Melbourne, Adelaide & The Flinders Ranges - 1986

Well I'm now stuck at home on the couch for a few weeks, with no decent exercise allowed for around 4 weeks I'll be fat as a pig by the time I get out on my next decent walk. So what am I going to do with all this downtime, well....I've been sitting on these photos for a few years, yeah around 30 years actually. With the photos slowly turning to dust in the old photo album I thought this might be a good time to break out the scanner and digitise them before they fade away totally. This is the trip that started to turn the Feral Kid into the Feral Man. I spent half of 1986 touring around the country living and sleeping in an old XB Panelvan, yes it hasn't always been flash hotels and business class flights on my feral adventures. I did this trip with my mate Leigh, we both quit our jobs and had an open ended timeline, so it was freedom on the wallaby for as long as we could afford it.

As I said our vehicle of choice was a Ford XB Panelvan, a vehicle chosen because it had enough room for us to both sleep in, it was a reliable car and if and when it did break down it should be fairly easy to fix. With both of us having grown up working on cars we were both reasonably competent on the tools, Leigh in particular was a good spanner man, I was better behind the wheel. We bought the blue beast for a couple of grand a couple of weeks before leaving, the panel van had been fitted with a 4 speed gearbox which helped seal the deal, although we had to put a new clutch in it before we left, done one afternoon in my front driveway for a couple of hundred bucks...try that now days! 

Our mighty XB Panelvan, putting a new clutch in before we left in my driveway.

The way I look at things is that is if everything turned to shit in my life I could always afford to do this. It might sound rough as guts but it was a great adventure, waking up and going wherever you like had a certain freedom about it. Now days the Grey Nomads have caught the bug and there are a few of them touring around Australia in old vans, the panel van/station wagon/van is also the back packers preferred mode of transport too, it would appear, well when they're not in Wicked vans. This was a massive trip so I'm going to have to break it up into at least 4 parts, I'll link the posts up when I finish. This post will also be more self indulgent than even my normal waffle, the photos were taken on old camera's and there appears to be a lot of photos of both Leigh and myself as well as a fair number of the blue beast. While the posts on this trip are mainly for family, possibly friends may get a laugh out of it too. The posts of this trip will be very photo centric, I'll use text to link things up occasionally but I'll mainly tell the story from the captions on the photos, interestingly I must have had a premonition about the blog (and the internet for that matter) because I'd written basic notes on the back of the photos. One other thing, I was a product of the time and circumstances that I grew up in. I'd dropped out of school years earlier and gone straight into blue collar work, society in general wasn't as aware of certain social issues that it is now and I certainly wasn't very socially aware, although looking back now I can see glimmers of the person that I'd turn into.

Leaving Melbourne we headed down towards the Great Ocean Road, this was our first stop at Point Lonsdale.

Looking out to Bass Strait from Point Lonsdale.

Our first breakdown, still on day 1, a screw fell out of the number plate!

Our first day saw us motoring down the Great Ocean Road, passing the Twelve Apostles we eventually made our way to a caravan park in Warrnambool. Our night in Warrnambool was spent at the Lady Bay Hotel having a couple of beers and watching a local band, before we retired to the van, for us to both sleep in the back we had to stash all our gear in a small two person tent a routine that we would get used to in the coming months.

Day 1 and we were motoring down the Great Ocean Road, a spot that we would revisit a lot over the following years.

My first visit to the Port Campbell area provided plenty of opportunities to use our camera's.

We spent our first night in a caravan park in Warrnambool, there was no where near as many people travelling around as there is now, we never had trouble finding a spot to stop for the night.

After cruising along the wild west coastline of Victoria we crossed over the border and headed up the South Australian coast to Adelaide. Once in Adelaide we set up base at the Levi Caravan Park in Vale Park, a couple of kilometres from the CBD, interestingly the Levi Caravan Park is still around and thriving. We spent some time in Adelaide checking out the sights and catching up with some friends, this generally involved heading to a pub to drink lots of beer and check out a band, I remember a particularly boozy night watching The Angles, I'm not 100% sure where but it could of been at The Arkaba, another place that is still going strong.

