searching for a list on the web of such ‘waypoints’, but no luck so far. So went to Google Earth, zoomed in…and using some of the external data (layers) was easily able to find the Pipes and the Rock.

I used gpsbabel to convert their Google Earth co-ordinates to Garmin format, uploaded to the GPS and ta da, they both appeared in the GPS and on its Map.

Anyway I did this very pleasant walk just fine and the pre-loaded values were very accurate; for example the GPS beeped – a proximity alert – when I stopped at the Organ Pipes viewing area itself.

I also logged the walk in the GPS so it could be seen in 3D back in Google Earth; which confirmed what my legs had told me: down a steep hill, along a flat river valley and back up the steep hill.

One final comment on this National Park. When I first visited it in the early 1970s it was very barren. Just bare grassy hills and weeds. Over the following 30+ years a group of volunteers have done a sterling job clearing out the weeds and planting native trees and shrubs. The result is nothing sort of amazing as the ‘before’ photos ot the place show. Barren to living bush again.  Well done! 

Weather forecast was for fog, then clearing and so off I went to tackle Mt Macedon for the first time. Parks Victoria has a good web page on this, including a PDF that has the walk(s) and a map. It’s called “Macedon Regional Park – Walking Trails”

Beware, however that as of late May 2008 the Eastern Lookout is actually closed, so ignore references to it.

Basically I did a walk that starts right in the main street of the township of Mt Macedon, goes along Douglas Road, then it’s up up up as you ascend Mount Macedon itself via the well-marked Macedon Ranges Walking Trail (MRWT). That ascent is about 1.5 km, but can take from 40 to 60 minutes. It was steep and a bit slippery in places.

You literally pop-out right next to the famous memorial cross at the top. From there it’s a welcome cup of tea or coffee at the nearby cafe, then another 4 km of quite level walking to the Camels Hump. A final short, sharp climb and you are there. Two lookouts here; one is raw, rocks (and marked as dangerous, so take care) and the other is the official one. The latter is looking towards Hanging Rock, has a steel viewing platform and a guide to tell you what you are looking at plus how far away it is.

Use the PDF and walk back towards the Cross, but only a few km along turn left into Clyde Track and descend back to good old Douglas Road. Note: the PDF text instructions are in error – or misleading. They advise you to walk back “to” the Cross then turn into Clyde Track, it should be “towards” the Cross. I’ve done the right thing and called Parks Vic to let them know.

Rating: very good. About 7km one-way from township to Camels Hump. So start before lunch. First track is, as I said, a bit slippery, so take a walking pole and sturdy boots.

Now this was a spectacular and challenging walk. I’d rate it as medium/difficult – for the steepness and terrain – but well worth it. The only hiccup for me was the smoke. A controlled burn-off and still conditions conspired to have the smoke linger for days, so the views were smoke-limited.

Parks Victoria has a web page ,but my main reference was the excellent book Daywalks Around Melbourne, Walk 70, The Farmyard. Please use that for details. The essence is: start at the ground and walk up the ziz-zagging and steep track that runs along one side of the ranges, to the very top. You are pretty much under cover and it’s one of those cool ‘work-reward’ walks; you do all the work (climbing) and it’s only when that’s all done you get the spectacular views. In this case it’s the views from the rock formations known as the Jawbones; actually two sets – North and South.

An added bonus for me was a pair of courting Lyrebirds on the way back down. It’s pure magic to hear the male one doing his impressions of many bush sounds – mainly other birds. Indeed part of this walk takes you through an area known as The Farmyard. Names because the Lyrebirds do imitations of the farm animals sounds, from way below in the valley.

A highly rated walk. You really should wear sturdy boots and take a walking pole. Some of my photos are available too.