Kalimna Falls, Great Otway National Park - 28 June 2014

This is starting to get a bit repetitive, but the forecast for Saturday was pretty crap. We have been buffeted by high winds in Melbourne all week, and today's forecast was more of the same, with the added benefit of rain and hail in the late afternoon .Perfect weather, I reckon, for a walk to check out a couple of waterfalls. As I had to pick up some stuff on the other side of Melbourne we decided to keep heading west and have lunch in Lorne, then I could do a walk while Sam went shopping.

The now traditional pre walk feed, this time at the Oven House in Lorne.

Arriving in Lorne at lunch time we were mildly surprised to find quite a lot of the shops and cafes closed, I'm not sure if they closed for winter or if hard times have hit the 'polo set', I suspect that many of the small business owners may have headed to warmer climes for winter as I haven't noticed a big increase in 'insurance fires' lately. Anyway, whatever the reason, there wasn't the usual large choice of dining options, luckily for us we chose the Oven House cafe using our highly scientific method of looking in the window to see if it looked popular. 

About to head off from Sheoak Picnic area.

After finishing off our baguettes and the obligatory bowl of chips I thought it was probably time I started walking, now being highly organised I'd managed to leave both my map and guide book at home, so with just the GPS to guide me, I thought it would be prudent to revisit a walk I'd done before. Kalimna Falls sounded about right, I remember it as a nice easy walk, so after a couple of wrong turns we eventually found our way out to the track head at Sheoak Picnic Ground. After a quick 'before' photo I was on my way and Sam was heading back to the shops for a couple of hours.

The Kookaburra that was hanging around waiting for a free feed.

Before I was even out of the picnic ground I was trying to get a photo of a Kookaburra that was obviously hanging around waiting for a free feed (taking photos certainly gets in the way of walking, it takes me twice the time to do these walks as it used to, being old and broken may have a little to do with that as well!). Successfully out of the picnic area I headed along an old timber tramway that follows the valley of Sheoak Creek upstream, the whole area was logged in the ye olde days, and now a lot of the walks in the area follow the old timber tramways providing easy walking. The good news for the forest was that as the old timers selectively logged the area (ie, it wasn't clear felled, poisoned, and then torched for tax payer subsidised f#*king woodchips), it had has recovered strongly with plenty of bio diversity.

Following the old tram way.

I had a bit of blue sky to begin with.

The good news was that the weather was holding out OK as I went further up the valley, I was even able to get some shots of the patches of blue sky above the towering trees. After way to many stops I eventually got to Lower Kalimna Falls, these falls have a undercut cliff that allowed me to get behind the curtain of water for a different perspective. After mucking around with my little gorilla pod and slow shutter speeds for fifteen minutes I headed off towards Upper Kalimna Falls. Luckily I had a little mobile coverage so was able to get a  text to Sam to tell her that I would be late back to the picnic area.

There was a few of these old cuttings which the tram way passes through.

Lower Kalimna Falls.

As I moved further up the valley the weather was becoming worse, by the time I got to Upper Kalimna Falls there was lite, but constant rain. After snapping a couple more photos I quickly packed the camera away in the dry bag for awhile, before heading back to meet Sam at the picnic area. I'd decided to return via Garvey Track, so after back tracking a few hundred metres I took the track leading of to the south. This track climbs out of the valley of Sheoak Creek, before descending  and climbing out of a second valley, that of Little Sheoak Creek, it then climbs to a ridge top to meet Garvey Track.

From the cavern behind Lower Kalimna Falls.

There was some timber down which wasn't surprising considering the wind we've had in Victoria this week.

Upper Kalimna Falls.

Garvey Track is a fire track that provides easy walking along the ridge that divides Sheoak Creek and the Cumberland River. The drier forest of the ridge gave me some views to the coast as well as a good look at the dark clouds that were heading my way from the west. Still it was a reasonably pleasant ramble down the ridge, even if the wind and rain was getting worse. Getting back to Sheoak Picnic area in the gathering gloom I was happy to see Sam parked there waiting for me. After doing a quick change under the picnic shelter I was soon in dry clothes and ready for the drive home.

Heading down Garvey Track.

The Dirt.
The walk notes are written up in the second edition of Glen Tempest's Daywalks Around Melbourne, its walk # 3. The book has been superseded but here's the link to his homepage. I did around 8 kilometres and climbed around 300 metres on the walk. This is an easy walk that almost anyone could do.

The weather was getting a bit worse as I got closer to Sheoak Picnic area.