Blue Lake in Mount Gambier.

I've been back to Blue Lake again over the years, there's a good walk around the crater of Blue Lake and the adjoining Valley Lake.

Valley Lake, Mt Gambier.

Hey, hey our second breakdown, a stone rattling around in the brake drum!

On an excursion into the Adelaide CBD, it looks like I had a bit of a denim fetish happening.

We actually stayed in on sight vans if we were hanging around for awhile, this was our Adelaide home in the Levi Caravan Park.

As you can see we were very well organised and everything had its place, check out our collection of music cassettes on the left of the photo along with our boom box, how times have changed!

The Adelaide O-Bahn Busway had just opened in 1986 and ran right behind our caravan park.

The Torrens River also ran right behind the caravan park, nowadays the Torrens River is part of a linear park that stretches from the CBD to the hills.

Being a couple of card carrying bogans we went to check out the Australian Touring Car Championship at the Adelaide International Raceway, yeah they didn't always race around the city.

Back in town, it looks like I need a feed...and a haircut.

I've got this as being in Black Hills Conservation Park on the back of my photos, but it looks a little like Morialta to me looking at the photos now, anyone know?

Err, I probably wouldn't Leigh.

We decided to jump on a bus tour to the Barossa Valley, wine tourism was still in its infancy back in 86.

Up the back of the bus at Menglers Hill Lookout.

Our tour of the Barossa Valley took us to Barossa Reservoir and its Whispering Wall, the arch of the dam wall can carry sound clearly around its 140 metre

After spending awhile in Adelaide and depleting our cash reserves a bit we decided to head up into the mid north of the state and check out The Flinders Rangers. Our rambling tour north had us head through the Flinders Rangers all the way up to Arkaroola before we returned to Leigh Creek. From Leigh Creek made an attempt on a very wet Birdsville Track before retreating and making our way back to Adelaide via Mt Remarkable National Park. Once in Adelaide I had a quick day out at the horse races with my friend Rachel before we once again jumped into the blue beast and headed off towards Perth, but don't worry that'll be in part 2!

Toasting marsh mellows, yeah we were really hardcore back in the day!

Camped at Wilpena Pound.

The walls of Wilpena Pound.

I think this is the sight of the old Hills Homestead in Wilpena Pound.

Some idiot on a tree on the walk into Wilpena Pound along Wilpena Creek.

Mt Ohlssen-Bagge (I think) from the old camp ground at Wilpena Pound.

We checked out the Moralana Scenic Drive.

Before heading to Arkaroo Rock and its indigenous art, this is the view from the cave.

Arkaroo Rock in the Flinders Ranges National park.

The native pines in the Flinders Ranges provided a little shade, this was at the car park for the short walk to Arkaroo Rock.

We then pointed the panel van north and headed into some even more remote country, this is on the old road up to Blinman, way before it was sealed.

These grids were knocking around the front end on the XB.

Heading towards Arkaroola we checked out Chambers Gorge on the way.

Leigh got to try out his brand new Rambo knife, the knife came with a compass in its handle and a needle and thread to sew up any wounds, perfect for us hardcore suburban adventurers! Relax the feral goat was already cactus way before Leigh got near it.

Walking up Chambers Creek in Chambers Gorge.

Chambers Gorge.

Arkaroola had only just recently started to open up to large scale tourism when we visited, it was a long way off the sealed roads in those days and not a lot of people had 4wd vehicles. This is the camping area at Arkaroola Resort in 1986.

The mountains around Arkaroola at sunset.

And some of the Arkaroola locals.

The old Shingle Back looks a little cranky with us.

We made an attempt on the Birdsville Track but contrary to the photo it wasn't the dust that stopped us but the mud, we managed to get about 200 kilometres up the track before the mud got to bad.

Back in Leigh Creek the day after our Birdsville attempt, the blue beast is looking a bit the worse for wear.

