“Entry is free. Bull will charge later”
PlanningMy year of freedom was drawing to a close. My savings were drying up and it was time to think about gainful employment. With the economy on the skids, this could be quite a challenge for a middle-aged man with no tertiary quals. Age and experience work wonders when you’re already employed and the economy is up, but youth and degrees work better in a hirer’s market. I could wind up on the dole. That would be no good. I needed motivation ...
So I applied my sovereign remedy for the blues and planned a new trip.
As noted in a previous report, when I came back from my New Zealand excursion, Victoria was a smouldering mess. Most of the best bushwalking had been burned out — by accident, by arsonists, or by act of God. The third category seemed to include those cases where authorities had conducted a preventative burn, only to have heat and winds whip it into the very catastrophe they were trying to prevent.
But one major walk was still unaffected, the Great South West Walk in south-west Victoria. And it was a big walk, a 14-16 days loop out of Portland. I had been eying this for a while, but it never seemed the right time.
Fourteen days in the bush with no internet and little to do but think about the next day’s trail seemed ideal. It was time. Hopefully I would come back little poorer in money, but lower in weight and considerably more motivated.
(26 March) I'll be out of touch for the next two weeks. Following the fun I had on the Overland Track and Whanganui River, I've decided to put off jobhunting by “going bush” again, this time in Victoria, and do the “Great South West Walk”. This is less great than long, as the land doesn't go up and down a lot but the track forms a loop about 250 km in circumference, beginning and ending in Portland. I expect to take 14 days to traverse it, unless I give up (always a possibility if the weather breaks). Just to increase the challenge I’m trying to do it without making a food cache — I'm carrying all my food in with me. A fortnight’s food, even though it’s mostly freeze-dried or low-moisture, comes to a horrid weight and bulk. Add several litres of water each day, to drink on the track and in case I hit a dry camp — there's been enough rain so that all the camps should have water in their tanks, but better safe than sorry — and suddenly I’m starting with about 24 kg on my back. Yet by the time I finish the track, my baggage could be down to 16 kg (just the non-edible stuff), though I expect I’ll have some food left over as I believe I can buy meals at a couple of places where the track meets semi-civilisation.
Portland
It was a five hour journey from Footscray: By train To Warrnambool via Geelong, then a coach to Portland. Although I was carrying all the gear for an extended stay in the wilds, I checked into an indulgently expensive caravan at the Portland Bay Holiday Park, in the shadow of the lighthouse. I had decided on one night of comfort before submitting to the lumps and bumps of tent life.
I walked south from the park onto a clifftop walk above Nuns Beach. The first thing I encountered was a sign showing distances. I was 13,412 km from Portland, Oregon and 301 km from Melbourne, and much farther from Who Cares.
A feature of the Portland Port in the distance was a massive mound of something. I assumed it must be a heap of cement, but why expose that to rain and wind? It was probably wood chips.
Further along I came to a couple of low walls. They were studded with brass plates, each naming one or more early settlers, or explaining some facet of the town’s early history. I was amused to see that the town fathers were the Henty brothers. I had a Henty in my family tree, though not, I think, related to these guys. The monument was fruit of Portland’s Bicentenary Project, 1987-88, “The Ploughed Field”.
A rough stone pillar in three segments, with a pyramidion on top, was the Henty memorial proper. Each face of the base had a memorial plaque to a different aspect of the founding, e.g. “In commemoration of the meeting of Major Thomas Mitchell and the Henty Brothers near this spot 29th Aug 1836.”
About now I noticed the town’s dinky little 3.7 km heritage cable tram, that ran along rails set in the grass. I felt cheated when I realised they’d replaced the cables with a diesel engine. I thought of climbing aboard, but part of the point of this afternoon was prep for the big walk, so I kept walking.
The Visitor Centre was at the Maritime Discovery Centre. Inside was the 1858 Portland lifeboat, an unrestored survival, and a sperm whale skeleton.
After the Museum and a late lunch, I walked down onto Nuns Beach, then returned to my caravan to rest up for dinner and to repack my gear for walking. I’d come from Melbourne with it packed for convenience in getting it on and off vehicles, not for carrying it down foot tracks on my back.
Walking the GSWWPortland to Cubby’s — 20 km
I was slow starting in the morning. I took a “doorstep” photo of the caravan as I left it at 8:46. By 8:55 I was at the real start of my walk, beside the red-topped Whaler's Bluff Lighthouse * (
38°20'14.2"S 141°36'33.1"E) on the point. I touched the doorway for luck.
I walked north along the clifftop, passing a water tower with “Australia Remembers” on the side.
