Walhalla Railway Reserve Circuit - June 2019

Nice scenery along the Walhalla Railway Reserve.

What do you know, today didn’t turn out exactly as I’d envisaged! My original plan for today was to head down to the Thomson River near Walhalla after work and check out the Chinese Tunnel and Coopers Creek. Somewhat unusually for me I even went to the trouble of doing a quick interweb search earlier in the week to make sure everything was open, there were at least 3 big bushfires in the area last summer so I was a little concerned that the country might still be off limits. My googling came up blank when it came to restrictions though, so I was mildly confident that access wouldn’t be a problem. Yeah, mildly confident until I’d walked 5 metres from my ute towards the Thomson River Station on the tourist railway, where upon I came across a temporary sign declaring that the Thomson River Trail was closed until mid year as a fish ladder was being built near the Chinese Tunnel, hmm. The mid year timeline gave me some hope though, so I decided to do the responsible thing and push on and see what things looked like on the ground out there!

Setting off this morning things looked promising...

....for around thirty seconds. Hmm, this was less then ideal.

After chatting to some of the volunteer workers as I made my way through the Thomson River Station my hopes were lifted a bit when they said that they thought that the fish ladder had been finished, all good then. Things are a little vague getting through the station precinct on this bit of the walk, the go along here is to stay on the track closest to the river, avoiding all the work sheds and fenced compounds with all the no trespassing and authorised access only signs, it all feels a bit wrong but it’s the right way. Once past the last shed I climbed up onto the old railway alignment and set off towards the Chinese Tunnel…and then almost immediately climbed again following a foot track as it climbed around the head of a gully to avoid an unsafe old railway bridge.

Thomson River Railway Bridge.

After getting through the station precinct I climbed around the head of a gully on this walking track.

The track by-passes this old bridge.

Once around the old bridge picked up the railway alignment again and started to make some forward progress. As you’d assume this old railway formation makes for very easy walking as it contours its way around the steep hillsides high above the Thomson River. The forest along here alternating between dry Eucalyptus with a fairly open understory on the northern aspects mixed in with damp forest and a lush understory where the track contoured in and out of the gullies. It didn’t take me long and I started to walk through areas that had been torched in the bush fires last summer but things were still looking good as far as access goes, we’ll for around another 5 minutes anyway! Rounding a corner I came across a safety fence that seemed to stretch on for ever, now normally I can be a little caviller when it comes to this kind of thing but the amount of work that must of gone into installing this fence gave me reason to pause….maybe they were fair dinkum? Trudging my way a little further along the old railway my fears were confirmed when I got a look down the steep slopes to the Thomson River and saw lots of heavy earthworks still going on. Scratch the Chinese Tunnel.

The old railway alignment makes for very pleasant walking.

Hmm, this looks serious! 

Looking down to the Thomson River from the old railway...scratch the Chinese Tunnel off today's walk.

The views across to the dry ridges on the other side of the Thomson River are sweet.

Shuffling my way along the old railway towards the old Platina Siding I was now was faced with a pretty short and easy walk if I headed down to Coopers Creek and then returned to the ute. While easy did hold some appeal for my ageing Feral body the effort involved in getting down here really had me wanting a walk that would at least raise my heart rate a bit. In the dim dark recesses of my mind (now that’s a scary place!) I had a vague recollection of reading about a circuit walk leading out from the Thomson River Station and looping up through Rawson before dropping back down again in one of John & Marion Siseman’s old books. Arriving at the old Platina Siding I dropped my pack and had a bit of a squizz at the old Tyrone Thomas mud map I was carrying. Now the mud map I had was dated back to 1998 which was bad enough, but I was thinking Mr Siseman’s old description would of gone back even further than that….and besides the book was safely back at home in my bookcase.

It's not all dry, open forest.

The road bridge at Platina.

If you poke around the old Platina Siding a bit there's a bit of history scattered about the bush.

Platina Siding.

I'm thinking that this open shed at Platina Siding would be welcome on a rainy day.

Of course I did what any responsible walker would do, yes I avoided Mt Thomas’ walk down to Coopers Creek and set off on what I guessed was Mr Siseman’s route. After a close look at the mud map and a scroll through my GPS topo map it looked like I’d found a circuit walk that would eventually drop me back down to the Thomson River a little bit up stream from the station, which may or may not have been the walk that I remember Mr Siseman describing. Avoiding the track down to Coopers Creek I continued on along the railway reserve as it contoured away from the Thomson River into the Nelson Creek Valley, crossing numerous ferny gullies as I made my way to Knotts Siding.

