Boar Gully, Brisbane Ranges National Park - October 2016

A fairly typical scene on todays stroll.

The Saturday after we arrived home in Melbourne from our trip to Papua New Guinea I decided to head out to the Brisbane Ranges and revisit a walk out there. The weather today sounded like it would be cool but fairly clear and with all the rain that had been around I was keen to see what the country looked like in what has been a very good season. On a personal note I also wanted to get out in the open spaces so I could get my head around my dad's funeral which was coming up in a couple of days. One thing that I've always found over the years is that being out in the scrub helps to clear and focus my mind, many of what can sometimes seem insurmountable problems have been nutted out in my head on a long walk in the bush.

Todays walk follows sections of the Burchell Trail, including this bit as I left Boar Gully Camp.

Parking at the Boar Gully Camp I reset my new GPS (I bought myself a Garmin Montana 850t) and set off along the long distance Burchell Trail. A lot of the walking in the Brisbane Ranges is either on fire tracks or dirt roads and that's how it started off today. It pays to keep a close eye on your map on a walk in the Brisbane Ranges as well, as there are a lot of tracks and roads criss crossing the park. Today started with what seemed like a puzzle of left-right-lefts before eventually I met up with Old Thomson Track which thankfully the notes said to follow for awhile. It was along here that I had my most notable wildlife encounter for the day, a Tiger Snake was cruising along a puddle on the track although unfortunately it wasn't hanging around to let me get a decent photo of it. A couple of hundred metres further on I came upon the Brisbane Ranges Humpy, now this humpy could feature in  better humpys and gardens as it featured its own water views, although I'm pretty sure it wasn't Tiger Snake proof.

The route borders farmland occasionally, which actually adds a bit to the walk I think.

Have I mentioned that I'm allergic to Bees.

A crap photo of a reasonably sized Tiger Snake.

I'm not sure that the Brisbane Ranges Humpy is snake proof, but it does have its own water views.

Trudging on I eventually intersected with Thomsons Road, now luckily for me I've got a bit of a thing for grass trees because they are everywhere here, the dry open Ironbark forest providing what must be a perfect environment for them. I was again on the Burchell Trail now, when I'd walked this multi day trail years ago there was a short cut from Thomson Road to Quarry Track that used to eliminate a bit of the road bash, now days the track is more or less totally gone, I suspect that the old trail was closed to stop the spread of Phytophthora Cinnamomi so I decided to take the marked route and not head across country where the old route would of traversed.

The old short cut track from Thomson Road to Quarry Track has almost returned to nature now.

Once on Quarry Track I started what is probably the best section of walking for the day, Quarry Track heads south east through the dry forest before the ground starts to drop away on both sides, turning onto Slate Track the drop offs get quite substantial with views across the flat plains to the You Yangs in one direction. In the other direction is another deep valley and this is the one that the track heads through, dropping steeply past an old quarry before zig zagging even more steeply down the sparse Grass Tree covered slopes. The descent bottoms out at a foot bridge over what is normally a dry gully, although with all the rain that we'd had recently there was a trickle of water flowing today. After a couple of hundred metres of relatively flat walking beside the creek the track starts it's steep climb up a spur out of the valley. Now while it is pretty steep its all over in about 15 minutes and luckily for me there always seems to be something to stop and take a photo of, just as it seemed that my heart was about to pop out of my chest.

Slate Track.

The You Yangs in the distance.

Normally this creek is bone dry, although after our recent wet weather there was a trickle of water today. This is the lowest spot on todays stroll.

The climb back up to Thomsons Road is fairly steep but only short.

Once back up out of the valley I again crossed over Thomson Road before starting to skirt around the western boundary of this bit of the park. The walking along here was again on undulating fire tracks only now I had farm land on my left. The rural scenery was actually a bit of a pleasant change from the open dry forest that I'd been walking through up until now though. The route now heads north, basically tracking beside the infant Little River, this section of the walk being quite enjoyable as it crossed a few ferny gullies and passed through some open park like areas. With the late afternoon sun now giving me another excuse to procrastinate with the camera I slowly made my way the last few hundred metres to the ute. This was my first decent walk for awhile and it felt good to give the muscles a bit of a workout after sitting on my fat arse on a ship for the last three weeks, throwing the boots in the back of the ute it was a happy and contented feral walker who climbed into the drivers seat and headed home.

Tracking along the western edge of the park.

Looks like my 4wd mates have been busy here.

The Dirt.

I mentioned earlier on that I'd just got a new GPS, with this being the first walk that I'd used it on I was interested how it would go. The first thing that became immediately apparent was how quick it got a fix on enough satellites to give me my position, the Montana getting a fix in a matter of seconds where as my old Oregon would sometimes take a couple of minutes. The other interesting thing that I noticed was that the stats seemed a little more realistic, I still had to convert Chapman kilometres to fat bastard kilometres but the calculation was a lot closer than it used to be. Mr Chapman suggested the walk was 14.3 kilometres, my Montana suggested that it was 15.4 kilometres....I can live with that I think! The metres climbed  were still a fair way out though, 310 metres according to Mr Chapman versus 439 on the new GPS, who knows? As I've mentioned above this was another stroll from the House of Chapman, this was out of their Day Walks Victoria, it's walk number 16 in the book. I'd rate this a medium walk I suppose, there are a few un-signposted track junctions that you need to keep your eye on, the tracks themselves are all good though and there is only really one solid climb on the whole walk. If you like dry open eucalyptus forest with a lot of grass trees then maybe consider this stroll.

Relevant Posts.

You Yangs 2016

Yankee Gully 2014

Little River Track made for nice walking in the late afternoon.

Another nice stroll coming to and end.