About 9:30, I passed through the Old North cemetery, then came out on the Henty Highway (A200). Then the way turned right down Theresa St and took me to the Maretimo Stairs (38°18'49.4"S 141°36'02.2"E), dedicated to a long-time GSWW Volunteer. These got me down to the beach (38°18'48.1"S 141°36'04.5"E), or rather, traffic-ridden Dutton’s Way. Sigh.
At the Henty Bay Caravan Park, the GSWW crossed the highway (38°17'57.1"S 141°37'12.4"E). I had to make my way up a farming road with cows on it and a guardian sheepdog who made sure I didn’t trespass. At the end I went up a dry, tree-clad hillside, to emerge on the Princes Highway (A1) (38°17'26.4"S 141°37'13.8"E) at 11:11. I was getting very brassed off with walking by or across major highways.
I crossed the highway and plunged into more trees on the other side. I soon came to a sign, “Walkers to forest walk 2 kms past former Blackwood Camp & power lines to Cubby’s Camp.” Clear as mud. In a few more minutes I was out the trees and after a short roadside walk I was standing at the corner of Caledonian Hills Road and the Princes (A1)/Henty (A200) Highway (38°16'51.7"S 141°36'56.6"E). Very confusing. I crossed the highway and headed up Robertsons Road on the other side. Eventually this road turned into a walking track, yahoo!
At 12:52 I found a style that crossed an imaginary fence, and took the opportunity to get the weight off my back without having to bend down to pick it up after strutting round relaxing my legs and shoulders.
I struck the railway line around 13:30 and turned north. The ballast made poor footing, though the track dodged in and out of the trees. After a while I found a path into the trees that brought me out on a dirt road that was easier on the feet. About 14:15 I found a roadsign for Evans, Pennys, and Benbows (no through road) Roads (38°15'12.0"S 141°36'31.9"E). Google Maps calls Evans Rd Berrys Rd, and I had been walking along it for a while. While checking details for this report I was amused to find that the Street View images for most of this walk are from 2008, showing almost the same view I saw in 2009. Street View coverage is patchy, though. Nobody seems to have walked the GSWW with a 360° camera.
About 15:15, I reached the former Blackwoods Camp. Not so former, based on the fresh ashes in the campfire ring! A couple of minutes later, a crash!, crash!, crash! in the undergrowth told me I’d startled a roo. I turned my head just in time to glimpse it, but my camera took too long to fire.
A couple of minutes later I found the promised power lines, a row of giant metal towers striding over the fields. The walk crossed a road, well signed as GSWW and sporting a cow skull as decoration. Yes, it was a skull and crossroads.
* Why yes, I am aware that the lighthouse image at the top of the report is partially transparent. It was an accident, but I liked the effect and kept it.
The bush thickened up now. At about 16:10 I emerged from the trees into a clearing signed “Cubby’s Camp” (38°14'17.3"S 141°35'39.6"E). It had taken me 7 hours, 15 minutes to cover 20 km, an average of just 2.75 kph. I was carrying 24 kg, of course, a lot of that being food, which weight would drop off as I consumed it. Still, 250 km at 2.75 kph was 91 hours, or 3.8 days out of the expected 14, or 6.5 hours a day. Not so bad, and this had been a bad stretch, requiring a lot of waiting for traffic and casting round trying to find trail markers. Once I was deeper in the forest that would be less of a problem, surely.
I dumped my pack on the camp table and pulled out the Aerogard — the camp had mosquitoes, and they had aready found me. The forest was so dry that there should be no place for mozzies to breed. When I went to refill my water bottles, I realised that they were breeding in the water tanks! This would probably be an issue at every camp.
There was a roofed shelter beside the tanks. Rain runoff from the roof was the source of the water in the tanks.
I had a portable water filter with me, and I pumped every drop of new water through that to fill my big bottles, then dropped a purification tab into each bottle. I kept to this practice rigorously; the last thing I wanted in the Australian bush was a dose of Delhi Belly!
The toilet was a composting type and only a little smelly, mostly due to explosive past users.
I set up my little yellow one-man tent in a corner of the site, far enough from the undergrowth so that I could watch it from the table, but far enough from the table that if someone else came through, they could use the table without disturbing me too much. I laid down my self-inflating mattress, and the sleeping bag on top for extra padding. I would sleep on top of them in my silk sleeping sheet. I left the flaps of the tent shell open to encourage the breeze, but made sure the netting inner liner was tightly zipped to discourage mozzies.
That night, I slept in bursts, periods of deathlike slumber where two hours would zip by, and then half an hour with an ear cocked after something broke sticks back in the bushes. There were leaves on the ground all round, which rustled underfoot, but nothing came near the tent. I had the camp to myself.
Cubby’s to Cut Out — 15 km
I was up by about 08:00, and soon had a little milk mixed for my cereal, and water boiled for my sugarless black instant coffee. The porridge we ate on the River had been my uncle’s preference; I didn’t mind, but I was happy with a mix of corn flakes with fruit and muesli.
