WALK 1978 Vol. 29 $1.00* • Recommended Retaii Price Terms and Conditions of Use Copies of Walk magazine are made available under Creative Commons - Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike copyright. Use of the magazine. You are free: • To Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work • To Remix — to adapt the work Under the following conditions (unless you receive prior written authorisation from Melbourne Bushwalkers Inc.): • Attribution — You must attribute the work (but not in any way that suggests that Melbourne Bushwalkers Inc. endorses you or your use of the work). • Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes. • Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one. Disclaimer of Warranties and Limitations on Liability. Melbourne Bushwalkers Inc. makes no warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of any content of this work. Melbourne Bushwalkers Inc. disclaims any warranty for the content, and will not be liable for any damage or loss resulting from the use of any content. AUSTRALIA'S SPECIALISTS IN BUSHWALKING, LIGHTWEIGHT CAMPING SKI TOURING AND CANOEING TENTS Bergans, Blacks . ... RUCKSACKS Bergans, Starlite . ... SLEEPING BAGS FREEZE DRIED FOODS CAMP STOVES MOLONY'S CONTENTS Editorial . 3 Battery to Buffalo Athol Schafer 4 Sleeping Bags for Sleepwalkers 11 Myles Dunphy Graham Wills Johnson 13 What's for Dinner? . Janet White 19 The Early Explorers of Victoria (1824-1840) Graham Mascas 21 Reflections . Michael Griffin 24 Kanangra-Boyd, Mountain Wilderness Fred Halls 27 Climbing in the Cook Area Gary Wills 31 Ocker Easter . Arthur Frances 34 The Top End Graham Wills-Johnson 38 The Prom. by the Sea Marian Siseman 47 Eclipsed on the High Plains 49 Survival for the Beginner Yeti 54 Incident . Michael Griffin 55 Book Reviews 56 Cocoparra National Park Graham Mascas 58 Mountain Muster 61 Mapping . Barry Short 63 TRACK NOTES At the Head of the Dargo . 65 Mt Freezeout-Lankeys Road (Three days) . 65 Tabletop Signpost-Brandy Creek Mine Turnoff (One day) 68 Dinner Plain-Red Bank Plain (One day) . 69 Mount St Bernard-Mount Murray (One or two days) 71 Snob's Gap-Conn Gap Road (Short Weekend) . 74 Goulburn River-Howqua River (Two days) . 77 Horse Hill Range-Tamboritha Road (Two days) 79 Mount Enterprise-Lake Eildon (Two days) . 81 Belgrave-Kallista-Halls Track-Belgrave (One day) 83 MELBOURNE BUSHWALKERS always welcome visitors on their walks which include easy one·day excursions and weekend trips. Extended walking tours of three days or more are also included on the programme. If you are interested, then call in any Wednesday night, from 7.00- 9.30 p.m .. to the clubroom. Hosia Lane, Melbourne (at the rC'ar of the Forum ThC'atre). Details may bC' obtained by writing to the Hon. SC'cretary, Box 1751 Q. G.P.O .. MC'/bournC', 3001. The editor of WALK 1978 wishes to thank all those who helped in this production and are not acknowledged in the text. This includes Ann Sullivan for the mapping and Fred Halls for collating the track notes. I would also like to thank those people who supplied photographs and other material. 2 EDITORIAL "Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away; and if they could they would still be destroyed, - chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones." John Muir, founding father of the National Parks systems in the U.S.A., wrote these words at the end of the last century to rally support for reservation of that country's forests. More than three-quarters of a century later we have still not learnt that simple lessan. The spectre of massive unemployment and the consequent death of small towns centred on forest-based industries is held up by the timber giants to frighten off conservationists. It should be obvious by now that tourism is one of the growth industries and that the preservation of the natural beauty of an area must increase its attractiveness to tourists. In these days of more leisure time a growing number of people are turning to the bush for escape from their mundane working world. Wise and considerate provision of services and facilities in the towns through which all must pass to reach the bush would surely boost a flagging local economy. One has only to look at the boom in prosperity of a town such as Bright to realise that tourism in an untapped goldminc. Bushwalkers must have a voice when decisions are being made on the future of the bush. The creation of National Parks is not enough in itself, we need to partici­ pate in the formation of management plans to ensure that we are not left out in the cold. The land use decisions being made in Victoria at the moment will be with us for decades; our style of walking will be changed by the creation of National Parks and the. subsequent imposition of regulations where none previously existed. We will have to be patient as we go through a very difficult period during the establishment of these parks. We must persist in our attempts to have our point of view recognised and learn when to stand firm and when to compromise. In the words of Muir "In God's wildness lies the hope of the world." 