Gordon and I had a 'make your own adventure' off-track hike this past long weekend, on a quest to go from Breakfast Creek, over the ridge and down to Macalister's River. Then up the river to Skeleton Flat. Then up to Long Hill campsite and then back to Breakfast creek via Mt Ligar (The Crinoline).
Here's a picture of some of the map. It's missing the bit where we start at Breakfast Creek and go up and over the ridge, down to Macalister's River, but it's got all the new stuff in it, including the trip along the Macalister's River to Skeleton Flat and then the bit up a couple of joining spurs to the cliffs below Long Hill.
Day 1 started at Breakfast creek where we left Gordon's car. Then we headed up the Macmillans/Crinoline track until we got to the point where you would turn off to the right to go to the Crinoline. Instead we went West-ish down to the Macalister's River. Then we turned right and followed the river North-ish. There is no track as such, until you get to the top of the cliffs at Long Hill. There are various deer and cattle tracks and some old vehicle tracks to help you along. Gordon has put in some pink tapes at places and it's not hard to find clear walking anyway, except one bit where the banks are quite steep and you have to do a bit of scrambling along the rocks, or a bit of walking on river pebbles. The river leg was the easy bit.
Day 2 we scooted up the spur(s) to Long Hill.
After leaving Skeleton flat on the second day, there are a number of spurs you could follow that would get you to the top. Avoid going up any creeks and just follow the ridgeline and it's pretty easy going. The rock ribs are sometimes at right-angles to the path and need to be 'climbed', but often you can walk along them when they align with the ridge.
The cliffs below Long Hill. Look gnarly, but really aren't. You can go "straight up the guts" with a bit of rock scrambling or walk sedately around to the left to find a grassy vale that gets you almost to the top, with a bit less rocky fun... Note thunderclouds building!
While Gordon got the tent up, I bashed down to the creek and back to get water. I lost the track, such as it was, about halfway down and had to fight through dense undergrowth and nets of Dodder Laurel to get to the creek. Then I had to bash uphill with hands full of water containers until I finally found something tracklike again. Yuk. Take machete next time!
Making it back to where I thought the campsite was, I was pleased to catch a glimpse of the tent , so I didn't need to start yelling for direction or pull out the GPS. Soon we had coffee and soup cooked and enjoyed just before the rain started. A party of youngsters came in via Long Hill just before the downpour and they rushed to get set up in a nearby clearing. A short time later a plaintive "Hello, have you got any dry matches?" was heard from outside our tent where we were snugly enjoying the downpour. Of course, we loaned them a lighter so they could get their spag-bol cooked. Co-incidentally, that was what we were having too, though I'd have to say that the freeze-dried Outback Gourmet spag-bol we had that night wasn't nearly as nice as the home-made left-over spag-bol I'd dried out from Jennifer's cooking and combined with Ramen Noodles, which we'd had the night before. In fact, it had been so good and there had been so much of it that we'd had to pass on Coconut Chocolate Mousse! (Which meant we could have it this night. Bonus!)
Bit of rain and hail and thunder that second night... Couldn't capture the thunder properly with the phone microphone, but the rain and hail were certainly making up for that!
Day 3 we planned to go back to the car via Mt Ligar (The Crinoline) so after porridge and coffee we got more water from the creek (slightly less of a trackless bash this time, but still managed to lose any track about 2/3 of the way down) then we packed up and headed off into a nice warm clear day. It was going to be warm, so we knew we'd need that water.
Now, if I could just get Google Earth, Garmin Connect and the Fenix 5x watch or Garmin Explore and the InReach Explorer+ handheld to play nice, I could superimpose our path on that photo so you could see how to get up it. But NOOOO, they wanna be obstreperous, don't they! Doesn't help that my Fenix 5x has developed an issue where it is no longer recognised when I plug it into the PC via USB. So I had to jump thru hoops transferring to Garmin Connect on my phone via Bluetooth, then upload to Google Drive then download to the PC then convert to KML then upload to Google Earth, pant, pant. Then I found that some of the GPS points were well wonky and had to erase them from the image. Next time wait for satellites to be properly acquired before hitting 'start' on the watch Hike activity.
We scrambled up the side of Ligar and discussed my choice of campsite when I did it solo a few weeks ago. https://terrycornall.wixsite.com/website/post/petticoats-in-a-twist-on-the-crinoline
That campsite had been a bit exposed, but I'd chosen it for the astrophotography, needing a feature in the horizon of the image to accentuate the night sky. None of which eventuated because of the weather. Sigh. Could have been worse though, I could have copped the thunderstorm we'd just endured the night before!
We had lunch in the lovely little forest on top of Mt Ligar and then headed on down to Breakfast creek via the track that intersected with McMillan's track. (There used to be another track down and some maps still show it, but last time I tried to follow it I had to give up because the bush was too dense)
Just before the climb up to the Crinoline that day, we had come across a Nalgene water bottle full of water, looking newly lost. We guessed that the youngsters (who'd left early before us) had dropped it. Rather than leave it to litter the place up, we emptied the water out and took it with us. As it turned out, we were surprised to catch up with them just a bit before the finish as one of them had injured himself in a fall on the sometimes steep and slippery track down and they were making slow going of it. Returning the bottle and asking after their welfare, we learned that they had a Dad waiting for them at the end of the hike. They looked like they'd make it OK, doing a bit of pack shuffling so that the injured boy didn't have to carry anything, so we left them and forged on, enjoying the downhill. We made it to the car and cleaned up. Gordon had a dip in the Wellington River, which he described as quite muddy after the night's downpour. Then we went looking for the Dad and found a slightly worried-looking guy not far away. We reassured him that they were going to make it, probably within an hour, and that he should be proud of the way they were looking after each other. As we left to go home, he was making his way up the track to lend a hand.
A satisfying trip. New stuff done, a new route proven and no major mishaps. Plus the bonus of some gnarly weather that we had enjoyed from the safety of the tent.