10 September 2013 - Hamilton Caravan Park, Hamilton, Victoria

My goodness, I took note of the date this morning and was alarmed to think the far off date of our interstate sailing is fast approaching. How time flies!

We were happy to note also that the day was much improved, and as it turned out the rain squalls were few and far between and never really came to much, although we were glad to have our jackets, raincoats and hats with us.

The itinerary for the day was open ended; a list of several attractions all at some distance from each other and I thought, unlikely to be achieved. Our first port of call was Mt Eccles National Park, situated forty five kilometres south of Hamilton just off the main road through to Port Fairy. We came on down through more sheep farm land, all productive with lambs at varying stages of growth but all born this season; some docked and fattening well, some just finding their feet, but all healthy and white, this latter a feature that has been missing from sheep seen further afield.

Arriving at Macarthur, another has-been town with just a post office and shire office, and a population of about eight hundred if you include all those living on farms about, we turned west and travelled about ten kilometres into the national park. The park encompasses an area of 8,375 hectares and was Victoria’s first co-managed national park, established in 1960. The mountain itself, Budj Bim, is a long dormant volcano and is the source of the Tyrendarra lava flow which extends over fifty kilometres to the south west. This is central to the history of the Gunitjmara people who developed this landscape by excavating channels to bring water and young eels from Darlots Creek to low lying areas. They created ponds and wetlands linked by channels containing weirs. Woven baskets were placed in the weirs to harvest mature eels.

Dating back thousands of years, the area shows evidence of large settled communities systematically farming and smoking eels for food and trade and is considered to be one of Australia’s earliest and largest ingenious aquaculture ventures, flying in the face of how one tends to consider “primitive” indigenous history and culture. Here there has been found evidence of villages of stone huts, built with the stones from the lava flow, and early European contact described rule by hereditary chiefs.

It was these same early settlors who arrived in the 1830s that caused upheaval resulting in Eumeralla Wars that lasted more than twenty years. Eventually the aboriginal people were overcome and moved off their land, however some refused to move and the government built a mission at Lake Condah nearby. The mission lands were returned to the Gunditjmara people in 1987 and the co-management of this national park is all part of the reconciliation process.

The Mt Eccles National Park boasts Victoria’s highest koala population and largest Manna Gum woodland, the koala’s favourite food. This, I would question, given our own experience of koala counting on Raymond Island which is, if I am correct, still in Victoria.

A shy koala

On arrival at the park, we first drove up to the “Natural Bridge”, and walked along part of the lava canal, a long winding trench carved out by the lava flow when the volcano erupted between 20,000 and 30,000 years ago. Just like the lava  tubes visited far to the north of the country about two years ago, so are these long tube caves, fallen in like great sink holes in various places. The Natural Bridge is a place where the track goes down into a roofed tunnelled area of the tubes and it was to here we walked. As we passed through the long wet grass and bracken fern through woodland, I remarked to Chris that we could only be in Victoria; we have not seen this particular collection of vegetation anywhere but this state, although it is similar to that of New Zealand and quite possibly, Tasmania.

We drove on into the picnic area at Lake Surprise which sits deep down in the three craters. There is a narrow path around the edge of the 300 metre deep lake, however we chose to walk around the rim of the crater, a walk that is supposed to take between one and two hours. We walked briskly to keep warm and avoid the ever threatening showers, but slow enough to see one of those iconic little Aussie critters. A koala was wedged in the fork of a tree, trying to rest in his dopey state and not at all happy to be disturbed by these two walkers who insisted on engaging in conversation with him. He growled at us and tucked his face away from us; we moved on hoping to meet his friends and relations. In fact I had high hopes of seeing at least three, if not thirteen. On Raymond Island, I think I had spotted fourteen so I had full confidence in my skill at koala-spotting. However as we continued around the rim through lovely bushland, able to see far off views of farmland and Mt Napier, there were no more koalas to be seen.

View from the crater rim

It was nearly lunchtime when we returned to the landcruiser; we drove back to Macarthur and sat out of the wind in the vehicle next to the small but attractive picnic area, before heading back north up the same road whence we had come.

At Byaduk North, we turned eastward and drove up a dirt road for about four kilometres to the Byaduk Caves, in the Mt Napier State Park. Mt Napier stands some distance from these caves, but was the source of more of these lava caves when it erupted about 32,000 years ago. It is all part of the Newer Volcanics Province which is the youngest volcanic centre in Australia, an area of 15,000 square kilometres and containing 400 vents.

The Byaduk Caves are considered to be the most extensive and accessible set of lava caves in Australia. As I no doubt explained when we visited the more northern lava tubes, they were formed when lava flowing from the volcanic crater was quickly cooled by outside air, forming a crust with hot liquid lava flowing beneath. When the lava flow ceased, a hollow tube was left behind. The largest caves here at Byaduk are eighteen metres wide, ten metres high and extend twenty metres below the surface. We followed the walking track from one cave edge to another and looked down into the gaping holes from the viewing platforms. All around us the ground was littered with small lava rocks, and beyond, the paddocks populated with the ever present sheep, had been cleared of the rocks and the debris used to build dry stone walls still standing strong after one hundred years.

Farming about the lava tubes

We were doing well with our itinerary and decided we could take in the waterfalls lying to the west of Hamilton, so took minor narrow sealed roads with weight limits, through to Branxholme which we had passed through more than a year ago travelling from Portland to Hamilton, and then continued north west on similar roads passing through country now diversifying into beef cattle and eucalypt plantations, although the land itself no more or less than the sheep and grain country travelled through earlier.

The steep edge of a lava tube

We emerged onto the Glenelg Highway, that which continues through to Mount Gambier in South Australia, and found ourselves at the famous Wannon Falls, famous as the subject of grand works by Thomas Clark, whose work will be in view in the Hamilton Gallery when they complete the rehash of the gallery, Louis Buvelot, Eugene von Guerard and Nicholas Chevalier. The falls plunge over a basalt lava cliff dropping into a large plunge pool thirty metres below. In the summer they sometimes shrink to a mere trickle, but fortunately today, after the rain we have had over the past few days, they were in fine form, gushing and rushing at their best. However, for all that, we decided they were far from the Top Ten waterfalls we have viewed as we have travelled about this country.

Nigretta Falls

We drove upstream about seven kilometres to the Nigretta Falls which in contrast to the Wannon Falls, cascade in smaller drops, today two separate falls. We thought these much more impressive even though the falls are not quite as high.

From here it was just sixteen kilometres back to Hamilton, and so we returned to camp satisfied we had “done” Hamilton most satisfactorily and were ready to head away tomorrow.

As I write this, there is breaking news of fires in western suburbs of Sydney, through Londonderry, and areas along the Hawkesbury River we have travelled. How thankful I am that we are here in Victoria, although the heavy winds that are opening up quite a few fire fronts have been active here too and it was just yesterday that we passed through the ruins of the recent Grampian fires.