Warby Ranges North to South Overnight & Day 2

The Camp

Each time I had stopped during the day there had always been a few mozzies to greet me, and the camp site was no exception, in fact far too many to count. Although they did seemed to stay close to the ground which meant long trousers kept them at bay and the odd one that reached higher could easily be swatted away. This was fine whilst I was sitting around camp cooking and eating dinner but when I retired to bed all of me was close to the ground, (I would love to know what these blighters live on when they can’t get bushwalker). This trip I used the GoLite Shangri-La2 and the Serenity net tent from Six Moon Designs. This set up meant that I had plenty of space inside to spread out my gear, and the mesh did keep the mozzies out, I did however push my pillow above my head to help lift the netting higher and thus more clearance from those hungry mozzies. The weather was great for being out, with the predicted thunderstorms, whilst audible, came nowhere near me and there was only a few strong gust of wind as the change came through, so all in all I had a good nights sleep.

Morning Light

I rose early so I could enjoy the early sunny shine and following breakfast I packed up and headed off. The walk to the car park at Salisbury falls is quite short at only 7Km however the views on this section are well worth the shorter walk. I continued the last few hundred metres along Loggers lane until it finishes at Taylor track, here I swung south following the MVO across the creek that feeds the Brien Gorge Falls until I meet the Friends Walking track, taking a left turn I travelled along this well used track to the turn off to Kwat Kwat lookout.
This lookout has great views across the plains and whilst I had not travel far from camp it was still nice to stop and have a look. Retracing my steps to the Friend’s track I continued on my journey southward until the start of the Alpine view track is met. This track as its name suggest provides some spectacular views both of the nearby Wangaratta and of the Alps. Eventually it drops down and meets up the track to Salisbury falls. From here it was only a short 2 Km walk down to the car park, although the falls do offer photo opportunities (until the camera went flat) and its own views of the distance Mountains to the south.


So there you have it, not the longest two day walk but it did provide a night out, a walk through sections of the park I had not seen and a chance to give some different hiking gear a run.
A note about water, I have always found when I walk in the Warby's that I tend to drink more water than normal, so I would recommend to others to not under estimate how much water you may need on a trip like this. Also on water, given the camp site is not tooo far from the road it would be possible to do a water drop near the camp site (maybe at the intersection of Loggers and Taylor’s) before starting the walk.

Warby Ranges North to South Day 1

The Warby Range section of the Warby Ovens National Park is approximately 23 Km long but it has two features that make an end to end hike awkward. Firstly there is 1Km section of private land which breaks the park in two and the southern boundary finishes against private which would mean back tracking the last 4.5 Km. I therefore investigated walking as far as I could with out the need to enter private land. Studying the map I felt the Sunrise walking track would provide a suitable exit point.


As I had never been in the Sunrise track area I felt a reccie was needed, this confirmed the suitability of walking out this way but I came up against two stumbling blocks firstly the west side of the Sunrise track complex has some very clear do not enter signs placed there by Parks Victoria this is due to the Cinnamon fungus. Secondly and of no less of a risk was the car park at the start of the Sunrise track, this car park is used by people who obviously prefer to (or have to) do their horizontal folk dancing outside (this is based on the used dancing balloons on the ground). Whilst this in itself should not be too much of a problem the empty alcohol cans was enough to convince me I did not want to leave cars there overnight on a Saturday.
So it was back to good old Salisbury falls, the walk would be a bit shorter on day 2 but the close proximity to houses made the Salisbury Falls car park a lot safer.


So day 1, I started walking opposite the junction of Boweya Creek road and Boweya road, heading generally south I slowly worked my way up the ridge the runs up to Mt Killawarra after about a kilometre I swung more eastwards and then more northwards as I finally climbed up onto the top of the ridge some 500m or so south of the summit. The view from the summit surprised me I had not expected such a vista it certainly made a great starting point for the walk.

The view North

So after soaking in the views I turned to the south and followed the wheel tracks back to towards Ridge road. After about 1.5 Km’s I meet Ridge Road, which I followed south for around 2.5 Km’s until I reached what the map showed as the top of the ridge that ran south down thought the Warby’s. At this point I left the road and headed cross country with the map, compass, gps and the terrain as my guide.

