Day 1
The start of my solo hike to Briggs Bluff in the northern end of the Grampians National Park involved a drive from Melbourne. Briggs Bluff is located north of the Mt Difficult range and can be accessed via Beehive Falls carpark or Troopers Creek camp ground. The walk I'm intending to do was from Beehive Falls car park. The most direct access point to Beehive Falls is via the Roses Gap Road which is accessed from the Western Highway. The turnoff for Roses Gap Road is past Stawell, approximately 3km before Dadswells Bridge. Once you're on Roses Gap Road, its approximately 9km down a dirt and then bitumen road. The car park is popular with day trippers so was quite full when i arrived.
The track at the car park starts off being easy and flat taking about 20 minutes to get to the base of Beehive Falls. From here the track becomes rocky, steep and involves some scrambling. It takes about an hour to get to the top of the escarpement which offers great views of the valley below. Once you are at the top follow the markers and stone cairnes for about 1 km. The walk is relatively flat but rocky at parts. After about a 1km the track turns east and climbs steadily for half a kilometre until you get to the Briggs Bluff intersection. The south east track takes you to the Briggs Bluff hiker camp site, reached in about 5 minutes walk. There are ample shady camp sites here on sandy ground. The creek during this time was dried so no water was available.
I took the northern turn off at the intersection to head towards Briggs Bluff, located 1.2 km further away. About half way along this track you cross a creek which has water but isn't running. Just before the creek are a small number of bush camping sites - see my blog on this remote camp site. Towards the end of the track there is an easy climb to the top of Briggs Bluff offering majestic views of the north. Briggs Bluff was quite busy on this day, with many day trippers coming up. By around 5pm the place was deserted so you got the Bluff all to yourself. All up it took about 2.5 hours from Beehive Falls to Briggs Bluff.
Day 2
After spending a night at the remote camp site it was going to be a relaxing morning. The walk back was mostly downhill so was relatively easy. Once you get to the top of the escarpement, it was a rocky, and at times steep climb down taking an hour to negotiate. All up it took under 2 hours to get back to the car park. Overall a great little medium grade walk, do-able on any weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment