Day Three – Walwa to Burrowa Pine National Park

We woke early to the tune of someone yelling, lets call them profanities down the corridors of the pub, at about 5am! We headed to the ladies lounge/bistro for our continental brekkie…that’s where we caught up with a fella called Ross, who had overtaken us a couple of times on the road the previous day, he was also in the bar on New Years Eve. Ross was born in Walwa, but now lives in Lincoln Road, Croydon, just around the corner from Jeff! He shared with us over a cuppa and toast a bit of his life story…and life had certainly dished up a challenge or two Ross’s way over the journey. He had been in and out of mental institutions for 30 years and was amazingly frank in a short space of time. It was very touching to hear his story and quite an amazing way to start what was to be a pretty amazing day all round. We had a short ride today along the Cudgewa Bluff Rd to the National Park. A steady climb on a really good dirt road was rewarded with a lovely descent to Cudgewa North and then it was a bit of a slog really into the NP. It was really hot and what was only a 32k ride had left us all pretty spent at its end. But what an end point! We set up camp in the Blue Gum Camp Ground, an idyllic clearing in the bush. Later that afternoon we headed into the park proper.

The entrance to the Burrowa Pine National Park The Cudgewa Bluff Road

Johnno is a botanising bicycle rider and regardless of where he might be riding he’s studying the surrounding vegetation. For the first couple of days we were riding in predominantly modified agricultural landscapes so there was a limited amount of botanical interest – We still saw some great things with the Old Man Sneezeweed perhaps the highlight! The Burrowa Pine NP was to be an entirely different proposition. This park is of great botanical significance because of the number of rare and threatened plant species growing there including a number of things that only occur within the park and nowhere else! Johnno was completely in his element – with Mark and Jeff kindly countenancing his compulsive plant obsessions! During what was a pretty short walk to Campbell’s lookout (and a bit further on) we discovered plant rarities and other extraordinarily interesting wildflowers, but we what we were really seeking to find were the Cypress Pines that the park was named after, which we could see as significant stands on an adjoining spur but had remained elusive on this side of the park. We eventually ‘encountered’ the pines on a rocky rise at about 850 m elevation and what a sight this was – we were transformed into a landscape that looked more like an area of northern hemisphere wilderness, rather than the Australian bush. On this little rocky rise was also the endangered Broad-leaved Hop Bush and a number of other botanical curios.

Grass Tree Grass Trigger Plant Native Currant Mountain Comersperma Derwentia Kangaroo Grass

Lomatia frazeri Mark and Johnno (and a pine seedling) Silver Banksia A rest from botanising!

At Campbells lookout Mark, when seeing the “safety rail signage is there for you safety” sign, jumped the railing to sit unencumbered on the precipice of what was a significant drop below. Jeff joined him a few meters back from the ledge and whilst it was completely safe to do so Johnno with NO head for heights stayed well back…all the time admiring the courage of the two more adventurous spirits. We sat here for some time taking in the magnificent view to the east across the national park across to the Snowy Mountains on the far horizon.

We experienced a quite extraordinary thing on the walk back from the Pines….a Splendid Lyrebird in full song. We couldn’t see the bird but boy we could hear it. All manner of noises we emanating from the thing…kookaburra noises, crow noises, rattling noises, pings, pops, clicks…Wow!

The first half of the walk skirted a creek line that formed a series of small rocky waterfalls and waterholes. One particular waterfall was linked by a fair old steel ladder that took up 4+ meters of grade change. We spend quite some time cooling off (and re-hydrating) on the way up and on the way back down the walk finished at the Bluff Falls, a major waterfall that Jeff and Mark took to with gusto experiencing the ultimate in outdoor showers. Back to the campsite – cooked up a treat and before we hit the sack we took a walk to the lower camping sites and the park boundary. Micro-bats were putting on an extraordinary aerobatic display in the fading light. What a day to start off 2015!