Skippy

This section of about 3.5 Km’s was outstanding whilst offering no views it did off plenty of wild flowers and Kangaroos to look at. Continuing down the ridge line I eventually meet Devenish Wangaratta road, crossing this I continued cross country down the ridge line until I meet the private land boundary. Now I knew there was a MVO track on the boundary but I did not expect to see the sign right where I met it in what seemed like the middle of nowhere.


I planned to follow this fence line east until it joined the Devenish Wangaratta road, but towards the end it became to rough and the scrub became quite thick so I had to zig zag a fair bit to make it out to the bitumen. Once on the road it was only a few hundred meters until I meet Gerrett road and the northern end of Loggers Lane

Grass Trees

The first section of Loggers lane has a steady climb up to a ridge, this ridge had some of the best grass trees I have seen, with full skirts and plenty of height and in groups two or more, I can assure you the photo does not do them justice. I followed Loggers lane as it headed down and once again climbed back up toward the main north south ridge. Just as Loggers lane “flattens” out there is an open area amongst the trees with enough flat areas for a couple of tents and also about 50m south though this clearing is a rocky outcrop with a sprinkling of wattles in full bloom, this open area offers lovely views north eastwards across the plains towards NSW.

Bee

I had given a lot of thought to camp site selection when planing the walk, and whilst I was happy enough with the final choice I was not able to find a location close to a guarantied water source. So this meant I would have to carry two days water. The up side to this is the extra weight would allow me to test the AARN pack (MM55) as if I was out for more than one night. This is the first time I have used one of the bigger AARN packs, and I was quite pleased with the performance, the balance pockets did their job to balance the load and certainly I felt comfortable.

Sunrise Walking Tracks, Warby Ranges

It had been a while between walks but with the need to do a reccie for an upcoming 2 day walk, I loaded up my pack and headed off to the Warby Ranges. The Warby Ranges form part of the Warby Ovens National Park, offer a variety of walking tracks and its lower altitude makes it an ideal winter & spring destination.

This time I planned to walk with in the Sunrise Complex of tracks, these tracks offer a variety of loops that range from 2 to 6 Km and graded easy to hard. Today I would walk the large loop. This would allow me to use the captured GPS plot for reference on the 2 day walk.

Weather conditions made for interesting walking. It had rained over night and continued with showers for the first hour of my trip. This also meant the bush was very wet and every time I pushed through the scrubby sections I became wetter. Fortunately the scrub opened up once I descended on the western slopes which allow me to dry out a little.

I was quite impressed with the mix of terrain and the views offered by this walk and I expect that I will use this loop again along with other nearby tracks to make a full day walk.

I was very impressed with the quality of the signage in this section of the park, in fact this was the first time I had found a map on a post half way through a walk with "a you are here dot"!

This time of the year also means the flowers are out.




A mob of caterpillars having a feed.


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ID SilShelter & GoLite Shangri-la 2

I have been using the Integral Designs SilShelter for some time and on paper it ticked most of the items on my list of shelter features.
Roomy for one, and two at a squeeze.
Light weight,
Option of Bug inner,
And a colour that blends with the environment.

However, I have had mixed performance when using the shelter with its bug inner which lead me to conclude that they did not fit well together. Although when used with a light weight Bivvy such as the SMD Meteor the ID SilShelter works well.

There is a near endless list of shelters available that would meet my requirements. So after much research and discussions with other hikers I have purchase a GoLite Shangri-la 2 and its matching inner Nest. As a pair they should make a flexible light weight shelter for two, but for one the inner Nest is too heavy. A smaller and lighter weight option is too use a bivvy (for example the SMD Meteor) or small bug net such as MLD Solo Mid inner or the SMD Serenity. The second two options provide a large amount of space for one and my gear regardless of the weather.

The other thing I noticed when searching the web for shelters is for some shelters there are lots of good photos whilst for others the selection is limited to the manufactures’ glossy brochures. These brochures often lack detail when considering an on-line purchase. So I have taken a few photos to help other potential purchaser of the GoLite SL2.

