308. Crossing Picnic Ground-Grahams Creek - Brisbane Ranges National Park

 U3A Hike No 308


Hike Report & Photos By Kath Cape

Eight of us met up for this hike led by Gordon in the Brisbane Ranges National Park. Gordon had chosen this location as the place where the least rain was forecasted for the day. Nevertheless, we were all prepared and expecting rain but not a drop we saw….we even saw some sun!! 

But getting ahead of ourselves. The walk started at the delightful Crossing Picnic Area, where, after ‘crossing’ the river, we turned off the road on a path through Yankee Gully just above a dry creek bed. Of course, as we would expect with Gordon, the walk in the Steiglitz Historic Park gave us great opportunities to investigate remnants from the gold mining area along the way, including some “calcining” pits. The pits were used for calcining the ore, an early process of extracting gold, using heat to cause the ore to crumble. Very heavy on firewood so you can imagine the forest was denuded of its original growth. We also saw the remnants of a dam wall, no doubt employed to support the Prince of Wales battery servicing the mine of that name, now known as the Alliance mine. 

When we hit the site of the Alliance mine, a couple of 100 metres further up the hill, we clambered up and along an old mullock heap which afforded us a lovely view of the National Park. 

From there we headed onto Friday’s Picnic area, a great spot for our morning tea, well equipped with picnic tables and a toilet. Would be an excellent camping spot. 

After morning tea, we continued our walk spotting more good specimens of our national floral emblem, the Golden Wattle, not yet out in bloom, and of our Victorian floral emblem, the common heath, out in bloom. Once we hit the remnants of the United Albion mine, we had another opportunity to explore a giant mullock heap. 

From there, our walk continued more on roads and four-wheel drive tracks, (Yankee Gully Road and Hazel Track) before joining a forest path leading back to the Crossing picnic area for lunch. 

And the rain kept off until we returned to Ballarat! 














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