'Into The Woods Hike' Circuit-12.2 Km. Hepburn Regional Park

 U3A Hike No 277

Hike Report by Teena

After meeting at Kirks reservoir, we set off to Basalt road where we were joined by Terry, Leona and Geoff. We then continued in convoy to Brandy Hot Track to start our hike into the woods.

We started off with the sun streaming through the pine trees, promising us a warm hike ahead. We walked along Brandy Hot Track for about 200m before turning right into Basalt road. Just before arriving at Bottle-O-Porter Track we came across what seemed to be an area where people had gathered to sit on tree trunks with an old stone fire pit. This had been covered with a sheet of metal that had a chimney attached to it. We guessed this must have been added more recently.

We continued walking along 4WD tracks for quite a while, crossing roads that were likely to have traffic, with Gordon reminding us about being careful each time, keeping us safe. After walking along Humbug road we crossed Basalt road and found a clearing for morning tea on Boats road. We were grateful for the refreshments as it was getting quite hot by now and we had already had a few wardrobe changes on route.

Starting off again we encountered a gold mine with quite a deep shaft, before descending steeply down a rough track which gave us some far-reaching views. We had pine trees on our left with bush on the right, a few rogue pines had decided to take up residence in the bush too. We came to Sulky Gully on our right and further on there was an area with another stone firepit. This one was set up ready to light with kindling wood stacked neatly by a tree. Moving on, we found a horse puddler circle, Gordon explained how this was used to extract the gold. The ‘puddlers’ were developed on the Victorian goldfields in the early 1850’s.

Continuing we turned left onto Butterfly Track, rightly named by the amount of butterflies we saw flying around. We headed back to the start and had a small side-trip to see a disused mine. Winding our way through the pine trees we came across mullock heaps and the open mine shaft. Again Gordon warned us to stay away from the edges as they could easily give way!

There were some beautiful flowers on our walk, Lyn even found three different orchids, including the Bearded orchid, as well as a Chocolate lily.

Thank you, Gordon, for an interesting walk with different aspects along the way. Jan did a great job as whip, counting us in after each stop. 

Photos by Alan, Gordon and Teena


























 
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