Leigh, chilling out in Leigh Creek.

There was a bit of weather around Leigh Creek, back in the day most of the roads around the Flinders Ranges were made of red dirt...or mud if they were wet.

So after retreating from the Birdsville Track we started out drive back to Adelaide, stopping at the Yourambilla Caves near Hawker we checked out some more indigenous art, this is the view from the caves.

Although Leigh didn't look so keen on the climb up to the caves.

Some of the indigenous art at Yourambulla Caves.

On our way down to Mambray Creek in Mt Remarkable National Park we stopped off to check out the extensive view from Horrocks Pass Lookout. That's Spencer Gulf in the distance.

Our camp at Mambary Creek.

Doing the dishes at Mambary Creek, Leigh looks impressed.

The emus were particularly friendly (and still are from what I've heard) at Mambary Creek.

The Dirt.
On this section of our road trip we probably covered around 5000 kilometres, our XB Falcon was still going fairly well with only some minor gremlins that we could easily fix ourselves. Living out of the back of the car was going alright too, although it was a luxury to check into an on-sight van every now and again and spread out. Some of the places that we travelled to back in 86 I've revisited and written up on the blog, here's the links;
Chambers Gorge
Wilpena Pound
Arkaroola
Adelaide here and here.
Mt Remarkable

We returned to Adelaide so I could have my day at the races, notice that I had my best clothes on.

Mt Everard Circuit, Kinglake National Park - July 2016

The wooded hills of Kinglake National Park.

It's election day in Australia today, which means it's time to head for the hills. I wanted to do a reasonable length walk today, but one with no chance of any Feral carnage, as I've got an appointment with the surgeon on Monday and he wouldn't be to impressed if I rocked up to my surgery with bark already missing. Kinglake National Park with its network of walking tracks and fire tracks sounded like a safe bet, enough hills and a long enough walk to get the heart rate up a bit, and the open forest should provide for a fairly incident free walk. I decided to re-visit the Mt Everard Circuit, a walk I haven't done since the big bush fires ripped through a few years ago.

Shelley Harris Track.

I pulled up to the deserted, slightly damp Jehosaphat Gully Car Park at 10am, as usual the hardest navigational challenge for the day was finding the start of the route in the large picnic area. This area has changed a bit since the fires I think and while my notes suggested staying right at the beginning of the route, as far as I could see there was only one track to take. For the rest of the walk along Shelley Harris Track I kept left at any track junction before eventually coming out at Mt Jerusalem Track. In my fading memory I remember Shelley Harris Track as being a ferny rainforest walk with a bit of duck boarding to ease your passage, however today, while there was a fair bit of damp ferny stuff there was also longer sections through dry eucalypt forest, I'm not sure if its my memory or if the fires have changed the nature of the land. This section of track was also threatening to bring my cunning plan to complete the walk without any misadventure undone, there were a few large trees down and a lot of scratchy vegetation crowding the track, I was somewhat more cautious than usual as I pushed my along the slippery muddy track through the scrub.

Shelley Harris Track has a few ferny sections.

But is mainly drier forest.

There is still a lot of evidence of the Black Saturday Fires.

Eventually I popped out of the scrub onto the wide Mt Jerusalem Track, all the rain we'd been having in the last few weeks though meant that even the fire track sections of the stroll were slippery so it was a cautious Feral walker who made his way towards the next landmark, Cookson Hill. This walk is never very far from civilisation and the track over Cookson Hill parralled the major Heidelberg-Kinglake Road for a couple of kilometres, although the traffic noise was far enough away that it wasn't annoying. 

Blue sky, things were looking up.

Mt Jerusalem Track.

There isn't much of a view from the summit of Cookson Hill.

