8 September 2013 - Hynes Camping Reserve, Rocklands Reservoir, near Glenisla, Victoria

What a night! The Greens are boasting they will continue to hold the balance of power in the Senate even though the ballot count has yet to be completed, the outgoing Prime Minister gave what could only be taken as a jubilant victory speech if you had watched it with the sound turned off and the incoming Prime Minister went off for a bike ride at first light. It was just as well I did not last the distance to watch the delayed transmission of the Springboks crucifying the Wallabies; watching the new Australian coach making excuses today was quite enough.

We sat over breakfast listening to the election debrief, until there was barely enough time to rush around breaking camp and leaving by the pumpkin hour of 10 am. Turning south, still on the horrendous Henty Highway, we travelled just over sixty kilometres south of Horsham, bucking and bumping along the ever uneven road. The landscape was however, beautiful, consolation for the discomfort; cropping giving way to more intensive sheep country, the open cultivated expansive fields giving way to open wooded grazing land. While our route rose and fell very little, the Grampians rose impressively to the east, the steep bare face of the range catching the rays of the sun, and to our west, the Black Range rising only a little less impressively.

Rocklands Reservoir

I had spotted the Rocklands Reservoir on the map, seemingly nestled in the Black Range, a spidery affair of the kind that spreads its extremities up into steep gullies. As we neared the turnoff, the land remained of gentle contour and we passed through the Glenalg State Forest, continuing open woodland interspersed with patches of eucalypt plantation. The narrow sealed side road travelled through more of this forest park and more sheep farms, all host to ancient eucalypts, large boughs littering the ground, slowly dying with too few youthful replacements. Most of these very old trees had been left standing when the land was cleared a hundred years ago to offer shade, and now as they die off, there are no successors. 

The Rocklands Reservoir is the largest reservoir within the Grampians-Wimmera-Mallee Water’s water supply system, the construction of the dam across the Glenalg River commenced in 1938, interrupted by World War II and finally completed in 1953.

The surface area of the lake is 6,750 square kilometres, the catchment area 1,355 square kilometres. The camping area here beside the drowned forest, the skeletons still standing after all these years, is close to the Hyne’s homestead “Wattle Grove”, headquarters to the 800 hectare farm settled in 1892, now beneath the water. It is evident that the lake surface is currently not at its optimum area because the concrete boat ramp and the steel frame of the floating jetty sit high and dry far above the lake shore.

On arrival we were met by Gloria, acting-caretaker, who took our $15 and invited us to park up in any one of several areas sporting power boxes. We do not have water on site, however our tanks are full and if we were to stay longer than the planned one day, or extend for as long as four days, we would be able to replenish our water supply from the tank in this very simple park. In fact the facilities are like many casual picnic spots, old and functional, not much less than those at the Horsham Caravan Park, and here we are paying less than half what we paid in that formal caravan park.

More tree skeletons in the Reservoir

Once parked up, we went for a wander down to the lake, beneath the flowering eucalypts full of billions of busy buzzing bees and noisy colourful honey-eaters. The wonderful crimson rosellas, more often seen rising from the roadside, flew about in small flocks, oblivious to our presence. Kookaburras gathered in gaggling groups, entertained us; we laughed with them as one cannot help but do. A surprising number of beautiful superb blue wrens darted about the ground nearby. Chattering birds of all kinds filled the forest of wattles growing along the shore, a small flock of geese called as they flew overhead and half a dozen pelicans cruised through the obstacles on the lake surface, graceful as always.

The issue of tree skeletons still standing in the lake is always contentious for us; we believe they should have long fallen, having been partly submerged in or before 1953. These are more likely those which have grown up in drought years when the lake level was far lower, and they have died in better years, submerged once more. Only a long term local could resolve this issue and should we encounter one, I shall report our findings.
 

Our camp on the Reserve

I am glad my husband caught onto the idea of staying here overnight; it is better that we revisit Hamilton on a weekday. Our last visit was on a weekend; I recall it so quiet then, perhaps a year and a half ago? In the meantime, we have electricity to facilitate use of the heater; the overnight temperatures have again dropped to 3 degrees. The birdlife all about us is just wonderful and although there are many old caravans about the reserve, I would not be surprised if Gloria is our only neighbour. No doubt summer brings the other caravan owners up from the south.