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Showing posts from April, 2013

King William 11

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14 – 17 April 2013 After returning from our aborted trip in February by the much quicker Guelph Basin lakeside route, Dave and I decided we could get to King William 11 after all. This time Nigel joined us and good time was made to our previous turnaround spot. The GPS was invaluable in getting from the road to the Guelph River and then through more bush to the lake shore, with just one short, but slow to cross, buttongrass plain. However after making fairly good time west from the end of the lake we started to get into a bit of scrub and whilst having lunch, debated whether it would better to head directly up to Slatters Peak or continue up the valley to the planned ridge ascent. Our hoped for campsite was the same distance as just to the base of ridge further west, so on the basis of distance we took the plunge into the slopes above us. It proved to be quite a scrubby climb right up to the upper ramparts of Slatters, often having to be force our way through bushes. At one stage it

Mannys Marsh

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Saturday 6 April 2013 By the time we arrived at Ellendale to meet John we had entered into fog, but it was not very thick at all and it did not take long to drive above it on the way uphill to the start point.    This area had been logged many years ago and was recovering, but there was plenty of evidence of old logging tracks.  Part of the land is now in a reserve but after crossing creek and ascending through the wet forest we arrived at an open eucalypt forest on dry slopes that were neither in the reserve and still shy of the national park.  Soon after that we arrived at Mannys Marsh which is also unreserved and along with the surrounding forest very much warrants being protected from the threats posed by exploitive industries. Mannys is an attractive open area completely surrounded by trees with a few pockets of Baeckea bushes and large tea trees on the southern boundary. It took 1:30 hours each way to walk and most of us found a few leeches on our clothes from time to ti