The Waterfall Bower, Mount Worth State Park - September 2018

The Waterfall Bower

Has anyone been paying any attention to the news this week? There was some big news that was being spun along these lines, the big supermarkets are going to help the struggling dairy farmers out with a 10 cent a litre tariff on certain lines of milk. Now that all sound fair enough. Well it’s fair enough that the struggling dairy farmers are going to get a bit of a chop out, but don’t give any kudos to the big supermarkets and their supply chains, the people that are giving the farmers a hand are the punters buying the milk not the big corporates. If the big supermarkets paid the farmers a fair price and didn’t screw them in the first place everybody would be happy and the farmers wouldn’t need a hand out from the public. I hope someone independent is keeping an eye on the extra money collected by the supermarkets……just saying! Alright what’s all that got to do with a walk at Mt Worth, well nothing really but it’s my blog!

Setting off from Moonlight Creek Picnic Ground under a grey sky this morning.

I did this walk years ago on a stinking hot a humid day in the middle of summer, I’ve got a few photos floating around of a very red faced and sweaty Feral walker at a bone dry Waterfall Bower. So I’ve always thought that a visit in the wetter months might be the go and after more than ten years I finally got my act together and headed back up to check things out. There was an issue though (there always is!) in that my notes were written 13 years ago, as it turns out there has been a few changes on the ground at Mt Worth State Park since they were composed. Pulling on my boots, resetting the GPS and heading off along the old tramway towards Trevorrow’s Mill Site all was good though.

Giants Circuit is a nice little walk.

After a few minutes easy walking along the old tramway I turned right along Giants Circuit. Giants Circuit is a short nature walk that comes with plenty of interpretative signs, the good track winding through very lush, green ferny country, actually if green isn’t a favourite colour then give the photos a miss I think. Giants Circuit is named after the Standing Giant, an impressive old Mountain Ash tree seen to the left of the track a few hundred metres after leaving the tramway. Now while the Standing Giant is very impressive I didn’t actually think it was any more impressive than a lot of the other Mountain Ash that I checked out on my stroll, check out my photos and you’ll see what I mean.

The Standing Giant...I'm not sure that it's much more impressive than a lot of the other beautiful Mountain Ash up here.

Giants Circuit

Mt Worth Sate Park features 50 shades of green I think.

After crossing Lorkin Creek again I rejoined the old tramway and headed along a short side trip to check out the old Trevorrow’s Mill Site. The old mill operated from 1923 to 1927 and employed twenty men, old photos of the site show a large bustling enterprise. The bush has more or less reclaimed the old mill site now though, there is a rusting boiler and flywheel in the scrub and a big mound of saw dust where the vegetation is slowly starting to take hold again, but that’s about it really.

Lorkin Creek

Leaving Trevorrow’s Mill Site I set off towards my next objective, Gardner’s Mill No.2 Site. The track was now getting a fair bit rougher and muddier as it moved further into the forest, passing a track that wasn’t on my map my route climbed a little over a spur and then dropped down into the valley of Clark Creek. The walking along here is on sections of duck boards and the occasional bridge, along with a lot of mud, all in all it’s great, slightly adventurous walking through lush cool temperate rainforest. Arriving at Gardner’s Mill No.2 Site there was even less remaining than there had been back at Trevorrow’s Mill Site, a slight opening in the bush where the saw dust pile was and a small piece of rusting metal that looked like it might have been an old gearbox.

Apart from some rusting machinery there is little left of Trevorrow's Mill.

Mountain Ash

Gardiners Mill No.2 Site.

There is even less left over over at Gardiner's Mill No.2 Site.

It was about now that I had to start getting a bit creative, my notes suggested that there was a track heading up the onto a spur on the north side of Clark Creek but after a bit of casting about I was buggered if I could find anything but Lyrebird scratchings. Now I had a decision to make, head off along the north bank of Clark Creek off piste through the fairly dense scrub, or retrace my route a kilometre all the way back to the mystery track that I’d seen near Trevorrow’s Mill Site. With the new track being signposted to the Waterfall Bower I was confident that it would get me to where I had to go, heading off track I was also confident that I’d get to the same spot but I wasn’t to sure how scrubby the rainforest would get, not to mention the mud and the leaches. Needless to say I retreated back to the sign posted track.

I retraced my route back to this track and headed right.

Things started off pretty easy on my new track.

But things soon got pretty sloppy.

Heading along this new (well for me anyway) track everything was pretty easy for a few minutes as the track headed along the northern aspect of a spur through some dryer forest. As I said ‘for a few minutes’, things soon got all ‘Raiders of the lost Ark’ on me though (google it kiddies). This track soon got seriously muddy…but it was great fun! My new track climbed over a spur and dropped down to follow Lorkin Creek up stream for awhile towards Courtney Creek Waterfall. The creek walking was muddy enough but it was when the track started to climb up the slopes to the north of Lorkin Creek that things got really slippery, so slippery in fact that someone has installed a fixed rope to help walkers haul themselves out of the valley, sweet! Eventually after my steep, slippery, muddy climb the track levelled off a bit and I arrived at the small Courtney Creek Waterfall, this is one of those waterfalls that you can get yourself behind the curtain of water, although with a fairly sparse flow of water coming down the photos are a bit less than impressive unfortunately.