Heading towards Knotts Siding above Nelson Creek the track gets a little damper.

It was a cracker of an afternoon.

There an information sign at Knotts Siding beside the Walhalla Road.

Knotts Siding was the spot that I’d decided to leave the old railway and climb up to the Rawson township, in hindsight this was the least inspiring section of todays walk as I climbed the grassy verge beside the bitumen road. While the walk up to Rawson wasn’t great it wasn’t terrible either, the grassy verge was wide, the road almost deserted and climbing higher the open paddocks allowed for the longest views for the day. Entering the Rawson township I followed a series of back streets as I made my way towards Depot Road. Rawson is like one of those towns that are scattered around Australia in that it started life as a workers town, in Rawsons case the town was built to cater for workers building the Thosmson River Dam in the late 1970’s and early 80’s. The old workers houses now home a mixture of weekenders and local residents.

Climbing towards Rawson wasn't the worst walking that I've ever done.

There is a nice grassy verge to walk on.

Meandering my way through the back streets of Rawson.

After meandering my way through the backstreets of Rawson I successfully emerged onto Depot Road, so far so good, now I just had to find my way back down to the Thomson River. Initially at least all was pretty good as I headed out of town along Depot Road, the road soon changing from bitumen to dirt and them slowly deteriorating into a 4wd track. According to my maps Depot Road would become Old Depot Road and that was the track that should take me back to the ute, it'll all sounded pretty easy…suspiciously easy actually! The first sign that I had that things might not be as straight forward on the ground as they appeared on my maps was when I shuffled passed an extensive trail bike unloading area, speaking from experience when trail bikes are using the forest it normally means numerous tracks heading of into the bush at all tangents, and so it was this afternoon.

Leaving town on Depot Road.

Reaching an un-signposted three way junction I headed down here, keeping to the right of Depot Hill. I'm guessing that this is Old Depot Road.

With numerous un-mapped tracks I was paying close attention to my GPS and the local topography along this section of the walk, so it goes without saying that my sometimes recalcitrant GPS choose this time to drop a cog! Probably because I was keeping a close eye on the topography and direction that I was heading it meant that I picked up the error pretty quickly, and re-booting the unit all was sweet again (check out my map and you’ll see the spot). It wasn’t only that the tracks weren’t appearing on my maps that made things a little vague it was also the fact that none of then had any signposting. I kind of expected the occasional un-mapped track but I was thinking that the one track that was on my maps, Old Depot Track, would of been signposted occasionally.

I stayed right here and kept descending. 

Old Depot Track in the late afternoon winters sun.

There are one or two switchbacks heading down Old Depot Road.

Still progress was still being made in vaguely the right direction and the mid winter afternoon was a cracker so really I didn’t have much to complain about. When the track started to drop in earnest I was confident that I’d picked the right route and when the Thomason River valley came into view through the trees I was sure of it. After a switchback the Old Depot Track crossed a damp ferny side gully and met up with a walking track which came in from the left, this is the track that I’d walked on my Walhalla Tram, Train, Trail Walk a couple of years ago. Now I was back in familiar territory I knew that the walk was as good as over, rounding a bend on the 4wd track the Thomson River road bridge suddenly came into view and a moment or two later I was back at the ute taking my boots off.

With the Thomson River Valley coming into view in knew that I was on the right track.

The Pink Heath is out.

There is an old mine shaft right beside Old Depot Road.

The Dirt.
According to my GPS I walked 13.5 kilometres and climbed 288 metres on this medium grade walk. The main issue with this walk was navigating my way back down to the river, there are a lot of un-signposted and un-mapped tracks although keeping a close eye on the map got me back down without any geographical embarrassment this afternoon. When I got home I checked out some of Mr Siseman’s old books and found this walk written up in his Melbourne’s Mountains book, while the book dates back to 1993 the notes are still accurate enough, while a lot of the tracks aren’t on his old mud map they weren’t on my newer GPS topo maps either. This walk features a bit of history in the old railway, river and forest views and the opportunity for a feed or a drink up at Rawson near the halfway point. I’d probably avoid the Depot Road/Old Depot Road section of the walk on weekends and public holidays if you aren’t keen on my two stroke brothers and sisters shattering the peace.

Relevant Posts.
Walhalla Train, Tram Trail Walk, Walhalla Historic Area, 2016.
Walhalla Town Walk, 2017.
Walhalla to Mushroom Rocks, AAWT, Baw Baw National Park, 2017.

The walking track to the Old Steel Bridge meets Old Depot Road here (it's a little overgrown in the centre of the photo).

With the Thomson River road bridge coming into sight through the trees my walk was over.