Crossing back over the main road I headed up Mt Everard Track, after an initial climb this fire track makes for easy walking, the open forest along here was a mass of colour as wattle competed with the  pink heath, backed up by the ubiquitous grass trees and eucalypts. This section of track largely follows a ridge that runs between Mt Beggary and Mt Everard so apart from crawling around taking photos of all the flora I got a few views of the surrounding forested ridges and valleys. Bypassing slightly to the west of the summit of Mt Everard I picked up the lesser Bundy Track and commenced the steep drop down into the valley of Dry Creek.

Initially the route climbs bait on Mt Everard Track before levelling out along a ridge.

Bundy Track is more of a traditional walking track, initially it sidles along the side of a ridge for awhile before heading steeply down. The descent is long and slippery even in the dry, so I was once again taking it slow and steady, I'd been lucky so far today and had only had a few spots of rain but the ground was still wet and slippery. Eventually the steep walking track comes out at Old Kinglake Road on Dry Creek. Dry Creek wasn't dry today though with a reasonable flow of water cascading its way downstream, the water flowing over the grass made for some nice photographic opportunities. The gravel Old Kinglake Road is a nice stroll, with the small creek on one side of the road and a mixture of bushland and farmland on the other side, the road walk was actually an interesting interlude.

The Wattle was out along Mt Everard Track.

Make sure you take the walking track heading into the trees here.

Bundy Track drops fairly steeply.

Reaching the old Steels Creek Picnic Ground I turned up Mt Jerusalem Track and started my climb back up to Shelley Harris Track. I suppose this next section is the crux of the walk but its a fairly easy climb really, the 300 metres might sound a lot but its a fairly easy gradient. The climb up Mt Jerusalem Track once again provided some more views of the surrounding ranges, although now there was some ominous dark clouds that drew my attention, hmmm maybe I'd be getting wet before I got back to the ute. Once again as I climbed the forest opened up and the wildflowers and grass trees started to appear. Mt Jerusalem Track actually bypasses the summit of Mt Jerusalem to the east, the wooded summit would be easy enough to get to but with a view almost the same as from the track I didn't bother scrub bashing over to it today.

Dry Creek wasn't dry today.

Walking a short section along Old Kinglake Road wasn't to bad for a road bash really.

The start of the climb up Mt Jerusalem Track.

There looked to be a bit of weather coming in as I climbed up Mt Jerusalem Track.

The upper reaches of Mt Jerusalem track feature more open forest.

Meeting up with Shelley Harris Track again the walk was almost over, I just had to retrace my mornings route back to Jehosaphat Gully Car Park, now on this mornings walk out I'd noticed that I'd covered a lot more ground than my notes would of suggested, so on my return journey I figured that I'd pay a little bit more attention and try and work out the discrepancies. My guide book suggested that the walk was 1.9 kilometres, the Parks Vic signpost suggested it was 3.4 kilometres, so I was interested what my GPS would say. Shelley Harris Track drops down initially to cross Pinchgut Creek in a bit of a ferny glen, it looks like the creek has been scoured clean in a big flood and it was fairly easy to scramble down into its bare rocky bed, once again I used my patented camera on knee technique to try and get some photos of the rushing water, I actually had a gorilla pod in my pack but I was to lazy to dig it out. 

3.4 kilometrtes, OK.

1.9 kilometres, hmm.

We'll see what the GPS says when I get back to the ute.

Climbing out of the creek bed I continued my walk back to the ute, seeing some fungi I decided to crawl around on the ground and see what I could do with the camera, once I was down in the mud my  camera battery decided that it was time for a charge, ok, so crawling over to my pack I grabbed a new battery out, thinking to myself that this fungi better be a good shot. Slotting the fresh battery in though I got an error up on the screen telling me that I needed to use a battery suitable for the camera, now I've been using this battery for over 3 years so that was odd, what was even odder was that the battery was obviously powering up the camera because the LED screen was working well enough that it could tell me to get an appropriate battery, strange. Anyway the fungi would have to wait for another day, luckily I was only a few hundred metres from the ute so the post want suffer from any lack of photos. Arriving back at the ute I checked my GPS, it said that I'd walked 2.9 kilometres, so its shorter than Parks Vic suggests but longer than my guide book said. Over the years I've used numerous guide books but my favourite author is John Chapman, his notes and maps are normally very good, but his distances are frequently quite different to what I get on my GPS, sometimes I put it down to wandering around taking photos or navigating off track, but sometimes, like today there is no obvious reason. Interestingly, when I'm using other guide books they are a lot closer to what my romantic GPS says, Mr Tempest's distances are pretty close to spot on and Ms Ball's are almost perfect. Mr Thomas' distances are sometimes way out too, but then again he was using a sextant and an abacus to calculate a lot of his figures!