By 9:20 I was all packed up and ready to go. I had found a hammer in the toilet block and used it to pound in tent pegs; I put it back where I had found it as I left camp at 9:25.
I noticed a slight smoky haze in the air. Of course, all of Victoria had been under haze for weeks, but this smelt fresh.
I walked back to Blackwood Road and followed the track blazes. The path was easy to follow, except where two tracks crossed, which was rather frequent, and it was dirt underfoot all the way, no pavement or railway ballast.
I came to a sign talking about “messmate forest” mostly made up from messmate stringybarks. The sign made sure to note that messmate stringybark was the main commercially important timber of the Cobboboonee State Forest. The sign was put up by Forest Commisson Victoria.
I crossed “Surrey Road”, probably what Google calls “Surrey River-Gorae Road”. In Bylsma Rd I passed a letterbox with a model horse on it; the place called itself “Footrot Flats”, a name to which it had no inkling of a right. They could call themselves the Queen of Sheba, but the real mythical Footrot Flats is in New Zealand — near Gisborne.
I passed a field, with a sign on the gate: “Entry is free. Bull will charge later” (38°13'34.8"S 141°33'10.1"E).
I dropped my pack for a rest, and accidentally dropped my inaccurate pedometer with it. Fortunately some kind other walkers found it and returned it when they caught up with me.
Just about noon I saw a roo on the track ahead. He gazed at me in horror and vanished into the scrub in a single bound, crashing into the distance.
About 13:00 some galahs distracted me by flying around above me in the trees for a while. Fifteen minutes later I reached Boiler Swamp Road. I followed the road a short way, then the track swerved back into the bush.
A sign announced a “Silvicultural Treatment Area”, which really means euthenasia for trees. They ring-bark the forest sovereigns to get them out of the way and encourage new growth.
At 14:10 I reached a sturdy wooden footbridge. What that told me was there was an access road and a carpark nearby for picnickers. They don’t seem to go to this sort of effort for mere bushwalkers on the GSWW. Three minutes later, a sign shouted, “Tim’s Loop”. (I have since found it all on Google Maps; Surrey Ridge Picnic Area is connected to the GSWW by by Tim’s Loop and Hedgett’s Loop Walks. The bridge would be at the Surrey River)
Hello, water tanks. Must be Cut Out Camp (38°11'05.9"S 141°29'57.3"E). And so it was; call the time 14:25. Five hours even to cover 15 km, a solid 3 kph. That was more like it!
There was a family of four occupying the table — fortunately not staying, just walking through. They were only carrying day packs; no doubt they had driven to the nearby picnic area and walked in from there.
I took my time, fetching water from the tanks and pumping it through the filter. When the daisy walkers moved on, I took over the table.
I staked my tent on soft dry earth near the water tanks.
I found the camp log book, a loose leaf binder, and made a note of my progress and plans. The previous entry, from two days ago, mentioned that they had evicted a huntsman spider from the binder!
Exploring the area, I came across a massive, dead, ring-barked monarch, clearly a victim of Silviculture. Looking at its spiky bare fractal branches, I realised that it was its own memorial, waiting for a fire.
Cut Out to Cobboboonee — 9.4 km
By 9:32 I was ready to go and performing a last policing to make sure I had everything. Call departure 9:35. I soon reached Cut Out Dam Road.
A little further on I reached a sign noting a “1980 Wildfire”, 10 Dec 1980. What's wrong with calling it a bloody bushfire ferchrisakes! This area looked overdue to blaze again.
Reminded, I sniffed. The air was less hazy than yesterday.
I came across the T+W Road (38°09'44.8"S 141°28'42.4"E). “Camp 5 km” said a sign on a post. My useless pedometer claimed I’d come 4.28 km. But the sign probably meant to the next camp.
“Nature walk 30 mins.” Just what I needed. In fact, that walk rejoined the GSWW further on; if I had taken the scenic route it would not have taken me much extra time.
Cobboboonee Road (38°09'04.9"S 141°26'19.8"E) at 12:17. Nearly there!
At 12:25, Cobboboonee Camp (38°08'52.8"S 141°26'17.2"E) was mine, all mine — temporarily. 2 hrs 50 mins to cover 9.4 km. 3.3 kph. Good! But it was a short stage. In three stages I had marched 44.4 km, or about 18% of the track, at 14.8 km per stage. A fit walker would have cut out Cut Out and made it one 24.4 km stage.
I evicted a weta from the logbook. Better than a huntsman!
I watched a fairy wren jumping round looking for bugs. Very pretty, with that bright-blue-and-black head.