3 BATTERY TO BUFFALO Athol Schafer Opportunity knocks but once the old adage runs, so when the invitation came to join a party planning to walk the intervening ranges between the Bogong High Plains and Mount Buffalo, I accepted it at once, for it was an idea I had often thought about. The second last day of the year found our party, comprised of George the leader, his wife Shirl, and myself, pitching our tents in the Omeo camping ground. G & S believed in using public transport wherever possible, so Omeo had been chosen as a convenient 'jumping-orr place to reach the high plains, on account of it being served by a daily mail car from the railhead at Bairnsdale. Initially, George had thoughts of commencing the walk from the camp, for across the river was a sign post, 'Walking Track', pointing up a formidable looking mountain­ side. "In the right direction," said George, pointing out the route on the map. But he was in a minority, the rest of the party preferring an easier start. "Much better to take things gradually. One can break in one's walking legs less painfully by starting off on the llat." On the way up in the mail car the driver had mentioned the name of Frank Pat­ terson who took small parties out in his 4WD. That evening we located him in town. We were told to be ready by nine o'clock next morning and asked where we could like to be set down. Mount Battery was our choice for it was a prominent landmark conveniently situated on the Bundarra/Cobungra divide - a recognised access route to the plains. A thirty km drive out along the Alpine Highway brought us to Cobungra Hill where there was a turnoff through a gate, the first of many that had to be opened and shut during our passage, and into timber recently ringbarked with a poison axe. It was a rough bouncy ride up and down slopes either cleared or timbered, cattle grazing here and there, as far as the ford on the Cobungra. a wide shallow crossing with the sur­ rounding flats under forest shade. It could have been worthwhile to have walked this section from the highway. When it was getting on to eleven o'clock the western face of Mount Battery came into view, appearing as a long curved slope of tumbled rocks. After crossing the inter­ vening valley and climbing a timbered ridge we stopped a few hundred yards east of the summit, off-loaded our packs, and farewelled Frank who was returning home via Callaghan Road and Anglers' Rest. The short climb to the trig. brought a long view of the Cobungra valley to the distant escarpment of the Victorian Alps. Underfoot, the mountain was a jumble of rocks, but the thin soil sustained a bright display of mauve daisies and other species of wildflowers. The map contours of our afternoon's walk were sufficiently spaced to get us easily into the swing and the gait of an extended pack-carrying tour, the gentle undulations of the forest track gradually mounting the tops of the divide. Four hours steady pace along what is known as Young's Track led to the edge of a wide clearing, where, beyond a marshy creek, stood a cattleman's hut, solidly built of logs and in the lee of sheltering timber. On the morning of New Year's Day we left the hut, the track now continuing through timber solely as cattle pads, but on reaching any of the intervening snow plains, radiating out in aU directions, which meant much time spent in picking it up again. The largest clearing is known as MacNamara's Dinner Plain, not to be confused with another of the same name some miles to the south. Scrub cattle browsed on the snow grass and a family of brumby horses, white blaze marks on their noses, kept continually ahead of us for miles. 4 Kangaroos and emus shyly kept their distance and snakes slithered away from the roadside at our passing, the latter being more noticeable during the warm humidity of the previo11s day- a sign of a change in the weather.