Crossing Pinchgut Creek on Shelly Harris Track.

Pinchgut Creek, using my knee as a tripod.

The Dirt.

I walked 22.8 kilometres on this stroll today and climbed 844 metres. I'd rate this as a medium grade stroll, the whole walk is either on walking tracks or more commonly fire tracks with a short section on the very quiet gravel Old Kinglake Road. The dry open forest is recovering well after the 2009 fires that decimated Kinglake and its surrounding bush. Like I mentioned above I used notes from the house of Chapman out of their Day Walks Melbourne book, it's walk number 27 in the book. I think Mr Tempest has also written up this walk. This isn't a really remote walk, you can see the high rise buildings in the CBD of Melbourne from some of the high points but in spots it feels quite remote. Parks Vic have a lot of free stuff on line for Kinglake National Park and it would pay to check out their latest information as I think there has been a few changes on the ground since I was last there before the fires.

Here's a link to a walk I did at the nearby Andrew Hill back in 2015.

The bush in Kinglake National Park is slowly recovering from the fires, but you don't have to look far to see evidence of that terrible day.

So my GPS comes out at 2.9 kilometres for the Shelley Harris section, I reckon 2.9 feels about right, but who knows and probably more relevantly, who cares?

Five Mile Beach, Wilsons Promontory National Park - September 1990

I'm going to tweak the way I layout the blog slightly from now on, instead of littering the post with links I'm going to try and put any relevant links in the dirt section of my posts, the theory being that you can finish one post off before clicking the link to another, as it is now you sometimes read one paragraph before being presented with a link to another walk that I did, probably back in the dark ages, I'm hoping it'll prove slightly easier to navigate. Anyway, here's another blast from the past, this is a quick story of my first ever overnight walk up in the remote northern section of Wilsons Promontory. I was accompanied on this walk by my friend Naomi and as was usual we walked after finishing our night shift off. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great on this stroll, it rained solidly all night as we worked and it didn't let up on the drive down to the car park at the end of Five Mile Road, oh well with no room to move as far as walking days were concerned we headed off from the car into the passing showers.

Day 1.     Five Mile Beach Camp       18 Kilometres.

The walk into Five Mile Beach isn't normally the most inspiring walk at the prom, its basically a road bash for the majority of the distance. Today its main redeeming feature was that it allowed us to travel at a fairly good pace, with more or less constant rain we didn't linger long on the walk in. Even in the inclement weather the open heathland allowed us some fairly extensive views down towards Corner Inlet, although the Vereker Range to our south was cloaked in cloud. The fire track is a bit of a roller coaster affair and at times you can see it snaking kilometres into the distance which can make for a depressing view if your pushing on keen to get your tent up and get out of the rain. With the majority of the route crossing low heathland the highlight of the walk in was probably the crossing of Chinaman Creek and its surrounding rainforest, this is always a welcome spot if your walking on a hot day.

Crossing Miranda Creek in the rain on our walk in.

