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The 27th of December 2017: Mt McLeod
We checked out our accommodation 8 am in the morning and left for Mt McLeod in Mt Buffalo National Park.
It was not far from Bright and it's near a town called Porepunkah.
We parked our car and started our walk around quarter past 9 am.
Then two young and fit people came out of nowhere with slim back packs and then with nano-speed
off they went.
The whole day I only saw 3 people including another fit young guy during our hike in fact.
These days it seems that I'm meeting more younger and fitter looking people in the mountains which means I'm getting
older.
I don't know if it's making me feel sad that I'm getting older or comforted that I'm still doing quite all right.
As Eddie never shows any stress from ageing or something like that, rather he talks as if he is one of the big wise people
I tried not to confide in him about these kinds of things.
First the place seemed like an ancient dry mountain where not many people visited.
A few minutes' ascents after the sign led us to a point where two ways were divided waiting for us.
We chose a short cut to Mt McLeod.
It was a narrow path along the cliff all the way till it met another part of valley where we jumped over
to another cliff way and then soon we reached the main track which actually looked like a fire trail.
Fire trails were wide and safe but I preferred small winding forest ways.
There were so many pristine wild flowers and colourful parrots everywhere which made Eddie quite busy
with his photography.
After Mt Bogong I lost a little bit of confidence but it was not too bad after one relaxing day.
It was a total of 16.2 km and it took for us to finish around 7 hours including lunch.
Top part of Mt McLeod consisted of huge rocks and 'The Trig Point' indicated the peak of it.
Surprisingly the views from there were just average.
We finished our hike around 4 pm and drove to Yackandandah.
We checked in at a very humble inn we booked 2 days ago.
Surprisingly it was really clean and nice to stay 2 nights.
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December 28th 2017: Dicksons Falls Nature Walk and Back Wall, plus The Horn
We left for another go in Mt Buffalo National Park at 8 am.
There were a lot of cyclists from the beginning of winding narrow road until the top of plateau areas
inside the national park.
Later I learned Mount Buffalo NP is a popular destination for road cyclists due to the challenging yet scenic climb
to the top of the mountain
We arrived at the parking place near Cresta Valley and then started our walk first to Dicksons Falls Nature Walk.
As soon as we got out of car it started drizzling with a strong gust.
We hurriedly put on rain jackets on top of our tops and I disagreed with Eddie of having rain pants too.
Like my gut feeling it soon stopped raining even though it was very light rain on and off in the morning.
The walk to the falls was only 4 km's leisure one and it took an hour for return.
Like Heathy Spur it was beautiful and flat with all sorts of wild flowers, plants etc.
We started walking to Back Wall straight after the falls.
It was 12 km and a 4 hour-return walk.
The track wound in the middle of an unknown maze of wide and wild ancient plains, hills and scattering rocks
tangled and wrapped with swamps, flowers and unknown numerous a little bit of ominous looking plants.
It led us into another turn and another continuously as if someone invented this route for hikers not to remember
at the end of hike.
It was surreal.
Walking in the path which transported you into continuously different phases of them.
I tried hard not to forget the details as if I woke from this dream.
On top of Back Wall we found a perfect spot for lunch and witnessed one of the best views in my life again.
Eddie carried two folding chairs and a tripod along with all gears and food including water bottles in his giant back
pack as always.
We put out our chairs on top of precariously high rock with a little hesitation first from my side
and enjoyed our humble but the most delicious meal
and coffee breathing in the prestigious more than million dollars worth of views.
I was both metaphorically and literally on top of the world at that moment.
I really appreciated Eddie for organizing hiking trips all my life.
All I can do is to go with him.
How lucky I am!
But to be honest I take him for granted all the time.
We drove to another place as a bonus before we head off to our accommodation.
Just a few minutes' drive we reached at The Horn.
Lots of cars and people were gathered there already.
It was totally different from the serene place where we were without many people a few minutes' ago.
This was the heaven for tourists as cars drove almost to the top but we were glad to make it too.
That's only because we had had our own type of adventures already.
We walked uphills around 20 minutes and once more we were impressed with the view from there.
It was perfectly panoramic magnificent 360 degrees' views over the majestic mountains.
At the end of our stay in Victoria we were very happy that we had chances to cover more of Alpine National Park
and Buffalo National Park during this trip.