The track had now achieved a heavy rating.

I headed up stream along Lorkin Creek for awhile.

Climbing away from the creek things got pretty slippery.

Have I mentioned things were a little green?

This was great fun today.... although it might be a bit of a pain in the rain.

Courtney Creek Falls

Eventually I got bored trying to get a photo from behind the trickling waterfall and I headed off on my adventure again. Leaving Courtney Creek Waterfall the track climbed a few metres to a track junction, I’m guessing the track coming in from the left here is the other end of the track that use to come up from Gardner’s Mill No.2 Site….maybe. Now days this is the track to head along for a 100 metres or so to get to the waterfall on Lorkin Creek which is known as the Waterfall Bower, although once again I’m guessing a little here, there isn’t a lot in the way of signage out here. The Waterfall Bower is bit bigger than the Courtney Creek Waterfall had been and is best seen by scrambling down to the base of the falls I think.

Lorkin Creek Waterfall....The Waterfall Bower.

Lorkin Creek Waterfall

Lorkin Creek Waterfall

After enjoying the Waterfall Bower for awhile I retraced my route back to the track junction above Courtney Creek Falls, there was a homemade sign here pointing towards the carpark the way I’d come up from. I was looking for the track that headed up to the Moonlight Creek Lorkin Creek divide though, using all my Feral powers of deduction I figured that seeing that I’d walked both the other directions then I might try the remaining track that was heading off to the north. Sure enough I was soon starting to climb north a little and I was pretty confident that I was on the right track, the only thing that had me a little concerned was that at the climb was way easier than my failing memory recalled, normally I find these track harder now days not easier? Still everything else pretty well matched up and sure enough, after 15 minutes or so of climbing, I emerged from the scrub onto the wide grassy Moonlight Divide Track.

The climb up to Moonlight Divide Track was a lot easier than I remember.

The Waterfall Bower is now signposted from Moonlight Divide Track, back in the day it was only a taped route.

The adventurous part of today’s stroll was now over but I still had a few kilometres of really nice walking to go before I’d get back to the ute. Like I waffled on about earlier Moonlight Divide Track is a open grassy track, the track more or less sticking to the top of the ridge that forms the divide between Moonlight Creek and Lorkin Creek. While the track stays fairly close to the ridge crest it’s not flat, Moonlight Divide Track rises and more often than not, falls steeply down towards Moonlight Creek Picnic Area. Despite following the ridge crest the dense tree covering meant that there was little in the way of long range views, the best I got was a glimpse of tree covered summit of the 507 metre Mt Worth to the north.

The soft and grassy Moonlight Divide Track makes for some nice walking.

Mt Worth

Thirty minutes or so after starting along Moonlight Divide Track the track started dropping in earnest, the Mountain Ash are particularly impressive along here and they certainly impressed me. It’s a little hard to get a fresh style of photo of these Mountain Ash I reckon, although that didn’t stop me trying….many times ;) After one final steep descent I emerged from the bush into the grassy Moonlight Creek Picnic Area and my walk was over.

Moonlight Divide Track

The Mountain Ash are stunning down towards the bottom of Moonlight Divide Track I think.

The Dirt.
According to my GPS I walked 11.2 kilometres and climbed 413 metres. I don’t think that the stats tell the whole story on this walk though, the tracks a frequently steep, muddy and slippery so I guess I’d rate this as medium-hard grade walk. Having just built it all up I have to mention that I was using and following a set of Glen Tempest’s notes and map out of his old Daywalks Around Melbourne book and as I mentioned things have changed a fair bit on the ground since this book was published back in 2005. If you want a little less adventure I’d suggest visiting the Parks Vic website and seeing if they have a currant map to download, I suspect that they do. The other thing to do would be to walk this circuit in the opposite direction, from the look of it the tracks were all clearly signposted walking in that direction. No matter what map and notes you use and what direction you walk the steep and incredibly slippery track still has to be negotiated though. If all this sounds a bit daunting then I hope it doesn’t stop anyone visiting this great little park, this place should be a must do for walkers based in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, I think.

Relevant Post.
Moonlight Circuit, Mount Worth State Park, 2016.
Mount Tassie Loop, Grand Strzelecki Track, Tarra-Bulga National Park, 2017.
Corrigan Suspension Bridge and Forest Track, Tarra-Bulga National Park, 2017.

Moonlight Creek Picnic Ground

Dropping back down from Mt Worth into the Yallourn Valley.