When pitched by itself the SL2 Nest needs a guy line to hold the front of the shelter. This line is not required when the SL2 outer is placed over the top.


The mats in the photos are a Therm-a-Rest’s ProLite 4 3/4 length and an Exped SL7 UL size M


When pitched together the inner nest goes all the way to the back of the outer but stops about 24’ (600mm) from the front of the outer. I used 8 pegs in this pitch. The extra two went on the front of the nest.

Morning Walk, Warby Ranges

I had the opportunity for a short walk in between providing transport for a mountain bike event. So having spent plenty of time walking in the southern end of the Warby Ranges this was a good opportunity to walk the central part.

Reflections

I started from the popular Wenham’s camp and headed out along Taylors track and Loggers lane until till time dictated returning to the car. The walk provided a few photo opportunities and with the focus on filling in time rather than the destination I did take a few shots.

Field of grass trees

For the gear heads the camera used on this trip was a Sony Cyber-shot Model DSC-TX5. Not my preferred camera as it has no view finder but relies upon the large rear touch screen which can be hard to see in the sun light. On the plus side it is water proof to 3m and its battery was charged when I went to leave in the morning. Anyway it’s just a short post, with photos.

More Reflections

Head Rock

What another pool of reflection

Ryder’s (or Campbell’s) yards overnight

This trip was planned in such away that it allowed those who worked Saturday mornings to participate, so departing work at 12.15 had us arriving at Mt Beauty 1.5 hours later. The rest of the group was ready and waiting so after quick introductions and chat about the planned starting point it was off to the Bogong High Plains.
To keep the distance achievable in a Saturday afternoon, I had decided to leave the cars in the car park at the horse yards just past the Pretty Valley hut, this would give us easy assess to Cope Saddle track and plenty of room to park the cars. We arrived at the car park about an hour after leaving Mt Beauty. The weather forecast was not as kind as my last visit to the high plains, with strong winds and rain predicted. We had not been let down, it was very windy and dark clouds were building in the North West. So donning wind proof jackets warm hats it was time to head off. The shortest path out to Ryder’s Yards is a mix of pole line through the snow grass and jeep track. The track heads generally south west which meant we had the wind to our backs making walking a bit more comfortable. Interestingly you could smell smoke in the wind from the DSE controlled burns some 30 km away in the Kiewa valley. Given the easy nature of the walk breaks were few and we quickly arrived at Cope Saddle hut. Whilst our camping spot was close it was a chance to catch our breath and for those who had not been out in this area before a look around. After the short break at Cope Saddle hut we followed the Cope West aqueduct around to the first track junction, taking this track quickly led us around the knoll to the Ryder’s yards access track.
The huts are spread out and allowed plenty of room for tents to be erected. Since my last camp out with the ID Sil-Shelter I had had a few practise runs at pitching it in the yard at home, so with that experience under my belt I pitched the ID including the “door pulley lock”

Camp Site

After the tents went up we moved into the hut, once the fire was lit and the hut was full of people it was very comfortable. Dinner was cook and consumed amongst the chatter, which include the normal bushwalker topics of footwear, what are you eating, latest Ikea bargains and planning for future walks.
Gradually people headed off to bed, and with the fire made safe for the night, the last of us headed for our tents.

I checked the ropes and adjusted the peg locations on my shelter before climbing into bed, for this trip I was using my new Exped syn-mat UL 7M, this mat is a similar weight to my Therm-a-rest pro-lite 4 but is full length rather than the 3/4 of the Therm-a-rest.
It was not too long before the wind (which had not let up), was joined by showers of rain, some just a few spots others heavy down pours.
The shelter stayed up all night, I used 11 pegs (normally its 12 but I lost one in the dark) three of which are used by the door. For these conditions I could use a few more as the shelter did flap a fair bit, but it was still standing undamaged the next morning. The biggest problem I had was down the foot end of the shelter, it was taking the full force of the wind which was pushing in it and the rain was being force under the shelter and through the mesh of the matching bug inner onto my quilt. This was discovered early in the morning when I woke with cold feet. Luckily the large Nunatak quilt has plenty of length for me and since it was short time before I would get up I just moved “up” the quilt and waited (warmer) for “get out of bed time”

