(header photographs by Harry Waite 1912-2011)

From The Bushwalker Annual 1946

The Great Dividing Range runs south in an unbroken chain from North Queensland, through NSW, then turns westward and finally peters out in the flat Wimmera country of Victoria, The Grampians, covering an area of about 50 miles by 20 miles, dangle on the end of this 3,000 mile chain—a beautiful little embossed ornament on the bosom of the Western plains. They are rather difficult of access to the Sydney walker, but from Melbourne one does the trip in less than a day.

Although the northern end of the area is most boosted to the tourist, we found the south most appealing to the Bushwalker who likes his areas primitive and "unimproved." We went as far south as the service car goes, to a large guest house— Hotel Belfield—lying in the valley below Belfield Peak, then walked a further couple of miles south and camped by a pleasant little trout stream.

Geologically speaking the Gram-plans are of block fault formation. They run at right angles across the end of the Great Divide in three roughly parallel ranges stretching north and south, the rocky western slopes running up in a gentle incline to drop sharply and precipitously down the eastern face. Mt. William, just under 4,000 ft., is the highest peak on the Grampians and was to be the goal of our next day's walking. The only map available was a somewhat inaccurate tourist road map. It shows a nice thick dotted line of a track leading from the roadway to the summit of Mt. William—a mere 5 miles— and as this was our first day's experience with the map nothing warned us to be distrustful. So about 11 o'clock we broke camp and pottered along to the weir on Fvan's Creek. Here we had an early lunch and hid our packs, then set off with 8 or more hours of daylight in which to do what we estimated to be a 4 hours' walk. But we searched in vain for the track—nothing but thick scrub, and very prickly too. So we plunged through the undergrowth hoping to soon cut the track before long. But we didn't cut the track, and the undergrowth didn't improve either in quantity or quality. Per-s i s t e n t struggling eventually brought us out to the high country we were aiming for, but many hours had been lost. Away to the east towards Ararat stretched the level plain. Behind us was the spectacular Red Bluff, and in front rose Mt. William looking hardly more than an hour's walk away. But hour after hour slipped away and it was 5 o'clock when the base of the summit rocks was reached. Should we spend another hour gaining the summit, with the certainty of spending the night out with only a box of matches to keep us warm, or should we try to get back to our packs by dark? The latter suggestion won,

Knowing that any creek in that vicinity was a tributary of Fyan's Creek we got into the nearest and followed it down. The descent became steeper and steeper but at least 'the creek bed was free from undergrowth. When we got into Fyan's Creek daylight was rapidly fading. Both banks were steep and densely overgrown offering not even a campsite for a rabbit let alone a space to light a fire. The water got deeper as we proceeded, block-ups of fallen timber increased, and by the time it was almost too dark to see where to put our feet and we had both slipped in and got wet to the waist, providence gave us a break in the form of a wide log bridge over the creek which naturally suggested a road leading to and from. We found it with difficulty in the dark and sped along in an effort to warm up.

Gaining the road, however, was not the end of the story; we still had to find our packs. Imagine a pitch black night; imagine yourself on an unknown road not certain whether to follow it north or south, and numerous small tracks, any one of which might or might not lead to the weir, leading off it. We had just about resigned ourselves to spending the rest of the evening vainly probing down such tracks "by matchlight when we did find the one which lead to the weir. Thankfully we retrieved our packs and put on dry clothes and within a quarter of an hour were back at our previous night's campsite and our troubles were over.

We awoke late next morning. Ira found that 60% of his toenails had been wrecked and it took us a good hour to remove the thorns .and splinters from our anatomy. We called this a day of rest, merely prospecting the beginnings of a track up the opposite range. It was a promising beginning so next morning we departed with two; small packets of lunch for a day trip up Mi. Lubra. The track vanished on the first ridge in a welter of post-bushfire wattles, bracken and similar rubbish, through which we twigged a path right to the summit which we found invaluable for the return journey. Lubra is really delightful. The view out over Victoria) Valley is wide and wild and all around the long precipices of rocky ranges surge like breakers in a high sea. The scrub, too, is bluish green, and from above looks like the rippled surface of an ocean swell. The effect is quite unlike any other mountains I have seen. It was a perfect day. We traversed three minor peaks and returned to camp about dark.

Next day we left the South and followed the road north, the whole bush colourful with wildflowers, the tree weighed down with bright parrots, and in between slender wattle stems flitted innumerable .small birds. We met quite a few huge stumpy-tailed blue-tongue lizards, and a couple of echidnas; wallabies bounded through the bush .and the weird drumming of emus indicated their presence in large numbers although I missed seeing any.

We climbed Mt. Victory through fields of wildflowers. After several hours on its long summit we passed on, and when the smell of evening deepened on the air we found a little timber-getter's hut and camped there as a cold wind was blowing on the exposed heights.

Next day we walked to Wartook Reservoir down a long hard road, detouring to look at MacKenzie Falls and Broken Falls which lie in a very deep gorge and are quite spectacular. The caretaker at War-took was so delighted to see visitors that he supplied us with a stretcher and kapok mattress which was just too too luxurious but very much appreciated, likewise a diminutive yabbie which I cooked for tea—we were running short of provisions. Hunger made me rash and I tried to get the last morsel of flesh from the little beastie by chewing up his shell too, but some nasty little piece of it worked its way down my throat and I spent the rest of the evening choking till our kindly caretaker came to my rescue "with a whole loaf of bread which I was instructed to eat dry. Ira swore I choked myself on purpose to get the bread. It was good anyhow.

Next day we were given instructions for finding a track which was to lead us on to the range and save us hours of road walk, but after locating same and following it for several miles N.W. when our objective was practically S.E., we decided it must be another one of .those zig-zag timber tracks and returned to the road. It probably did lead to the top of the range all

The hospitable little timber-getter's hut again opened its doorway to us—it had no doorway to open— and bright and early next morning we departed like Alice for Wonderland. This is the tourist showground where every nook and cranny and gap and precipice and lump of rock has its appropriate name. The guide can point out innumerable subtitles in rock such as The Rt. Hon. S. M. Bruce, whales and porpoises and many another queer fish, but your perception has to be as subtle

as your subject to recognise them. The Grand Canyon, which leads to all these marvels is short and spectacular and very easy walking, one section—the Boulevard—so resembling a suburban footpath, that I'm sure it was manufactured several million years ago -with the present-day tourist in mind. There is a wired-in lookout from which you may gaze into the valley, which we forthwith did and spotted out a good campsite for our last evening's camp. A gentle ramble down a well-worn track led us out to the Halls Gap camping ground—a well-

And now, after 8 days of brilliant heat in a country of magnificent distances, the warm air permeated by a wild honey smell, the sky at night reeked with millions of stars, the Royal Revolver of this globe of ours brought Monday round all too soon and returned us to the murk of the City. Do I repeat myself when I say I don't like it?