With the rain today though we just kept our heads down and pushed on to our next notable way point, Saint Kilda Junction. This is the spot where the Northern Circuit Track used to head up over the hills to Johnny Souey Cove, if I ever find my photos of this track I'll do a retro post as the track has long since been closed for revegetation. Today though we continued on towards Five Mile Beach of which the views soon started to unfold, it wasn't the approaching coast that was holding our attention though, it was the flooded track. As the route descended towards a swampy section where the track crossed Miranda Creek we got to a section of duck boarding that was totally flooded, the tannin stained water making it a little difficult to see the submerged planks under the surface. Very slowly we edged our way across, neither of us keen to fall off the side and find out how deep the dark water actually was. After getting safely across Miranda Creek we were soon walking north along the soft sand of Five Mile Beach to the camping area tucked into the Tea-Tree above the inlet of Miranda Creek. With the rain coming down and both of us having just finished night shift it was no hardship to spend the rest of the afternoon snoozing, awakening near sunset to check out the storm ravaged beach and inlet.

Miranda Creek at the camp site.

Looking south along Five MileBeach towards Sealers Cove.

Day 2      Five Mile Road Car Park    18 Kilometres       36 Kilometres Total

The good news is that the next day arrived without the accompaniment of the pitter-patter of rain on the tents. After a relaxing breakfast we packed up camp with only the occasional shower passing through. With today being an exact retrace of yesterdays walk we were walking across familiar country, after crossing the submerged section of duck boarding we ticked off the kilometres back to the car. The weather today was a lot better, we even managed to get some large patches of blue sky which made the walking a lot more pleasant than yesterdays. Back in the day we tended to walk fairly quickly, almost as if subconsciously we were anxious to complete our walks and get back to civilisation, and this day was no different. Now days I tend to linger as long as possible in the bush, I can only put this down to being a bit more comfortable in my skin as well as in the bush than I was when I was young, well that and the fact that I'm old and broken now so I have no choice but to take it easy! After arriving back at the car we headed back to Melbourne no doubt planning our next adventure on the way.

Crossing back over Miranda Creek on day 2, at least it wasn't raining today. You can see how narrow the submerged planks were, we weren't keen to find out how deep the water was if we fell off!

That's the old route over to Johnny Souey Cove.

The Dirt.

We walked 36 kilometres on this two day walk, I suppose I'd rate this as a medium walk although its borderline easy. The camping area at the northern end of Five Mile Beach used to be (and probably still is from what I've heard), a pretty basic affair. There was no toilet and water was obtained from the creek or from a spring on the northern bank of the creek, the camping site was a sandy section in the Tea-Tree on the south bank of Miranda Creek. It was wild spot though, particularly on a stormy day, the Northern Prom is a lot different to the Southern Prom, it's different in a good way though and while maybe not as scenically pretty as the southern end, the stark wilderness of the north has its own rugged appeal to me. I haven't returned to Five Mile Beach since this walk so I guess I'm due. We probably didn't use a guide book on this walk, but we would of carried the Wilsons Promontory 1:50,000 Vicmap.

For anyone who can't quite get enough of these retro posts, here's a link to another post about a walk up in the Northern Prom that I did to Tin Mine Cove back in the glory days, and lastly here's another link to a day walk I did a little more recently to Vereker Outlook and Millers Landing, also up in the north of Wilsons Promontory National Park.

The walk along Five Mile Road can get a little depressing when you can see the route meandering along for 
kilometres in the distance. This photo is just before the road drops down to cross Barry Creek on our return walk.

By the way I'm posting this from my hospital bed, I've just woken up from my surgery. But then again maybe I'm not really awake, watching the news it appears that we are trapped in some never ending nightmare. Pity the poor, the sick, the planet, the young, the indigenous Australians, and the LBGT community. My (admittedly somewhat foggy brain) see's Turnbull getting rolled within 6 months by the redneck right. I think eventually Labor is going to have to eat that shit sandwich and start preferencing The Greens and vice-versa in some kind of a loose coalition, in the short term they may lose some seats but if the two progressive parties work together and they form some kind of coalition then they would be in a much stronger position overall. The Murdoch rags squeal about deals with The Greens but The Greens actually represent far more voters than the National's, although the News Limited Media don't seem as concerned about deals between The Liberals and The Nats. I must still be asleep though because now there saying that our Queensland brothers and sisters have re elected Pauline Hanson, its obviously all a nightmare and I'll wake up tomorrow and all will be good!