Walk 55 (Strath Creek and Diggers Falls)

Mount Disappointment State Forest closed due to the February 2009 Black Saturday bushfires.

By Open Spaces

Information, updates and news items are supplied by Open Spaces administration and may be sourced via our staff, authors, clubs and various land managers such as Parks Victoria.

10 comments

  1. We did the Mt DIsappointment walk yesterday. We didnt realise you had to walk over the falls, and headed the wrong way, but soon fixed that. It was hard to establish direction going down to Strath Creek. We “missed” and ended up upstream of Diggers Falls. It was hell scrambling along the cliffs to get back downstream, but fun. Soon it was about to get dark. We walked up to a local house and the wonderful owner, John, drove us back to our car.

    Reply

    1. Hi Fred,
      You are certainly keen. The Strath Creek & Diggers Falls walk is rated as difficult as there are long sections of basic navigation required (mainly along creek beds). Shorter daylight hours at the moment means having to start really early so as not to be beaten by an early nightfall. Getting down to Diggers Gully falls must have been interesting to say the least. It’s a pity that the turnoff at the 4 kilometre mark is not signposted. It would make things a lot easier. I’m surprised you didn’t realise that you had gone too far when you reached Diggers Link 2 Track (unless this was not signposted either………). Anyway, glad to see you got back to your car and didn’t have to spend the night huddled under a bush. Always a bugger that.

      Reply

  2. Hi there, we did this walk yesterday and it is probably an even bigger mission now. Re-growth has made it quite hard to stick to any sort of track, although its not too bad. I thoroughly enjoyed the hike, it was quite challenging for us and we are quite experienced hikers!
    Next time I am going to take some pink ribbon with me and try and mark out a path through the rough bits, in the hope that if people keep to one path it will become a bit easier and less taxing on the environment. Cheers for the book, we are loving these oddball hikes 😉

    Reply

    1. Hi Dan, glad you enjoyed the walk. Sorry to hear about the regrowth and the fact that the trail is now difficult to follow. Although this walk is not an official Parks Victoria walking trail I really believe it should be. Not that this would probably change things much! It’s one of my big disappointments with Parks Victoria (and DSE) that they don’t have the funding to maintain and manage many of the State’s best walking trails, let alone open new ones. The Government appears to be cutting funding to PV on a regular basis and Victoria’s walking trail system is in a general state of major decline.

      Reply

  3. Hi Glenn, I did this walk in May 2006 and the only navigation trouble we had was right at the end of the walk, where we missed the Rebecca Falls exit point and had to scramble up from the foot of Strath Creek Falls to reach the car park. So I was pretty confident when three of us set out today, but, of course, I’d forgotten to factor in the massive underfunding of Parks Vic by successive state governments, especially the last one. In the event, we only made it half way round! We managed (with a little difficulty) to locate the track climbing up the ridge immediately after crossing Strath Creek (it’s no longer “a fairly good path”!). Then no problems until we reached Diggers Link 2 Track (yes, it is signposted), where I realised we had missed the “old vehicle track” at the 4km mark. We turned back, found it, and for nearly 1km it was rough but locatable (the pink ribbons helped!). But then it all went pear-shaped – couldn’t see any pink ribbons, several false trails which led nowhere, and we didn’t fancy bushbashing, so we turned back. Not for the first time, we’ve been dudded by the disrepair of Victoria’s walking tracks. Over the last few years I’ve been regularly emailing Ryan Smith in his capacity as Minister for/against the Environment etc to complain about underfunding of Parks Vic, but it really was a waste of time. I guess I’ll have to start harassing the new minister!

    Reply

  4. Hi Bob. As I grow older I become ever more despondent with the state of our public lands (and also therefore walking trails). It appears that each successive government (particularly conservative governments) are in a race to see who can finish off Parks Victoria. If the government is serious about ‘Healthy Parks, Healthy People’ then they should also be serious about its funding. I don’t want to sound overly pessimistic but at this rate there will come a day when there won’t be any more walking trails left to write about.

    Reply

  5. Hi Glenn. We decided to try a different tack and annoy the Minister for Sport for a change (instead of Minister for Environment). My wife emailed the State Minister John Eren, bemoaning lack of funding for Parks Vic and arguing that bushwalking is a sport that everyone can participate in – no reply as yet. She also emailed the Federal Minister Sussan Ley and got a snail-mail reply from the “First Assistant Secretary”. If you’re interested, I can send this reply to you if you provide an address – otherwise it’s going in the bin! As you could have predicted, it’s a mealy-mouthed reply, maintaining that the Australian Government “is a strong supporter of participation in sport and active recreation, as it provides a vehicle to ensure Australians live active and healthy lives” but “does not class bushwalking as a sport because, by definition, sport is an activity involving physical exertion………..”. Clearly the First Assistant Secretary has never done Donna Buang, or Mt Juliet, or even Strath Creek for that matter! The letter is full of contradictions and goes on to pass the buck to state and local governments, Parks Vic, DSE, Bushwalking Victoria.

    Reply

    1. Hi Bob. Not surprised at the lack of enthusiasm when it comes to bushwalking. If the Government is seen supporting bushwalking as a valid pastime then they would find it difficult (contradictory?) to justify their regular funding cuts to Parks Victoria. As for ‘physical exertion’ and bushwalking…. what an interesting statement!

      Reply

  6. I am just reading the latest VNPA magazine and noted reference to your website with respect to Camp Fees and starting reading other bits and pieces in relation to walk updates etc. Came across the correspondence above, and must add my comment – Parks Vic is a basket case. On 1 February there were a lot of staff changes and oh my goodness, the staff is very despondent. Besides that, they have no work ethic and act like typical public servants. I happen to work in the same offices as them…. we have no hope.
    Regarding the pricing of camp sites, no thought has gone into it at all. How can you contact someone after hours, out of range etc., when other campers are free camping on your site you have booked?
    Maintenance of tracks??? They are asking bushwalking clubs to Adopt-A-Track. It is a great idea, but I hope that they support the clubs with maintenance and not take it for granted.
    Very frustrating. I can go on and on.
    Thanks for letting me vent.
    Regards
    Patricia

    Reply

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Secure SSL Certificate