Strath Creek and Diggers Gully Waterfall Walk, Mt Disappointment State Forest - June 2020

Margaret Falls

It's been awhile since I've walked up at Mt Disappointment. This place has always provided a few navigational challengers for me, so after the Black Saturday fires ripped through and it's wall of impenetrable regrowth followed, I figured that I'd give the area a miss for awhile. My thoughts were only reinforced after reading about Mr Fiasco's numerous attempts to make sense of the area on his blog... yes, I was pretty content to experience the pain vicariously for awhile.

I'm not too sure what changed my mind. I suspect that it might have been the fact that the area had been in the news recently when a young autistic boy became lost on a small bushwalk in the area and for the next 3 days Victoria held it's collective breath until thankfully he was found by a bushwalker. Whatever the case for some reason Mt Disappointment was back on my radar. With some reasonable rain recently and more than 10 years having passed since the Black Saturday bushfires, I figured that it was about time to head back up for a bit of a look.

As I've mentioned in my experience navigational issues are a feature of walking up here and just getting to the start of the walk can present a few issues in itself. Most of my notes has the walk starting on either Falls Road or Strath Creek Falls Road however neither variant showed up on my sat nav. Back tracking a bit I thought that I'd plug in the road that Falls Road was meant to intersect with which in my notes is down as Murchison Road... no go with the sat nav there either! I'm a little old school (yeah, who'd of guessed!) so I'd come with a couple of paper maps and while my old Vic Map didn't help as far was the track names went the newer Rooftop's sheet did the trick - it seems Murchison Road is actually called Murchison Spur Road now and with that vital piece of the jigsaw in place I was able to navigate my way to the track head.

It was another early start today.

So anyway, after successfully finding the start of the walk I locked the ute and shuffled off into the frigid pre dawn morning. The walk starts fairly easily as I dropped down the tourist track to the Strath Creek Falls Lookout. Even the waterfall itself seems to be known be a few different names, although Strath Creek Falls and Murchison Falls are the most common. Whatever the name of the falls is they are a pretty spectacular sight, particularly after some good rain. Strath Creek plunges around 50 metres into a narrow gorge here and the tourist track provides the easiest spot to get a good look at them, actually the lookout 20 metres from the car park is arguably the best view point. With the sun slowly starting to light up the gorge below the falls and nobody else crazy to be out and about this early on a cold winters morning, things were pretty sweet in my Feral world.

The walk starts off fairly easily.

Arguably the best view of Strath Creek Falls is from the upper lookout a couple of minutes from the car park.

Dropping down to the lower lookout above the head of the falls I left the tourist track and scrambled the last 10 metres down a tributary creek to cross Strath Creek above the waterfall. While this spot looks pretty spectacular it's a fairly dangerous spot, there are no safety rails here and you won't be picking yourself up and dusting yourself off if you go over the falls, that's for sure. After carefully rock hopping my way across the creek I picked up a very faint pad that climbs the steep spur on the east side of the creek, this climb is fairly steep and nowadays a little scrubby towards the bottom, although thankfully after climbing for a few minutes both the scrub and the gradient eased off a fair bit. The climb up here also allows for some more views down into the gorge below the waterfall along with the precipitous spurs dropping into it, which were now being kissed by the first rays of the mornings sun.

It pays to be cautious crossing Strath Creek above the falls.

Climbing away from Strath Creek I got some nice views down the gorge.

The climb away from Strath Creek Falls starts of steep and scrubby but soon eases off.

The sun is creeping closer.

After 15 minutes of solid climbing I emerged from the bush onto the substantial McMahons Road and my navigational issues were over... for awhile. Dropping down McMahons Road heading north I was now getting some nice views north toward the fog blanketed Goulburn River Valley in the distance. Reaching Diggers Gully Road I swung east for awhile, the easy walking continuing as I avoided Digger Link One Track, off to my right. I was now looking for a spur that would drop me down into Diggers Gully and this is the spot that I've never managed to correctly identify on all my previous visits to this area. After passing a fire dam and with Digger Gully Road swinging around to start heading south east I left the dirt road and headed bush trying to find the top of the broad spur in the regrowth. Well to cut a long and boring story short I still haven't managed to drop into Digger Gully on the correct spur, after a few goes I did manage to pick up the spur I was after, however I missed the spot to drop off the side of it as I kept following the crest down into Diggers Gully...yes, I got to where I needed to be and it was an easier decent, however it added a few kilometres to my day... at least I wasn't trying to drop down the Diggers Gully Falls like I had on one of my previous ill fated attempts!

I've just popped out of the bush onto McMahons Road....if you look carefully you can see an old cairn marking the start/finish of the pad down to Strath Creek Falls.

Walking down McMahons Road this morning wasn't without its attractions.

The Goulburn River Valley to my north was still blanketed in fog.

The fire tracks on this stroll are actually pretty well signposted.

Early morning winters sunlight on Diggers Gully Road - I was in a pretty good headspace this morning... considering we are in a bloody pandemic!

Diggers Gully Road

Off piste and looking for my spur down into Diggers Gully.

After locating my spur I was even blessed with a pad... happy days.

The fogs burnt off.

The locals were keeping an eye on me!

Down in Diggers Gully things were pretty straight forward again. Once in the gorge like valley it was just a matter of wandering up steam until I'd arrive at Margaret Falls, although with me having dropped into Diggers Gully a fair way further downstream than I'd planned I had a fair walk up to the falls. More often than not the creek along here flows under ground although today there was a reasonable flow coming down... a good thing considering I was hunting waterfalls this morning although it did make progress up stream a fair bit slower. Eventually, after alternating between rock hopping up the bed of the creek and walking the rough creek sides, I rounded a corner and Margaret Falls was in front of me.... time for smoko!

I dropped into Diggers Gully a fair way down stream from where I'd planned.

After having done this walk a few time before I'm thinking that winter is the best time to visit.

Margaret Falls

The braided Margaret Falls drops around 10 metres I guess and with no tracks getting close it seems to be a spot that isn't visited that often, so it was no surprise that I was here on my own this morning. After successfully negotiating the slippery rocks without dropping the DSLR into the drink whilst getting a couple of photos, it was time to head off in search of my next water feature - Digger Gully Falls. To find Digger Gully Falls I headed downstream for 5 minutes until I met a substantial gully coming in from the south, turning up this this gully I rock hopped my way up the creek for a few minutes before the high Digger Gully Falls came into view as I rounded a corner in the creek. Diggers Gully Falls cascades down from a fair height and are best seen from a little way back if you want to see the whole waterfall, the last 20 metre drop being the only bit visible from near the plunge pool at the base of the falls.

Diggers Gully Falls

Diggers Creek Falls

Diggers Gully Falls are probably best seen from a little way downstream.

Diggers Gully

With my third waterfall of the day ticked off I set off in search of number four. Dropping back down Diggers Gully I was looking for a large tributary coming in from the south west which, fortuitously for me, was just past the spur that I'd used to drop into Diggers Gully. Once I'd identified the correct gully I started climbing up to try and find Tunnel Creek Falls. The climb up this gully was the roughest of the day, the closer I got to the falls the more scrambling that I was doing and with a little bit off water coming down it meant that the rocks were super slippery. After one last scramble I arrived at the bottom of Tunnel Creek Falls, the rock arch after which I'm guessing the falls are named towering above me up the hill. While the water flow here was the least of all the falls that I'd visited today, the extremely rugged topography combined with the remoteness made Tunnel Creek Falls a memorable spot.

The walk back down Diggers Gully was a good one.

Diggers Gully

Leaving Diggers Gully I scrambled up Tunnel Creek.

There are some big ferns along Tunnel Creek.

The scramble up Tunnel Creek gets harder the further up the valley you go.

Tunnel Creek Falls - the falls are a little small but the rugged topography is impressive.

I'm guessing this is why its called Tunnel Creek Falls.

Originally I'd planned on retracing my route back down towards Diggers Gully from Tunnel Falls however while resting at the falls I came up with a cunning plan. Yep, instead of scrambling and rock hopping my way back down stream I'd continue climbing to meet McMahons Road a little to the east of me. Now that all sounds easy enough when I say it quickly - however in reality this was a steep and loose scramble, initially up a big scree field before zig zagging my way up some almost vertical grassy slopes before finishing off with a 400 metre scrub bash along a spur through regrowth to eventually emerge onto McMahons Road. Now I have to say if anyone ever stumbles onto this post and thinks this walk might be a nice one then I can't recommend this little short cut, while it did save me around three kilometres of rough walking the incredibly steep and loose scrambling would be very dangerous to anyone who doesn't share my cat like reflexes - yeah, dead cat!

Instead of dropping back down Tunnel Creek I decided to keep climbing and take a Feral short cut!

While my short cut saved a few kilometres it was a very steep and loose climb.

The steep climb is over, now I'm pushing through some regrowth towards McMahons Road.

Emerging from the scrub onto McMahons Road, things were pretty easy from here on.

Once on McMahons Road the going was pretty easy again as I climbed the deserted dirt road to meet my outward route at Digger Gully Road. Back in familiar territory I continued climbing fairly easily until I arrived at the old cairn beside McMahons Road that marked the spot for me to drop steeply back down to Strath Falls. While it was a lot easier descending this spur than it has been climbing it earlier in the day it still required a bit of caution as the damp surface was pretty slippery in spots. Emerging from the bush at the top of Strath Falls I climbed up the side creek to join up with the tourist lookout track, before slogging my way back up the 144 steps back to the small carpark.

Reaching Diggers Gully Road the circuit part of my walk was over.

Back at the top of Strath Creek Falls again.

After crossing the top of Strath Falls I scrambled up this side gully to re-join the lookout walk.

The Dirt.

I walked 16.1 kilometres and climbed 739 metres on this hard walk according to my GPS. If nicely graded well maintained and sign posted walking tracks are your thing then give this walk a miss I think, however on the other hand if you don't mind a lot of navigation and scrambling then this is a walk to consider. The good news today was that the bush is recovering nicely from the 2009 bushfires and it is once again reasonably enjoyable to walk off piste here which is a good thing I suppose as there are bugger all walking tracks in this area. Mt Thomas and Mr Tempest have all written up walks in this area and I took their notes with me today, I also carried the VicMap Reedy Creek 1:25,000 sheet as well as Rooftop's Toolangi - Macedon Adventure Map.

Relevant Posts.

Mason Falls Circuit, Kinglake National Park, 2018.

Kilmore Walk, 2014.

Only 144 (allegedly) steps to go.

One last look back. That's the spur I'd just dropped down.