411 Buckshot Track- Friday's Cammpground, Brisbane Ranges NP, 11.6km, circuit.

 U3A Hike No 411



Hike Report by Kath  

As I drove from my house in the teeming rain to our meeting spot in Buninyong, I thought “am I crazy” and perhaps many fellow hikers also shared those doubts as we were a small (but select) group of five that set off in two cars to the start of the hike. Gordon often opts to hike in the Brisbane Ranges National Park on days forecast for heavy rain, as often there is less rain there than in and around Ballarat and…once again….our faithful Gordon proved himself right. While spouses and fellow would be hikers remaining in Ballarat watched the rain teem down all day, the merry band of five only encountered a bit of drizzle from time to time during our 11.6 kms hike. 

We started our walk from Friday’s campground where a small group were indeed camping, huddled around their campfire. The Brisbane Ranges may have a reputation for being dry but during this lovely hike we delighted in all the greenery, the variety in the vegetation, and some particular flora and fauna delights. We were pleased to see some early wattle out in bloom in the initial stages of our walk and lots of grass trees, in the later stages of our walk, strangely, initially almost exclusively on the right side of the track, even leading to musings from Gordon that maybe we had stumbled into a mono eco-culture. Thankfully, we were pleased to see as we progressed down the path of time more integration with grass trees appearing on both sides of the track! 

Our lunch stop was in a particularly nice spot – a green but dry creek bed on the Burchell Trail with plenty of boardwalk options to choose from for seating as they were not required from keeping us clear of boggy ground on this occasion.

Inevitably there was many signs of past gold mining we encountered along the way, including a well preserved mine site with a ladder going down the shaft and a pulley and ventilation system above the shaft. The area was well covered so none of us could be tempted to scoot down the ladder, but then Joan wasn’t with us on this hike!

The highlight were the fungi though. We all agreed they have been particularly spectacular this year. We came across what we thought was a patch of snow but Gordon was able to identify it as ‘coral lichen’ and then just near the end of the walk we came across this brilliant yellow specimen that google identified as ‘tremella’.

A lovely walk. Thanks, Gordon, for leading us away from the rain through this lovely forest walk.

Photos by Sharon







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