My solitude lasted until about 18:00, when a school party of about a dozen kids and two teachers arrived. They talked and went visiting late into the night, and I never regained the serenity I had found watching the fairy wren dance on the deserted tree litter.
They did have news. Apparently the authorities had decided that the aftermath of the Black Saturday blazes was the perfect time to conduct preventative burning in the middle of the only major walking forest left unburned. Inevitably, it had got away from them and that was the source of the smoke in the air. (The fun thing looking back from 2024 is that this end of March fire is not even mentioned in Wikipedia. Well, it happened.)
The blaze was west and downhill from here. It all depended on the wind. One good blow and the thing could roar down on these GSWW camps within hours!
Cobboboonee to Fitzroy — 12.5 km
I was a little slow in the morning, despite an early wake-up when someone tripped over one of my tent ties. Still, by 9:35 I was off into a faintly smoke-hazed morning. Knowing the source of the smoke left me unnerved. As the morning went on, the haze thickened. The fire was growing, and/or the wind was blowing it this way.
Cockatoos shadowed me for a while, replacing the galahs from a couple of days back.
At 10:33 I checked my pedometer at Pipe Clay Road (38°06'44.1"S 141°26'13.4"E). It was lying as usual.
Mount Deception Road (38°04'57.1"S 141°24'58.8"E) at 12:15, and supposedly I'd come 10 kilometres in 2.75 hours.
A Walk in the Dark
I reached Fitzroy Camp (38°04'45.7"S 141°25'10.1"E, not to be confused with Fitzroy River Camp to the north-east) at 12:25, 12.5 km in 2 hrs 50 mins, or 4.4 kph. Perhaps the pedometer had been right!
It was a nice site, but I wished I could get news about that bushfire. And I could! In the log book.
Arr 30/3 Bendigo School party of 16 Dep 31/3
Senior Constable Manley, our leader M—, visited us at 10.30pm. She instructed us to move in a clockwise dirn towards Cobboboonee Camp and then to Cut Out Camp
N.B. to all user seeking an alternate route because of fires in Lower Glenelg national park 1000 hectares.
Shit!
I wrote a bravado entry in the book, but as the sun descended the smoke got thicker.
18:49 Red sky.
At 19:30 I conceded the point and began walking out. South to Mount Deception (“MD”) Road, then east, away from the fire.
At 19:45 my camera could detect a faint red glow behind me. By 20:00 it was a malignant red eye seeking me, visible through the break in the trees provided by the road. It was several kilometres away — but downhill and upwind. The smoke was thick enough to make me cough.
I passed the corner of MD and T+W Roads (38°04'59.4"S 141°25'44.3"E).
20:48 Boundary Road — and I’m lost. The road and my map disagree. I’m tired and worried and confused, and I’ve had a fear of the dark since childhood.
Every so often I half-jokingly refer to Arthur C Clarke’s horror sf story, “A Walk in the Dark”. This was mine, for real. The map said the road went east. The ground said there was no east road (38°05'01.9"S 141°28'10.2"E). It was pitch dark except where my torch beam fell, heavy things were crashing in the bushes, and a pair of evil red eyes were glaring at me from the MD roadside about 30 metres south.
What had really happened was that Boundary Road came in from the south 50 metres back, and I'd missd it (the signs were on the west side of the south corner and my map didn't even show the road there). It ran on top of MD Road for 50 metres, then turned north-east just where MD road turned temporarily south-east before turning east again. The map's scale did not catch this.
I was on the edge of the forest at this point, and quite safe. Even my crappy map showed me that, if I had been less panicked. If it had been daytime I could have seen through the thin screen of trees across the road into the fields beyond. If I just continued a little further down MD Road, I would have found a spot where I could get into a field south of the road (even an entry free, Bull charges later one). The Fitzroy River was down there. I could set up my tent by the road, safe from bulls, and sleep it out. If the fire did come, it would move slowly and weakly across the fields. Fire trucks would come. I could go down into the river, at need, and let it pass me. But in all probability it would be days, if ever, before the fire came here.
Put this way, my fear was clearly absurd, but none of this occurred to me at the time. Instead, I panicked. I rang 000. The operator, bless him, detected the edge of fear in my voice and after trying to tell me all this, allowed himself to be persuaded to send a cop out to pick me up.
21:21 Waiting for assistance.
21:22 Things moving in the bush all around me.
All this time the glowing eyes watched me steadily from 30 metres away. As the police car’s lights approached from behind them, a low-slung body, a ferret or a fox, scurried across the road and vanished in the bushes.
In the morning light at Site 13 in some campground in Portland, everything looked fresh and clean. I threw the flaps back and lay in my tent, breathing in the morning air and the scent of mown grass.
Happy April Fool’s Day to me.
