Hello from Cathedral Range State Park! These words kicked off my diary ramblings in the tent on the evening of Tuesday 13th April. I am reporting with some highlights of this park located around 2 hours’ drive north east of Melbourne, followed by the nearby Yarra Ranges.
My friend Peri and I completed the Cathedral and Jawbones hike, an approximately 12 km loop which included the spectacular Ridge Track. Just before sunset on the day of arrival we walked the Friends Nature Trail and Peri spotted what appeared to be a wombat burrow. Then after dinner in our enthusiasm we took a night stroll around the campsite area. Lo and behold, there were two wombats grazing on the grass in the dark night. In two separate places. I don’t remember ever seeing a wombat in the wild so that was a special moment, while the stars shone bright above a border of treetops. Temperatures were cold, maybe under 10 degrees overnight, but it was quite lovely there at Cooks Mill campsite. It was filled with lots of people including cheery families, but not too crowded. I was so pleased to see Victorians out on their camping holidays before the cold winter arrives. Geez they would have had a hard time with the Covid-19 pandemic and long lockdown, and so were in my thoughts last year.
The start to Cathedral day was chilly and we cupped our hands around coffee cups. I love hearing the pied currawong’s very different bird call compared with that of the grey currawong at home. It says, ‘you are now in the Great Dividing Range.’ Well thank you, it’s much appreciated to be somewhere different.
Soon we were hoofing it up a steep hillside that was cloaked in eucalypt woodland. With lots of news to catch up on, chatting made hill climbing seem not that bad. Possible lyrebird noises provided entertainment, an obvious bird call followed by energetic swishing and tapping sounds. Tap, tap, tap! The track notes advised the grassy saddle called The Farmyard was so named after local lyrebirds were heard mimicking farm animals n the valley below. Were they mimicking farm machinery that day? We will never know.
Peri and I did the two side trips to take in the South and North Jawbone Peaks. Fortunately, they were both short and the views were very lovely, bushland park to the east, and the Acheron Valley with gentle farmland and road to the west. The side trip terrain was steep but doable and not precipitous, and looking at the vast expanses, I felt grateful to have the fitness to hike there. In between we had a pleasant snack stop in The Farmyard.
As we negotiated the Ridge Track heading north, I practiced my focussing skills on varied boulders sticking out at 45-degree angles underfoot. There were no scary drop-aways, the ridge was broad enough. It was beautiful. We allowed for slow going on the ridge with plenty of daylight left.
The weather was kind: cool and cloudy, with little wind. The Ridge even provided sheltered options for our lunch stop, which was around 20-30 minutes before the junction where it was speccy and airy. We met a young couple who complimented us for crossing the Ridge as it was Grade 5 difficulty according to Parks Victoria. We then walked maybe 100 metres beyond the junction to get vistas from what we thought was Cathedral Peak. The guy at Paddy Pallin said it was somewhat overgrown past there, where hikers can find Little Cathedral.
The afternoon light on the jagged side of our Ridge gave it even more wow factor, along with the great feeling of being up high. The vegetation looked healthy and varied twelve years on from the Black Saturday fires, dotted with silver skeletons of dead trees.
It was time to go down.
We descended via Ned’s Gully, with peak of the same name to our
right. After a time we saw a male
wallaby near the track. Peri, the
wallaby and I paused to stare at each other for a while, such a healthy-looking
animal we said at the time. Finally reaching
the valley and junction to the Little River track, the flatness was a relief,
and it was verdant alongside the babbling water.
We finished our hike among kangaroos. I was tired at this point, and in the hours that followed. Thinking back, I like it that later in the trip, Peri and I shared jolly stories and laughs over pinot noir.
We settled back in at the mighty fine Cooks Mill in the Cathedral Range, on the land of the Taungurung people who call this place Nanadjong. Peri had prepared tasty dehydrated bolognaise meals, followed by our dessert of Nutella bars. She also had a genius method of placing a blanket under her sleeping mat for extra warmth and had one for me too, making for a warm cosy night while the rain tapped on the tent.
The next day we moved south to the Yarra Ranges National Park. The mountain ash and tree fern forest on the highway to Healesville was magnificent, really something else. Same for the short Badger Weir hike, a proper rainforest. Peri said it was like being in an acoustic recording space, all muffled with furry moss-covered tree fern trunks, the sound of the Badger Creek gurgling through it, a peaceful and soul-nourishing place.
The later afternoon was a bit of a spank, because the scenic, windy C505 national park road sent us backtracking to Healesville – one of those mountain ash giants had fallen across the road making it impassable. Meanwhile pulling over twice to offload leeches (!), one which had a feed of me, blood trickling down my leg. Thinking about it, I am amazed at how calm I was over these creatures that would usually give me the heebie-jeebies.
Big thanks to Peri for her fabulous driving skills on the single-laned C505 in her Mazda. We reached Warburton in time for dinner at the historic, welcoming Alpine Retreat Hotel. Place of great food, pale ale, wine and toasty fireplace.
Thursday’s forecast was for rain but it held off, allowing for hiking up high in the Yarra Ranges on Wurundjeri Country. While enjoying barista coffee treats in Warburton we phoned Parks Victoria to report the fallen tree. The Rainforest Gallery was a delightful, elevated walkway amongst those giants again, and myrtle beech trees. Ancient Gondwanaland. Mount Donna Buang was elevation 1245 metres and bloody cold! Locals in ‘Warby’ told us about some overnight snow and up there we found a rectangle of the icy white stuff about the size of a sunglasses case (snow found me again ha-ha). The views were lovely from atop the generous 21 metres high lookout tower – vast hilltops and some weather rolling in, grey and ominous. Mountain ash trees were short in stature up there.
The track to another peak called Boobyalla was overgrown in places but orange markers were clear, and then when I received another leech and the track became more overgrown, we returned to the car. Peri and I drove back to the city and enjoyed a delicious dinner with her husband Sam at the gorgeous Gemma Simply Italian in Carlton.
Trips can be hard sometimes, but I feel happy knowing that I’m onto a good thing when hiking in the beautiful Australian bushland. I’m very grateful to continue experiencing these in the time of a global pandemic, and I hope the vaccines are effective and that the pandemic will go away soon.
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