The beautiful Tarra Bulga National Park.
Situated at the eastern end of the Grand Ridge Road, the park offers visitors several short walks through rainforest gullies and Mountain Ash forest. In addition there are some longer walks for more experienced walkers looking for a greater challenge. With tree fern gullies, towering mountain ash and plenty of native wildlife the Tarra Bulga National Park is simply spectacular. This cache encourages finders to enjoy the park and venture into the information centre to find out some history on the park and the local area.
The Visitor Centre at Balook was officially opened on 2 August 1990. It cost $283,000 and was jointly funded by the State and Federal governments under the National Rainforest Conservation Program.
The Centre is a focus for information, interpretation and education in Tarra-Bulga National Park, with a theatrette and display area including panels explaining the natural and cultural history of the park. With its curved corrugated iron roof and simple rectangular plan, the Centre attracted attention after it opened in 1990. The designer Bruce Katsipidis of the Public Works Department, was congratulated for bringing contemporary design into a forest setting. ‘His approach’, explained the magazine Architecture in Australia, ‘recalls the idea of a minimal shelter found in mountain cattlemen’s huts without resorting to the split logs of pioneers or the mud bricks of environmentally conscious builders’. Here was a building with spring in its step’.
The Visitor Centre is well designed for access. A toilet block with accessible facilities is located at the rear of the Centre. The picnic tables allow wheelchair access, although on an unsealed surface. Lyrebird Ridge walking track, leaving from the Visitor Centre, is a flat gravel track and is accessible to many people with a disability. There is an unsheltered viewing platform along this track.
Visitor Information Centre Opening Hours
* Weekends and public holidays: 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
* Over the winter period the hours are currently 11:00 am – 3:00 pm
Some walking tracks that start/finish at the information centre include:
Corrigan Suspension Bridge - Follow the signs from the visitor centre carpark via Lyrebird, Ash and Wills Tracks.
Lyrebird Ridge Track – Commencing at the Visitor Information Centre.
Forest Track – Starting at the end of the Lyrebird Ridge Track, this longer walk completes a circuit back to the Visitor Centre via part of the Old Yarram-Balook Road.
Please note: This cache has limited opening hours as it is located *inside* the Tarra Bulga Information Centre. The opening hours are 10am - 4pm on weekends and public holidays. During winter, the opening hours are 11am - 3pm on weekends and public holidays. If you are coming quite a distance please feel free to call the information centre on 51966166 to confirm that the centre will be open when you visit.
The difficulty rating of this cache reflects the restricted opening hours of the Visitor Information Centre. The cache has a little room for very small swaps (think coins) or small trackables. When logging this cache it would be great if you could include a piece or pieces of information from the signage panels inside that you found most interesting. Choice of small FTF gift inside, the other one can be left as a swap.
Many thanks to the volunteers at Friends of Tarra Bulga National Park who staff the Visitor Information Centre and kindly gave permission for the placement of this cache.
Historical information taken from: http://www.australiannationalparks.com/victoria/tarrabulga/default.htm
https://friendsoftarrabulga.org.au