The morning provided the usual mix of high plains weather, foggy, raining, sunny all of which came with wind. The fire had been re-lite and slowly the other campers arrived in the hut for breakfast, coffee, and a chat about the weather. I had a few different plans for the return trip on Sunday, the options that fitted within the available time were, pick up the Australian Alpine Walking Track (AAWT) and loop around using the Fainters fire track to return to the cars, travel cross country keeping west of the Cope Saddle track for as long as the terrain allowed or take the shortest way home which was the way we had come the afternoon before.
I had been watching the weather and had become comfortable that it looked like staying clear so the plan was to take the AAWT option, well that was until we stepped outside the hut to leave, only to find it was raining again…. So that was the end of it, we would take the shortest way home. The walk back was into the wind, and rain so with rain jackets pulled tight, heads bowed we headed off. The return to the cars was completed with very few breaks and once back the gear was quickly stowed and we all departed for the Bakery.

Rugged Up!

The weather back in Mt Beauty was lovely, warm, and often sunny plus the bakery food was much better than my packed lunch!

Checking the Bureau of Met on my return, Falls Creek recorded wind gust up to 85kmh and 17mm of rain during Saturday night.

Just regarding the ID Sil Shelter.

The closing method for the door using the pulley arrangement worked well, whilst it was harder in the longer grass than at home on the mowed lawn it did pull the door shut and keep it there for the night.

There are plenty of peg/rope loops on the ID, with the strong wind and forecast rain I had added a line from the door that laps over the top to the peg that is inline with the pole on the side of the shelter. This line went diagonal from the ground across the under lap door to the loop half way between the top of the lap door and the peg at the bottom of the lap door. I use line locks for tensioning, and for the fun of it, had purchase the glow in the dark type. Well it was this glow in the dark line lock I could see glowing through the sli-nylon of the closed door, which when I woke up during the night to the sound of flapping sli-nylon I could see that the glow was in the same place as last time which meant the shelter had not moved despite the racket that was going on.

Ryder’s (or Campbell’s) yards

This trip was simply to familiarize myself with the track to Ryder’s yards prior to a group walk in a few weeks time. Starting at Pretty Valley Hut the plan was to follow the pole line across to the Cope Saddle jeep track and then a mixture of pole line and jeep track to Cope Saddle hut. Whist the map showed a pole line heading off from Pretty Valley hut on the ground it was a different thing, there was one pole about 100m from the hut then a gap of around 400m to the next pole. Anyway it was a nice sunny day so I headed off in the direction of the distant pole. I had not gone very far before I realised that the whole area was very wet with a mixture of small creeks and bogs. Whilst I continue in this direction I amended my plan to use a different (dryer) route for the return trip.

Rock Bridge

The remainder of the trip to Cope Saddle hut was uneventful and followed either the jeep track or the pole line when it was shorter or easier walking than the hard rock on the jeep track. Cope Saddle hut (which is an old SEC hut) with it red roof slowly appeared in the distant. This hut sits at a five ways junction with the AAWT passing through, Cope East and West aqueduct track and Cope Saddle track which I had just walked down.

Cope Saddle appeared in the distance

So after a quick look around I headed off down Cope West Aqueduct, these track are easy walking and before long I came to a track junction. This is where became confused I had not expected to meet the turn of to Ryder’s yard so quickly and my GPS when over laid onto my paper map was telling me I was not at the turn off. So continuing south I walked over the small saddle to find a second track on my left. At this point a number of things click in my mind, firstly I remember a guide book talking about two tracks leading to Ryder’s yards, looking at the country I was about to walk into I felt I had passed the hut, and the GPS still did not line up well with the map. So with the felling I was now on the right track I headed east on the intersecting track an a few minutes later I was at the turn off to Ryder’s yards. Arriving at the collection of three huts and one out building I stopped to enjoy my lunch on a very pleasant autumn day.

Larger two huts

The return trip was much less event full. I used the well trodden path made by the horse to get back to the car rather than the area of bogs and creeks. Once home I check my other Bogong maps both of them show the two turn offs to Ryder’s yards whilst the newer map showed only one, no wonder I had trouble…