Lyrebird Forest Walk, Mirboo North Regional Park - June 2019

This area was severely burnt back in 2009.

Most of the forest is recovering well from the fires.

This is another of those walks that I haven’t revisited since the big fires ripped through back in 2009. It’s a fair drive from home and only a fairly short walk so it hasn’t been on my must do list, however through a serendipitous set of circumstances I found myself in the area this afternoon and decided to pull on the boots and check things out. This walk is one of those walks that has been adopted by a community group and the volunteers have done a wonderful job here, right from the get go all the signage and infrastructure was spot on.

Setting off I meandered my way through a plethora of signposting.

Leaving the carpark I dropped down the wide track towards the Little Morwell River, almost straight away I found myself walking through a tunnel of regrowth. After avoiding a track to the left that crosses the river (and could be a short cut at the back end of the walk) I continued heading east with the river never too far away. Now it could be my ageing memory but I thought that the walk along here use to feature a lot more in the way of river views, now days though I only really got a couple of glimpses of the water, well without going on a Feral scrub bash anyway. Not that it mattered that much as within 15 minutes I arrived at the eastern border of the this section of the park, crossed the river and started climbing into the hills.

The forest walk beside the Little Morwell River is taking a little longer to get back to normal. 

The Friends of the Lyrebird Forest Walk appear to do a great job maintaining this walk.

The track climbs initially with open rural farmland on one side and native scrub on the other before heading away from the fence line into the bush. My old map and notes now suggested I was heading for a series of quite dirt roads that would transport me around to the spot where I’d start the descent back down to the river. After shuffling along my walking track for five minutes or so I started to suspect that things were now a little bit different on the ground, instead of walking the quiet dirt roads  I was able to stay on a nice, well graded walking track all the way to the spot where I had to start to descend again. Walking along here in the late afternoon I was even able to get a few glimpses through the canopy of the rolling South Gippsland hills.

After crossing the river I climbed with some farm land to my right.

The climbing doesn't last long.

Mirboo North Regional Park

I was getting a few glimpses through the canopy towards the rolling green farmland.

Arriving at an interesting signpost that partially survived the 2009 fires I started down the fairly gentle descent, the late afternoon sun lighting up the dry open forest. I’m thinking wildflowers would feature up here in Spring although today it was mostly just Pink and White Heath. Dropping down I arrived at the turn off for the Coral Fern Gully Walk, this bit of the walk being pretty much as I remember it and even more or less matching Mr Thomas’ old mud map. Before turning left down the Coral Fern Gully Walking Track I took a short diversion to the right to check out the sign posted Fern Gully Lookout. This track wasn’t in my notes or map but it is very clear and well sign posted so there was no real drama, although with me gazing into the setting sun it meant that the lookout was a little average. Maybe mornings are better here if you want to take pictures.

Dropping down towards Coral Fern Gully Walk.

Looking directly into the setting sun the photos from Tree Fern Lookout are a little uninspiring I think.

After my short Fern Gully Lookout side trip I took the sign posted Coral Fern Gully Track heading east. This is another clear and well maintained track and made for an easy walk as I slowly lost a bit of height and dropped into a bit of a damp gully. This damp gully is where I crossed the headwaters of the tiny Coral Fern Gully Creek, unfortunately with the gully being well and truly in the shade I didn’t manage to even get a half decent photo of the Coral Ferns that grow in this damp spot. Climbing out of the gully I soon emerged into the afternoon sun again, for a few minutes anyway.

Completing the loop section along Coral Fern Gully Walk.

Re-joining my outward route I got some more nice late afternoon views across the green paddocks.

After meeting my outward route beside the farmland it was now just a matter of retracing my route back to the ute. Dropping back down to cross the Little Morwell River I was again below the suns reach. My walk back through the green tunnel beside the river consisted of me shuffling along for a few metres before I’d spot some exotic (for me) form of fungi, I’d then crawl around on the damp ground on my stomach trying to get a half decent photo. Once I’d got a photo or 200 I’d stagger back to my feet, brush of the dirt and leaches and then walk a few metres before inevitably finding more fungi and repeating the process. After all that it’s somewhat disappointing that I really didn’t manage to get a good photo, I’ve mentioned it on my blog before but if anyone wants to see good shots of fungi then they should check out my friend Jane’s Mildly Extreme Blog. An hour and half after leaving the ute I was back in the drivers seat heading home after a nice little stroll.

The Little Morwell River.

I spent a bit of time crawling around on my belly trying to do justice to the fungi on my return journey.

The Dirt.
I walked 6.2 kilometres and climbed 117 metres on this easy walk, according to my GPS. Now I mentioned that I hadn’t done this stroll since before the area was severely burnt in the 2009 bushfires, so it was interesting to see how things stacked up this afternoon. The answer to that is it depends (yep, I’ve got splinters on my arse from sitting on that fence!). The drier open forest higher up the slopes appears to be in very good nick (apart from the usual Cinnamon Fungus that blights a lot of our bush) however the damper country down near the river will take a bit longer before it regains it’s previous beauty as it’s really just a wall of dense green regrowth at the moment. Now I have to give a shout out to the Friends of the Lyrebird Forest Walk Volunteers, these people really do a fabulous job maintaining the track and the park from what I can see, the signposting and walking infrastructure is about as good as it gets in Australia I think. The only published walking notes for this walk that I know of are in some of Tyrone Thomas’ old guidebooks although the track has been re-routed since they were published so you are better off checking out Parks Vic on-line stuff I think.

Relevant Posts.
Moonlight Track Big Circuit, Mt Worth State Park, 2019.
The Waterfall Bower, Mt Worth State Park, 2018.
Mt Tassie Loop, Grand Strzelecki Track, Tarra-Bulga National Park, 2017.

Little Morwell River.

The late afternoon lighting up the canopy near the carpark.

This is another one of those walks where you probably won't be over run with other walkers.