Major Mitchell Plateau Walk

Today we did part of thethe Major Mitchell Plateau Walk. This takes you from the summit of Mt William (where all the television, radio, etc towers are) down to the Dunkeld-Halls Gap Rd near Jimmy Creek.

Having a Park Ranger as your walking partner can be extremely useful. We parked one car down at the end of the walk and drove back to the start. This means unlocking a gate and driving up two kilometres of extremely steep road – normally you would have to walk this hill to get to the start.

Mt William to Jimmy Creek

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As you can see from elevation graph on the map (by clicking on "Stats") it is primarily a down hill walk. It is over terrain that burnt quite hot during the 2006 wildfire. The result is that the walk takes in areas that are still to regenerate and other areas where regeneration has just started. Either way, the vegetation still has some way to go before the area can be classified as "recovered".

The other notable feature of the walk is that it is largely over uneven terrain. The track is largely paved with rocks or over rocky ground. This means that you have to watch your feet at all times and makes it difficult to take in the views.

The start of the trail as it leaves Mt William

The trail mostly follows the escarpment

Burnt trees near the start of the walk

Even though the walk is primarily downhill there is still some climbing to do. Just after the start is a descent down into Boundary Gap. A track joins the walk here that comes up from Kalimna Falls – this looks like a serious uphill haul to get here. Boundary Gap used to be a campsite but is now closed. Coming out of Boundary Gap the track makes its way through some quite steep terrain that is really a rock scramble – a bit like an approach to a rock climb.

Sylvia at the top of the rock scramble

The track levels out from here and goes through some pretty scorched areas and there is very little regrowth at the moment. The burnt terrain is from the big wildfire of 2006 and has killed off a large stand of banksias that used to be abundant here.

The trail mostly follows the escarpment

After travelling in land for a bit you come into the First Wannon Campground. There has been some major work done by Parks in this area. Coming into the campground and after leaving it there are major walkways in place to protect the sensitive terrain and vegetation. This material for this was choppered in and the crew were choppered in each day over a couple of weeks. (We knew when they were clocking in and out because the chopper flew over our house to get them there!)

Sylvia arriving at a stretch of walkway

The campsites have all been carefully levelled and a toilet put in place.

Sylvia modelling in front of the toilets at First Wannon

Further along there is a large cairn. It turns out that this cairn is at the same height as the start of the walk at Mt William. The views from this high point are out to the east and quite impressive.

Time for a break and to check the view

From here the walk descends slightly before taking a path right over the top of a pointy hill. The route to the top goes through some very old banksia - but killed by fire...

...and over some rocks that have conveniently arranged themselves into a pathway.

From the top you get a view back towards the north that takes in all the Major Mitchell Plateau and beyond.

The descent from here is quite steep. Apparently this is a new alignment of the track and you need to be careful to not lose your footing on the loose surface. This eventually evens out onto Stockyard Track - a fire trail. It is here your knees start to thank you for finally getting onto even ground.

We came down from the top of the pointy hill in the background

The track stops at a helipad and the walk continues on the other side of this as a gentle slope to the road. It is only once you find yourself at an elevation of about 750m that the vegetation has some life to it. There are actually plants flowering along this trail - some of the only flowers we saw on the whole walk.

We eventually arrived back at the car quite tired. Understandable after covering 16.3kms in a little over 8 hours. We certainly didn't stop often and weren't dawdling.

Oh...and did I say why we did this walk? Sylvia wanted to see if an endangered species of plant that has been recorded on the plateau was flowering. Did we find it? Given the amount of burn, having to constantly watch our feet and the amount of regeneration it may have been there but we certainly didn't spot any!