Corrigan Suspension Bridge and Forest Track, Tarra-Bulga National Park - June 2017

Descending Ash Track I got a few patches of blue sky peeking through the cloud.

I had some big plans for this Saturday, with forecast snow showers up in the high country I was going to head out on another serious high country ramble. Yep, that's what I was gunna do! The reality though was a little different, instead of leaping out of bed at 5am in the morning ready for another long drive up into the mountains, I turned over and went back to sleep. I surfaced a couple of hours later, but by now the high country was out of the question if I wanted to get home tonight. So now I was looking for something a little closer to home, wanting to walk somewhere that I've never written up before also thinned down the options a bit. Eventually I decided to head east down the Princess Highway to visit Tarra-Bulga National Park, this small national park (it's basically a small island of native flora and fauna surrounded by a sea of logging coupes) in the Strzelecki Ranges punches above it's weight when it comes to scenery in my opinion.

It was a little on the chilly side when I pulled into the car park this morning.

Now I might not of been heading up into the alpine country but Tarra-Bulga National Park is hardly at sea level, with the visitor centre at around 600 metres elevation it was a pretty chilly car park that I pulled into. After pulling on my boots and checking out the visitor centre, somewhat amazingly now days, it was actually staffed by a real person:) I headed off towards Corrigan Suspension Bridge, my first objective. Leaving the visitor centre car park, after a short section on Lyrebird Track I dropped down the extremely well constructed Ash Track towards the bridge. It's going to be a little hard to describe the bush in the park without sounding repetitive with my limited vocabulary (don't tell Mr Dutton but my english schooling finished at year 10), let's just say that there are a hundred shades of green in this park, all of them accentuated today by the frequent showers that were passing through. 

The Tarra-Bulga National Park visitor centre was open today and somewhat surprisingly, staffed.

I had to be pretty quick today to get photos when the sun came out, this is descending down Ash Track towards Corrigan Suspension Bridge.

Corrigan Suspension Bridge was originally built in 1938 as a tourist attraction to help the intrepid punters of the time to get a good view of the surrounding rainforest, although the current bridge was built by the army in 1982. At about the same time as I started to get some views of the bridge through the trees I also started getting pretty wet, the rain having set in a bit it was a pretty hit and miss affair trying to get a decent photo of the bridge without getting my camera wet. I must of made a pretty forlorn sight standing optimistically at the lookout waiting for the rain to pass so I could get a photo, eventually I decided that close enough is good enough (some very unkind people have suggested that this applies to my blog as well) and managed to snap off a couple of shots without drowning the DSLR. 

Your Feral photographer stood in the rain for twenty minutes waiting to get this shot, some might say with some justification, that I need to get a life!

Crossing the bridge I climbed up Scenic Track which initially passed through very wet cool temperate rainforest before climbing onto a ridge top and passing through slightly drier country. I was now completing a loop that would take me back down to the Bulga Picnic Area, the last section along the quiet bitumen access road. After passing through the empty picnic area I descended down the wide track to meet up with my outward route, Ash Track above the bridge. With that little loop complete I climbed back up Ash Track, stopping for awhile to watch a lyrebird scratch around in the damp leaf litter on the forest floor. Somewhat coincidently I soon turned onto Lyrebird Track, heading off into a slightly more remote and less visited part of the park. Lyrebird Track descends gently past a nice lookout through some slightly drier forest before coming to a picnic table at the junction with Forest Track, a sign warning walkers that the track from here promised to get a bit rougher under foot.

Climbing Scenic Track (its name and its outlook) I passed out of the cool temperate rainforest into the drier mountain ash forest.

Wondering down the access road to Bulga Picnic Area the road allowed me to easily take in the dripping forest.

Lyrebird

My walk today initially headed down to the left before I returned and headed off onto the slightly more remote Forest Track.

There is a nice lookout on Lyrebird Track that gives you a good view of tree ferns with the towering mountain ash behind.

Forest Track initially drops steadily into a very wet gully where the track crosses a tributary of Macks Creek on some duck boarding before starting a fairly long climb up to the junction with the Old Yarram-Balook Road. Forest Track was indeed a little rougher than the paths that had come before but really it was a pretty straight forward walk, the main issue I suppose was that the surface was a little on the slippery side, but you've got to expect that in a rainforest I reckon. It was on my steady climb up to Old Yarram-Bulook Road that the rain set in enough to finally convince me that it was time to stash the DSLR away in it's dry bag, pulling out my waterproof camera the photos for the rest of the walk suffered a little, but at least they had (the somewhat intangible) atmosphere instead.

Forest Track was the roughest walking of the day, but it was pretty easy really.

I've got a new camera - but it hasn't helped my macro shots!

Forest Track drops down to cross this tributary of Macks Creek on some duck boards.

By the time I topped out at Old Yarram-Balook Road the conditions were starting to close in a little bit, not that it mattered much as my walk now followed this old closed road so there were no navigational hazards to contend with. Old Yarram-Balook Road has been closed for a long time and now provides for a soft grassy walk, gently ascending to meet Bulga Park Road on the outskirts of Balook. The sleepy town of Balook was almost comatose on this rainy mid winters day, although I did notice that the local guest house and cafe were open for business, something that I filled away in my memory for when I eventually get back up here to walk some of the Grand Strzelecki Track. Ignoring the temptations of the cafe I instead headed back to the visitor centre, climbing into the ute to see that the temperature was still stubbornly refusing to climb above 5˚, ah yes, Victoria in winter.

Climbing up Forest Track towards Old Yarram-Balook Road the rain set in.

Old Yarram-Balook Road was very nice walking, even in the rain.

I've just arrived at Balook.

Balook is a very quiet and rustic little town.

The Dirt.

I walked 9.8 kilometres at an average speed of 3.5 kph today, with 262 metres of climbing I'd rate this as a easy walk. With the tracks all well sign posted and defined, the main issue today is probably the slippery and sometimes muddy surface of the Forest Track section of the walk, although in reality even Forest Track is pretty good as far as bushwalking tracks go. The Tarra-Bulga Visitor Centre has tables, a toilet and a BBQ and would make a very nice spot for a picnic and as I've mentioned the tiny town of Balook, a couple of minutes walk from the visitor centre, has a small cafe. Now on this walk I linked quite a few tracks together to create a decent length stroll, I used the free online stuff from Parks Vic to loosely plan my stroll. While no one as far as I know has written up this stroll as I walked it, John & Lyn Daly have written up some walks in the park in their old Take A Walk in Victoria's National Parks book.

Relevant Posts.

Moonlight Circuit, Mount Worth State Park, 2016.

The last trail marker pointing me in the direction of the Tarra-Bulga Visitor Centre.

The Stzelecki Ranges are home to the long distance Grand Strzelecki Trail, this is another of those great little community run walking tracks, one that I'm definitely going to get back and support, even if it is only writing it up on my blog.