Wirrawilla
Rainforest
"Wirrawilla is a Koorie word meaning green trees. The dominant
Myrtle Beech, Southern Sassafras and Blackwood Wattle trees
characterise it as Cool Temperate Rainforest. Millions of years
ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and Australia was still joined
to Antarctica, rainforests were widespread. In Victoria today, they
are restricted to small, scattered patches bordering gullies and
streams."
- from the Information
Board
While checking out things and places of interest around Toolangi
a while back, I happened to come across a reference to an
interesting sounding spot named the Wirrawilla Rainforest Walk. It took a while,
but eventually I managed to find some time and made the effort to
visit and check it out. I'm really glad I did, as it turned out to
be one of those isolated little gems that are situated just far
enough off the beaten track to keep the hordes away and to preserve
both the environment and the idea that you could be strolling in a
patch of rainforest that's located a long way from civilization in
both distance and time.
At around 700m, the walk is, unfortunately, too short for such a
splendid location — although, if you're feeling fit, you can
extend it by taking the 4.2km Myrtle Gully Walk to the Mt
Tanglefoot picnic area, where I've located another cache (or you
can drive there). In any case, it was such an interesting spot that
I just dawdled along taking many pictures and spent a lot longer
than the estimated 20mins to do the circuit.
The whole path is along a raised wooden walkway which preserves
the forest floor and follows the Sylvia Creek past its junction
with the Myrtle Gully Creek and on to where the Myrtle Gully Walk
branches off, before looping back on itself. Interestingly, rather
than finding their way the short distance south to the Yarra River,
the crystal clear waters flowing through here ultimately make their
long journey to the sea via the Yea River a little further
downstream, then the Goulburn River further to the north and,
finally, into the Murray River before eventually reaching the sea
in far distant South Australia.
Pictures
As indicated above, I took lots of pictures — but I
know that, for various reasons, pictures in cache listings aren't
too popular with some cachers, so, even though it took me ages to
winnow them down, I'll restrict myself to the following three
— but, if you're into photography, make sure you take your
camera and your tripod!
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The start of the walk
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Myrtle Beech covered with moss, lichens and
epiphytic ferns
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Rainforest stream
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The
Cache
This cache isn't about the hide or the container — it's
purely about the location so, even though I was initially going to
make it a multi with the posted co-ordinates along the track
somewhere, I've decided it would be better to get the cache finding
out of the way first, so that you can enjoy the walk without having
that hanging over you. If anyone decides to grab the cache and
forgo the walk, then the loss will be theirs - you'd have to be
dead to be uninspired by the stroll through that little gully! With
this in mind, along with the fact that the terrain and vegetation
makes it difficult to get good satellite visibility and that
atmospheric conditions for taking good GPS readings were absolutely
awful while I was there, I tried to place the cache in the most
obvious spot I could find - it's at the centre of a group of 5 tree
trunks (a couple of them quite large) right between the little
parking area and the vehicle track heading NE. It's a
camouflage-painted 1 litre Sistema container
March 7 2011: I've added a
spoiler picture