nicolaoutdoors

Beeripmo Walk - Raglan Falls (click for more)

Not that I’d ever refuse a long weekend, but the Queen’s birthday weekend is a little odd. First, I don’t understand why it merits a holiday at all, secondly, it comes at really annoying time – it is cold and wet but not cold and wet enough to snow. Strangely, it is also meant to be the official start of the Victorian ski season. There isn’t any snow and there rarely is (i.e. never) this early in the season. I’m sure that a long weekend in the months with snow (July, August, September) would give a welcome boost to those businesses and villages involved in snow tourism. And yet there are no long weekends  in Victoria from now until the start of November !!! I suppose that if, for you, skiing is all about bars and parties, it’s probably a good weekend to head for the hills for drunken bar games. For me, it is about white, empty mountains and wide turns in soft, deep snow. So, this long weekend becomes three days that are too cold to dive or kayak and too wet to climb. Luckily, walking is less weather dependent, though high winds, sleet and fog certainly make exposed routes more treacherous and also limit the possibility of good views.

Bearing in mind the wet and windy weather forecast, we opted for an easy two day walk, not too far from Melbourne, where the attractions are mostly forests, boulders and valleys, rather than stunning views. Located an hours drive west of Ballarat, just off the Western Highway, Mt Cole State Forest is 25 kilometres from the township of Beaufort. The Beeripmo Walk winds its way through Mt Cole State Forest as well as Mt Buangor State Park. The trail rises through tall, moist gatherings of blue gum with ferny undergrowth, through messmate stringybarks and bracken, to mountain woodlands, dominated by snow gum.

Misty morning fog at the Beeripmo camp (click for more)

Late Sunday morning, we climbed through a steep gully of tall eucalypts and shrubs growing amongst many large granite boulders, until we reached the cliffs of Raglan Falls, where we ate lunch. The track continued to climb to Cave Hill where the forest changed to a more open sub alpine vegetation. From here it is possible to see extensive views towards Mt Cole and the western plains and, as you reach the summit, the Grampians and Mt Langi Ghiran, but the clouds were closing in and our views were obscured. Instead we kept going up a densely forested ridge to the summit of The Sugarloaf and onwards down to the Beeripmo campground.

With some perseverance we managed a fire which kept us warm enough to stay outside past dark.  The campsite was mostly protected from the winds that showered us with large droplets from the canopy. Luckily, however, not much more rain fell and, though we were always within the cloud, did not get too wet.

The following morning we headed uphill to the summit of Mugwamp Hill, which, had it not been raining ,would have given views to the east of Mount Lonarch State Forest. At the base of the Mugwamp Hill we met the Mt. Buangor lookout sidetrack. This is 2km side-trip, which I’m sure is worthy in clear weather. It was raining consistently, if not heavily, so we continued down past Dawson Rock, through regrowth forest before joining and following LongGully where the trees became much taller. From here the trail descended to meets the Grevillea Track, which traversed steep gullies lined with large tree ferns and brought us back to the trailhead.

The carpark has a covered picnic area with a nice stone fireplace where someone had left a small fire burning. We had lunch in front of the fire before heading home to dry out our tent and clothes.

Grevillea Track (click for more)