Hi All,
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| Spot the Simon |
As per our plan we headed to Black Hill some 6 kms down the road, after examining the information board we decided to walk both tracks Ridge and Low Circuit some 4.5 kms, 90 minutes allowed.
As we set out we were struck by the number of butterflies, hundreds, everywhere. The track climbed steadily to the lookout, apparently this location is used to spot bushfires, it is not that high, but the surrounding land is low and flat and visibility good. The rock formations are granite, quite a light grey. I am always struck by such formations that look like they have been plonked down among the trees, of course the rocks were there before the trees ever grew but the impression is the opposite.
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| Wasp nest |
Over the years of walking we have become quite observant of small details in the landscape when walking, maybe you develop "the eye". Today's find was a mud wasp nest on the path, and some bird boxes in trees, things that could easily be missed by many walkers.
We arrived back at the start in 100 minutes, but found that the information did not tally to our GPS which measured our walk at 6.5kms meaning we were faster than the suggested time allocation. Our moving average was 3.6 not too bad, considering it was about 35C!
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| Turpin Falls |
Next we headed to Turpin Falls following a hand drawn map, missing the turn off twice. Eventually we found it and arriving at the car park found about 20 cars already there, a group nearby were blowing up an inflatable raft so we were expecting something spectacular. This didn't quite tally with our initial assessment as the Campaspe River was dry when we drove over the bridge. There were plenty of people in the pool, seems to be a local hangout spot. The falls were running..... just.... The water was a pretty shade of algal green, the odour quite pronounced.
We wouldn't be entering the water dummdumm dummdummm (jaws music)!
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| Local swimmers |
After lunch back at the resort we drove up the highway to Taradale via Malmsbury to visit the viaduct and gardens, quite impressive. The initial build did not include the steel trusses between the stone piers, these were added later to reinforce the bridge when trains became heavier.
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| Viaduct panorama |
Tomorrow more walking....
Night Folks
Susan
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