With a reasonably good, late winter's day forecast for today I figured that I might head up and have another go at Mr Chapman's Mt Evelyn Walk. I'd made an attempt at this walk a couple of months ago but the grey winters day and labyrinth of tracks had sucked all my mojo away, I'd ended up pulling the pin and heading home after wandering around for a couple of hours on the maze of tracks, although I did manage to complete the short Olinda & Grey Gum Tracks. So with a weak winters sun occasionally peeking through the cloud cover I set off today to see if I could actually complete the walk.
 |
| Heading down the Olinda Creek Walking Track, at least I knew where I was going this time. |
Leaving the ute I had a bit of an advantage over my last visit in that I now had a bit of on the ground knowledge, I had another advantage today as well as without the constant rain that characterised my last visit I was able to check out my notes, map and GPS a little easier. After around twenty minutes I was back at my earlier attempts turnaround point on Pipeline Track, I now followed this wide grassy track for the next hour towards the suburb of Mt Evelyn. Pipeline Track generally tracks above the the valley of Olinda Creek, although for the most part the creek is buried in a blanket of ferns and trees so its mostly out of sight. The wide open spaces on the grassy Pipeline Track had me feeling pretty happy with life, the weak sun illuminating the the flowering wattle trees.
 |
Olinda Creek Track passes through a nice ferny section.
 |
Pipeline Track makes for nice easy strolling.
 |
| Olinda Creek is down the bottom of the valley, but its well covered by ferns so you don't really see it. |
|
|
Eventually Pipeline Track (which is also known as Olinda Creek Track) starts to climb a little higher above Olinda Creek, finally losing contact with the creek totally as I entered the residential area of Mt Evelyn. Once again my notes were somewhat vague around here and what I was seeing on the ground didn't quite match what I reading or seeing on my map, not that it matters much as there are so many tracks criss crossing the park that you'd be doing well to get seriously bushed. I knew Wols Track headed along the eastern side of the ridge so it was just a matter of climbing until I found it, once I'd located Wols Track it was fairly easy walking for awhile, the stringybark and manna gums seeming to be standing straight to attention. As you've probably already noticed there isn't a lot happening scenically on this walk, unless you like trees, which somewhat fortuitously I do, and it's my blog so trees are what you get today!
 |
 |
| There's a short section along the suburban streets of Mt Evelyn. |
|
The walk along Wals Track flirted with the residential side of Mt Evelyn although for the most part the houses were in the distance or out of sight on the other side of the ridge. After crossing a fairly steep and slippery gully that featured some impressive tree ferns Wals Track climbed to an intersection where once again things were a little different on the ground than my map and notes suggested. It appears that Wals Track continues contouring straight on, the parks signpost suggested that anyway, but my map and notes didn't didn't show the continuation even existed. After consulting my GPS I decided to leave Wals Track and head up steeply more or less as my notes described, meeting Wallably Track I was more or less on track again and heading in the right direction, well for awhile anyway!
 |
Wals Track featured plenty of trees, much like the rest of the walk actually.
 |
| Wals Track crosses this nice gully. |
|
After a bit of an undulating walk along Wallaby Track my notes said to cross Road 13 and then after a short steep descent turn right at a T junction onto Road 12, the only thing was that Wallaby Track didn't appear to go any further than Road 13. Stopping and scratching my nuts for awhile I spied an arrow carved into a stringybark pointing in the general direction that I should be going, hmmm, well there wasn't anything for it really but to to wander off in the direction of the arrow, my easy fire track walking now a full on scrub bash...what could go wrong? Miraculously after scrub bashing for around the right distance I did indeed intersect with another track, only thing is it looked like a mountain bike track and not my intended Road 12. With no other options available to me short of scrub bashing my way all the way down to Olinda Creek I turned onto to my mountain bike track, and sure enough I was soon back at the intersection of Wallaby Track and Road 13 staring at my arrow etched into the stringybark, yeah that worked well.... fuck!
 |
Wallaby Track.
|
It was now time for a bit of alfresco route finding, keeping one eye on the GPS and another on my map I headed along a convoluted route along the ridge top. There is definitely plenty of signposting along here, its just none of it matched what my notes said, eventually I met up with a signpost that pointed towards Road 24. Now Road 24 was significant because according to my map and notes it was the track that I'd use to descend down to Olinda Creek, sure enough I was soon dropping steeply down the greasy track, my bare legs thankful that I wouldn't be doing any more scrub bashing today.
 |
Now my notes suggested Wallaby Track continues on down here, judging by the arrow etched into the tree I'm not the first one to head down here. In hindsight....don't.....just turn right and head towards Road 24.
 |
I'm back on track again!
 |
Road 24 is steep and, in winter, pretty slippery.
 |
| Olinda Creek in the late afternoon. |
|
|
|
Reaching the bottom of the descent I headed up the valley for half a kilometre or so before meeting up with my earlier route above the crossing of Olinda Creek. With the late afternoon light a little better for taking photos I spent a bit of time at the creek getting some photos of the ferns and the impossibly green mossy logs. I was now in very familiar territory, I was walking the second half of the Olinda & Grey Gums Walk that I'd walked a few months before. Once I reached the massive outlet pipe for Silvan Reservoir all I had to do was wander up the to the ute, careful not to go arse over on the slippery red clay track.
 |
Silvan Reservoir outlet pipe.
 |
| The last few metres up to the overflow car park, a nice easy finish in the late afternoon weak winter sun light. |
|
The Dirt.
Well what's the dirt on the Mt Evelyn Forest Walk? hmmm.... First up I'd say that if you really like trees then maybe this is the walk for you, the whole walk passes through forest, most of it the dry eucalyptus type although there are some nice ferny sections as well. I covered 13.9 kilometres and climbed 473 metres on this stroll, now I was using Mr Chapman's notes and he suggested that I should of covered 10.4 kilometres and climbed 280 metres. Even accounting for converting Chapman kilometres into Fat Bastard kilometres the distances were still along way out, mind you the notes were a rough guide only at times today. I'd rate this as a medium grade walk I suppose, but really only for the navigation required. For what its worth I used the notes out of
Day Walks Victoria, now you won't get totally lost using these notes and map but you'll have to do a bit of interpretation, and it pays to keep a close eye on your map so you know roughly where you are in relation to Silvan Reservoir.
Relevant Posts
 |
| Believe it or not I don't embellish my stats. |
No comments:
Post a Comment