Yea River Walk
"The Yea River Walk exists on land donated to the people of Toolangi by Alex Cameron. A sawmill, 'Scherbers' operated in this forest until the turn of the century. This mill site was eventually purchased by C.J. Dennis in 1915 and is now the 'Singing Gardens'.
The Yea River begins its journey in the mountains of the Central Highlands and becomes part of the Goulburn water catchment, flowing into the Goulburn River and eventually to South Australia. Many homes in the township of Toolangi pump water from this river for domestic and agricultural purposes.
This walk is an easy one hour return loop that takes you through two different forest types: open forest (at the start of the walk) and tall open forest (at the Yea River). The forest changes dramatically from what you see now, to the majestic Mountain Ash and associated ferns and mosses closer to the river."
- from the Information Board near the start of the walk
The Yea River Walk is an easy walk, certainly less than the one hour indicated in some of the documents describing it, through some beautiful forest near the township of Toolangi. The start can be a bit hard to pick up, but it's right opposite the Forest Discovery Centre, on the other side of the Myers Creek Road. You can park off the road or, if you're making a picnic of it, the Forest Discovery Centre has pretty good parking and facilities.
The walk starts out through open forest and, on one side, you can get a close-up look at what a burnt out forest looks like (probably a preventative burn) before progressing into wetter areas dominated by large Mountain Ash with an understory of large Tree Ferns. The river is small and clear and fast (it's not many kilometres long at this point) and I hope it's not prone to flooding as the cache isn't all that far above the water level (even though it's a good 10m from the water's edge).
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Lush tree ferns have enjoyed a wet Spring
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Alan's Tree (bigger than it looks) - has historic significance
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The Cache
The turbulent weather conditions on the day I placed the cache, combined with the terrain and heavy vegetation, made it virtually impossible to get co-ordinates that I could say I was confident about, so I've placed the cache in the most obvious spot I could find. It's beside the biggest tree in the area, under an exposed root and covered by bark and leaves. The front edge of the tree is about 1m from the path, so the cache is about 1.5 - 2 m from the path (yes, it's a BIG tree). It's a camouflage-painted 1.2 litre Sistema.