Alexandra

Frank and I have just finished working in Alexandra for a week. We spent most of the week (3 days) working in the Cathedral Ranges State Park with one day in Lake Eildon National Park and one day in Mt Samaria State Park. Mt Samaria wasn't very far from the Strathbogie Ranges where Mum and Dad used to live. It was quite a drive from the Lake Eildon National Park offices but as it was pretty wet on the Monday it was considered a better option than the walk to the top of Cathedral Peak. We spent the day with Andrew putting in new signs and clearing fallen trees off the tracks. Andrew and Frank took it in turns to lean on things in their attempt to mimic council workers, but we agreed there would need to be another two or three blokes leaning on shovels to qualify :-)

On Tuesday we made out first trip up to the top of Cathedral Peak (840m) but we didn't make it far before we discovered a stream which had decided to take over the walking track. In fact we stopped 3 times on the way up from the campground to persuade the water to flow back in the creek bed rather than along the walking track.

Mt Cathedral in the mist

Creek takes over track

On Wednesday we made it quite a bit further but it was still quite wet and foggy. In fact over lunch it tried to hail on us. When the sun tried to break through all the logs started to steam, it was quite eerie.

On both days as we started the 1.5 to 2 hr walk back to the car park we could hear Lyrebirds in the gully below running through their repertoire of bird calls - Kookaburra, Magpie, Currawong, White-winged Chough, Crimson Rosella, Sulphur-crested, Yellow-tailed Black and Gang Gang Cockatoos - and they were just the ones we recognised. Frank managed to get a couple of good photos and on the Wednesday even a bit of video footage.

I did actually take my turn with the tools and helped with clearing and track marking etc although it might not look like it as the photos show Andrew, Frank and Neil doing all the work. Just to prove that I did do something other than take pictures here are a couple of me dragging wood off a track.

On Wednesday as I was walking in front looking for track markers I saw what I thought was a rather large burl on a rather small tree. It turned out to be a koala balancing on a very small twig. We didn't have the camera with us but we spotted what we thought was the same koala on Friday but further down the hill in a much larger tree (photo left) but as we passed the tree we had seen the koala in 2 days earlier there sitting at the base of the tree....

Frank spotted wombats in the campground as we returned to the car and a nice yellow robin. As we drove out on the last night it was a glorious sunset and as we looked back we could actually see the Cathedral Ranges.

Cathedral Range (Track Work)