As a follow-up to my post Find Your Own Places to Explore can I suggest that for years (in Victoria – and elsewhere) our masters have been closing off previously useful access roads and tracks. Though these may not be open to vehicles (often despite sterling efforts to negotiate around piles of logs, rocks or deep cuts intended to prevent their use) they can often still be traveled by cycle or on foot – and frequently give relatively easy access to many quite delightful areas, though sometimes you may have to follow a game trail down a ridge to access a quiet camp by a stream at the end or adjacent to them.
If you avail yourself of earlier versions of our topographic maps then compare them to the current series it will become obvious where you can find them. Sometimes they even remain on the current series as ‘Road Permanently Closed’ or ‘Management Vehicles Only’ – which usually means they are impassable by vehicle and never visited by so-called ‘management’ – which now means staying in an office staring at a computer. You need have very little fear that you will be apprehended for being somewhere in the bush (perhaps with your small dog where you are strictly speaking Forbidden to be). These old maps are sometimes available on Ebay or Pirate Bay. The old Geoscience maps 1:125,000 are available free.
They are good spots for a weekend camp or overnight hunt away from the crowd. If you drive to the start of the track – this one was closed by a deep excavator cut, probably 10′ deep! – after work on a Friday you can just throw your swag down and camp by your car the first night. On Saturday morning you can set out. As you get further away from your car the game will increase. Half a day away often quite spectacularly. Where we camped the bush was alive with deer. (You can see all the clover growing where we camped). The dogs were quite busy chasing them away from us.
Once you have found a sheltered spot by a stream you can enjoy a quiet camp, perhaps a bit of a fish or a solitary hunt in the twilight. (The river was a bit too muddy for fishing this time). Then of a night there is the wonderful luxury of a warm fire out the front of your shelter with only the night noises for company.
Sunday afternoon you can pack up and reverse your trip. It is so much better than competing with others for scarce riverside camping spots (with no firewood – and probably no fish left). And certainly no loud music from fellow campers – don’t you hate that too?
In this section suckers have come up from a recent bushfire. These will die off the next dry summer. Often these old tracks will remain ‘open’ for many years. I use some which were closed forty years ago!
Of course, in the Australian bush there are always wildflowers.
A bit of a greener section.
And wetter after all the rain we have been having lately.
A good spot to fill up your water bottles. The water was beautifully clear and cold. Such likely spots (substantial gully systems with multiple branches above – particularly ones facing east or south) should be noted on your map before you set out.
Spot loves the warmth of the fire.
As does Honey – here trying to glean the last glow from it in the cool morning.
A lovely camp in a grassy clearing where the deer had been very busy – as lawn mowers.
A mermaid found by the river.
Near the camp there were a handful of relic European trees remnants of cattle camps or old mining settlements perhaps – there were also a couple of water-filled shafts and mullock heaps nearby.
Walking out the next day – glimpses of the river below through the trees.
And again, lots of wildflowers.
Above those ‘torn and rugged battlements on high’ .
Interesting giant alpine grass.
The tracks often remain surprisingly open after many years – this one more than twenty.
A beautiful stand of relict kurrajong trees around a thousand kilometres south of their ‘normal’ range. You find them along river valleys here and there in the south having survived many fires which have often destroyed other such desirable tree species (their seeds are a good food source) and led to an extravagant weedy prevalence of dreadful gums and wattles only.
