Sun 17 Feb, 2013 8:24 pm
Mon 18 Feb, 2013 7:39 am
Mon 18 Feb, 2013 9:21 am
Mon 18 Feb, 2013 10:29 am
Mon 18 Feb, 2013 11:11 am
Mon 18 Feb, 2013 11:43 am
Mon 18 Feb, 2013 2:26 pm
Mon 18 Feb, 2013 3:25 pm
Kinsayder wrote:Thanks, Ryan. Good report and nice pictures. Do you really carry a chair with you? Please tell me it's some amazing piece of engineering that is both light and easy to carry...
Hallu wrote:Well the poor track maintenance is constant amongst Victoria's state parks. I realized that 2 weeks ago when I did Lerderderg (a state park) and then Brisbane Ranges the next day (a National Park). NPs have info panels, water tanks, benches, wide tracks. State parks' tracks are overgrown, flood damage is hardly taken care of, water situation is bleak... I wanted to see Bunyip State Park, but I may skip it now...
The Razorback looks really dangerous, it's weird that Chapman doesn't mention it, he just says that it requires some rock scrambling, but he says the same of the Cathedral walk, and yet here the rock scrambling was easy and minimal.
Out_Walking wrote:Mm... This walk. I did the same, starting at Cooks Mill, but the track wasn't there then. Slogged up the road sucking in the odd exhaust fumes on the way!
That Razorback with a pack was definitely slow going! I also had my scariest fall in walking up there. Fell down a rock landing on my side with only a couple of cms to spare from going all the way down a 5 mt drop. Absoulutely crapped myself. Fantastic walk though, but I must say I loved and loathed it in equal measure!
Nice work doing that in Summer. Pretty unforgiving in hot weather!
andrewbish wrote:Thanks for the post, Ryan. This has reminded me that I did a similar walk pre xmas but forgot to post a report. I will get onto it shortly.
What I will say for now is that it was hot, challenging in places (the canyon is a little hairy) and is quite slow going along the Razorback.
Hallu wrote:
This brings me to another point. Nowadays, there are some really nice guidebooks including hiking, driving, etc... You have Scott Cook's books for NZ (called NZ Frenzy) or the recent and amazing book on US NPs by Michael Joseph Oswald. Both books feature a modern look : influenced by the bloggosphere and the internet generation, it's a more direct approach : if it's a crappy painful not-worth-it area, he'll just say it. If it's rubbish on a rainy day, same thing. Is the road scenic ? Mentioned too. It's time to stop the completely bland approach so many old writers use : spill your guts, say if you spit a lung walking up this track, if you cursed the fallen trees or the spiky bushes on the way up, if the road that leads to it could smash your tires. And if you think a popular area is actually pretty disappointing, just say so. I'm a bit tired of the 20 km loops of nothing in a view-less forest, tired of the "the track is at times rough and rocky" whereas it's a *&%$#! painful mess. And go outside the box. What are amongst the best areas of Victoria to me ? Croajingolong, Hattah-Kulkyne, Murray-Sunset, Little Desert. They're hardly ever mentioned anywhere... I just hope a new generation of writers will have the courage to jump into it and write some nice straightforward stuff about Australia.
Mon 18 Feb, 2013 4:26 pm
Mon 18 Feb, 2013 6:04 pm
Tue 16 Apr, 2013 7:51 pm
andrewbish wrote:Thanks for the post, Ryan. This has reminded me that I did a similar walk pre xmas but forgot to post a report. I will get onto it shortly.
Thu 25 Apr, 2013 6:43 pm
Mon 29 Apr, 2013 3:56 pm
Hallu wrote:Amongst the 3 or 4 of us we can safely say this is not a place for everybody. I wouldn't bring my friends over there. But from the Victoria Parks info sheets and Chapman's books, you'd think it's like some grassy rocky hills that are physical but fine otherwise. It's clearly not. Some scrambles are serious, some places are height-exposed and/or with slippery dirt, water is hard to find, the vegetation is painful... But by reading Chapman's advices, I would have never thought it was that bad.
This brings me to another point. Nowadays, there are some really nice guidebooks including hiking, driving, etc... You have Scott Cook's books for NZ (called NZ Frenzy) or the recent and amazing book on US NPs by Michael Joseph Oswald. Both books feature a modern look : influenced by the bloggosphere and the internet generation, it's a more direct approach : if it's a crappy painful not-worth-it area, he'll just say it. If it's rubbish on a rainy day, same thing. Is the road scenic ? Mentioned too. It's time to stop the completely bland approach so many old writers use : spill your guts, say if you spit a lung walking up this track, if you cursed the fallen trees or the spiky bushes on the way up, if the road that leads to it could smash your tires. And if you think a popular area is actually pretty disappointing, just say so. I'm a bit tired of the 20 km loops of nothing in a view-less forest...
Wed 08 May, 2013 5:38 pm
north-north-west wrote:Hallu wrote:Amongst the 3 or 4 of us we can safely say this is not a place for everybody. I wouldn't bring my friends over there. But from the Victoria Parks info sheets and Chapman's books, you'd think it's like some grassy rocky hills that are physical but fine otherwise. It's clearly not. Some scrambles are serious, some places are height-exposed and/or with slippery dirt, water is hard to find, the vegetation is painful... But by reading Chapman's advices, I would have never thought it was that bad.
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