Oven rock campground?

[Moondog55]

I've only just found out about this site.
Anybody here ever camped there?
Headed to Taradale tomorrow and thought I might take a detour there and check it out

[Biggles]

MD,
This is Elphinstone, back a bit and then into Fryers Ridge bushland...accessible over the railway overpass then into the bush. A maze of dirt tracks, most of which would be rough and likely muddy. Turn off the Calder and onto the highway leading to Castlemaine. On left about 4km is Railway Dam Road (the actual track over the railway), then east (left) onto Fryers Ridge Track. Just a rough, bare clearing. It attracts hoons on trailbikes and the occasional loon letting of a shotgun.

[Moondog55]

Roads were brilliant and it did seem to be trail bike heaven.
I did wonder if the hole was a natural occurrence or simply the result of lots of hot fires and continual spalling as there is a big rock on the High Plains with similar features

[Biggles]

Roads were brilliant and it did seem to be trail bike heaven.
I did wonder if the hole was a natural occurrence or simply the result of lots of hot fires and continual spalling as there is a big rock on the High Plains with similar features

Yes, we haven't had all that much rain up here to make things a right royal bog, though wet/sun/cool/dry/wet...rinse and repeat... here now. I can tell you the difference between now and in Spring, when the highest actual ridge of Fryer's Ridge is absolutely exploding in colour with wildflowers. It really is a sight to behold. Many years now (25+) since I have been up there, as there are other area of prolific wildflower area too, sadly some of which were decimated for new housing estates (along Fryers Road, Campbells Creek). For the better sights, you have to get well and truly off road into the sticks to appreciate the untouched areas now (Fryers Ridge is also approachable via Fryerstown, or a walking/MTB track that leads off the road at Irishtown (at the signpost marking the spot), past 1850s Cornish wattle-and-daub ruins then up and up and up! Only point of interest there is the old ruins and a few very lonely, isolated graves.

Lots of theories about Oven Rock, the wildest being that it is a convenient, hidden pick-up point for nefarious goods of meth dealers (just like the sliding bluestone block in one of the supports of the Taradale Railway Viaduct!) So, two hitherto interesting places I don't really fancy visiting too often.

Reckon on somebody, at sometime in history (no, not indigenous people), having found the rock with a small hole and hacked it to make a primitive (but effective) oven. Not sure but I think a similar objet d'art exists at the Butts Reserve below Tarrengower in Maldon.

[Moondog55]

The area looks very much like the Brisbane Ranges around Stieglitz, similar secondary regrowth from all the logging for firewood and pit props in the middle 1800's I suppose and similar rock. Any geologists here who would like to comment on that.