High Country After the Fires Loop
For
Easter we did a loop of 900km
Melbourne to
Melbourne thru the high country
from bottom to top to see how the country side looked after the fires.
The main part of the trip was from Princess hwy south of
Dargo to
Dargo
-
Talbotville - Kingwell
bridge -
Eaglevale track to Wonnagatta valley.
Then north via Harry Shepards track to Abbeyyard and on to
Mansfield via Whitfield.
Unfortunately the bush was burnt to varying degrees over the entire trip.
Seen plenty of fires before but never on such a widespread scale.
If that wasn't enough we even came across a burning bus near the end of the bush which according to fire
services that soon showed up looked and smelt like it was a covert Majurania factory.
Left
Melbourne 7am thursday in pouring rain which was a great bitumen
test for
a newly fitted set of 255/85/16 Bighorn M/T tyres.
They did
well here in the rain but this was only damp spot on an
Easter of near perfect conditions.
Fire damage began
well south of
Dargo and about 1/2 of the tracks were closed.
What we did notice for the first time however was that many tracks were open but
with yellow A4 sized signs at there entrance warning of increased driving hazards.
Store owners at
Dargo advised business was now good but they needed a lot more to catch up.
North of
Dargo to
Talbotville the damage really began to show itself but essentially
the McMillan rd to
Talbotville road appeared much as it used to be but with some small signs of recent roadworks and tree
clearing.
Talbotville looked a real picture in the brilliant autumn sunshine with lush gums and
green grass everywhere. The entire
campground had not been burnt, but there appeared to have been low intensity fires thru the
cemetery and right along the west side of the Crooked river.
We'd left
Melbourne a couple of hours ahead of those would go a day early ,as we did, to get ahead of the
Easter crowd, and were rewarded by having the entire area to ourselves for most of the day.
We set up in one of the prime spots under the trees near the large
swimming hole at the north west corner.
We immediately noticed something new - CDMA coverage was available now for the first time.
We presume that coverage may have been increase in support of those fighting the fires.
The
swimming hole is a big reason why we have camped here over several summers. Even before we'd unpacked the gear it was obvious that something was wrong and as we walked to the rivers edge we could see that the entire
swimming hole no longer existed. There is a ridge rising hundreds on meters on the opposite bank and it forms into a gully just there. A flash flood had apparently occurred and washed down hundreds of tons of silt and coarse gravel and filled in the river completely.
Now the river trickled over its new elevated base at a depth of maybe 200mm.
Later exploration of the entire area revealed that, while there was no
swimming hole anymore we had probably camped at the only place within kilometers where the river base was your clean classic gravel. Everywhere else was devasted by black mud slush and silt.
Parts of the river looked like those asian mud slides you sometimes see on the news.
While we sat enjoying the day a Parks troppie ute drove thru the
campground empty and drove back out a couple of hours later full of "Road Closed" signs.
We didn't need a hint and soon got our wheels into areas that had been officially closed off for months but not before another surprise.
Immediately out of
camp is a usually tame
river crossing. I had noted the rivers were shallow (300mm) so we just drove across but instantly the car lost it and began to go sideways in the deep black slush. The new mud terrain tyres and instant selection of both difflocks
dragged us thru ok, but we were more cautious after this.
Just one day later this crossing was much easier, as many vehicles using it had helped remove the slush layer.
Camping at
Talbotville for a couple of days was near perfect dropping to only 7c at night. There were no bikes looping around the
camp ground and incredibly no music at night that we could hear. I don't think there was one fly or mosquito at all, and one can only wonder at the billions of insects that had probably died.
Someone let off some red flares at the opposite end, but really it was a very
well behaved group. Friday night saw 45 cars and a dozen
camp fires there but this is
well below capacity and the site next to us was left empty (a very territorial Belgian sheppard does help here !).
One woman in a nearby
camp panned out some gold flakes about the size of 5 cent piece and explained to us that she always got more gold than her husband who was going over the newly formed silt plateau with a $4000 gold detector.
We put the "L plates on" and
young son drove a loop taking in the steep Collingwood spur and Bulltown spur tracks where apon we saw just how bad some of the ridges away from the valley floor were burnt. In the valleys there was much green re-growth but higher up the trees were often burnt to the core with no re-growth.
(The green house near base of Collingwood spur survived but lost some sheds - I suppose thats good)
Time to move on , and we drove via the valley floor down to Wonnagatta river
at Kingwell
bridge, all tracks were open but as we got to this classic
bridge all
was not
well as its entire south end was missing. Looked like it had been washed away in a flood as the
bridge didn't appear burnt.
Next to the
bridge is a long angled
river crossing where a "PMG" cable was once laid. Often this is too deep, but not this
Easter and water depth markers had been added to assist locals who no longer had a
bridge. The depth was only 400mm and according to signs the
bridge is due to be fixed by May.
Drove north thru a mixture of damage past the now open Billy Goats
Bluff track (new signs) and stopped for a long break at the shallow black slushy
Eaglevale river crossing - where we gave our dog a long break as she would need to be kept in the car as we drove thru the Wonnagatta valley.
Even saw a few roo's playing amongst blackened trees.
No real issues into the Wonnagatta however the valley was looking the best I can
ever remember as the whole valley had short green grass and almost none of the
Blackberries and tall weeds of the past. Several small culvert bridges were burnt
but in general I'd put fire intensity at low to medium.
The north exit
river crossing up to rileys road was shallow and for the first time on this trip we saw beautiful clear creek water.
Harry Shepherds track was also in reasonable state but by the time we got to Abbeyard conditions had changed for the worse. Indeed along that narrow valley as it followed the West Buffalo river we saw probably the worst fire damage of all, once coming across a group of 4wd's parked around a lone standing
Chimney.
The spectacular Goldie track is closed and will remain so for some time as
the entrance bridge is burnt out.
The trail of damage continued as we came out of 4wd areas into Whitfield and on to
Mansfield via Tolmie. Pine forests appeared to be harder hit than the bush with
just so many
miles of dead burnt trees. Huge piles of logs existed around Powers
lookout area I guess in an effort to recover as much as possible.
Overall , while the area has been widely and badly affected I can see a reasonable future ahead although I suspect some small side tracks will be "forgotten" and this is where we will place our efforts.
See also last 5 photo's under members rig
Robin Miller