Camping at Troopers Creek.

The northern section of the Grampian Ranges in Victoria has some stunning scenery but is less visited than the areas to the south near Halls Gap and Dunkeld. I spent four days of this week camping at the Troopers Creek Campground with my good mate Rob Neal..

PA090012

This area is dominated by Mt Difficult (Mt Gar) with its steep bluffs and craggy rock formations. Many years ago I was bushwalking across this mountain when I sprained my ankle badly and had to hobble, in quite some pain, off the mountain. We lost the track and ended up on the top of a high waterfall. Eventually, we found our way down the side and ended up at a camping area where some kind campers drove us back to our car. Across the road from that camping area is a signboard that describes the original purpose of the camp site.

PA110095

That camp ground had existed since the 1850s when a detachment of police troopers were stationed there to protect travellers  and arrest illegal Chinese immigrants who were walking to the goldfields at Bendigo and Ballarat.. (The Colony of Victoria had banned the Chinese from arriving by ship so the crafty ship captains dropped them off at Robe in SA, making them walk around 400 kilometres to the goldfields). That original camp site was burnt out in a bushfire and the National Parks Service have built a new one about three kilometres to the north.

PA110085

We were blessed with fine weather for the first three days of our stay. There was hardly a cloud in the sky and the days were warm. However, the clear skies resulted in temperatures below freezing point overnight. I’m glad that I took my warm sleeping bag rather than a lighter one that I had initially considered. At our camp site, we had plenty of space for our tent along with a table and a fireplace. There were some ‘newish’ composting toilets nearby. I was very impressed with our Dometic brand fridge which ran off a lithum battery about the size of a small car battery. The fridge was full of food and a bottle of wine or two and after four days, the battery still had over 40% of its charge. It was probably helped by the cold overnight temperatures when it would have been warmer in the fridge than it was outside!

The new camping site is on Dead Bullock Creek (no prizes for guessing how that name came to be) with views of Mt Difficult. now known by the Aboriginal name of Mt Gar.  It was lit up by golden light at sunset and looked quite spectacular.

PA090017 Edit

There were plenty of birds around and a mob of kangaroos that were feeding very close to our tent. Each morning we were woken by the grunts and snarls of a couple of larger male ‘roos who were standing on the rear legs and engaging in a bit of ‘biffo’ to determine dominace of the mob. Many of the females had joeys which is a sign that conditions were good for breeding.

PA100021 Edit

We filled in our time with a number of short walks along the network of tracks in the area. One took us along the creek to a number of increasingly high waterfalls and cascades. While a lot of the state has had considerable rainfall in the last few months, this area has had very little, meaning that only a trickle of water was flowing over the falls. This track was a section of the new thirteen-day peak walk along the entire Grampians range.

PA100073

PA100080 Pano Edit

Another track took us on a 1.4 km walk to Beehive Falls but they were also pretty much dry.

IMG 9543 Edit

Not far down Mt Zero Road on the other side of the range is Heatherlea Quarry.  It was the place from which the sandstone of many prominent Victorian buildings was quarried in the 1850s . These include Parliament House, the GPO, Treasury Building and the local Town Hall in nearby Stawell. At one time, the quarry employed around eighty men, had its own little town and even had a branch train line with three trains operating each week to take loads of 4-ton blocks of rock away. There are a number of relics there now and the main historical site is well signposted.

PA100032n

PA100049

PA100046

There is nothing at the old town site of Heatherlea anymore but you can walk down some of the old streets which are now just foot pads. This is a good time of year for wildflowers and there were many varieties growing in the scrub. We met quite a number of people who were out searching for specific species of plant.

PA100060

A  few kilometres to the south, along the road, was the site of the original Zumsteins Homestead. Walter Zumstein ( originally a Swiss-German man) first visited this site in 1906 while working as a young beekeeper for Barnes Honey. In 1910, he established his own apiary, with 60 hives and a small timber cottage. He saw active service in World War One, and when he returned to Australia with his Scottish wife Jean, he decided to supplement their modest income by establishing a small ‘tourist retreat.’

During the 1930s the couple built three pisé, or rammed earth cottages, plus a tennis court and a large swimming pool. Water for the pool was taken from the nearby MacKenzie River. Soil excavated to create the swimming pool was used to build the cottages. Their  hospitality and community spirit became a hallmark of Zumsteins’ legacy. The picnic area by the road was once a camping ground and in our early days we spent a few nights there. Most of the cottages were destroyed in a bushfire and only two remain.

PA110105

PA110110 Edit

Our final night was overcast, making it much warmer. There were a few drops of rain overnight but, thankfully, it was dry while we were packing up to leave. We could hear helicopters overhead as the Rangers were shooting feral deer in their annual cull. Some of the tracks were closed but it didn’t bother us as we had alread walked over them in previous days.  

2 thoughts on “Camping at Troopers Creek.

  1. Hi Bruce,

    Thanks for your latest block. Ros and I are currently in Halls Gap with the Victorian Nature Photography Group. We packed in the rain on Thursday morning, drove here in the rain and set up camp in the rain. Luckily it has finally stopped. Most of the other 30 + members of the group are staying in cabins at the camping ground but we brought our van and will continue on to the Flinders Ranges when we leave here on Friday. There are some excellent photographers among them and they are an absolute font of knowledge about flora and fauna – no matter what the question there will be someone there who can provide a comprehensive answer.

    Many years ago we walked to the top of Mount Zero and on the way down Ros tripped on a rock, fell onto another rock and badly gashed the front of one of her legs. Luckily a group of teenagers were walking there and their leader had a very good first aid kit. He was able to stem the bleeding and we continued down to the car and drove into Horsham Hospital where Ros was found to need several stitches.

    Kind regards,

    John

  2. The arm chair travel as always has been wonderful. Thank you for taking us along

Leave a Reply

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

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Local Getaways

Avenues of Honour

An Avenue of Honour is a memorial road or pathway lined with trees, planted to commemorate individuals, especially soldiers, who served in wars or conflicts. This tradition was popular in Australia and New Zealand, symbolising the remembrance of those who served and, in many cases, those who died. Although significant after World War One, this […]

Read More
Local Getaways

Paris at the Bendigo Gallery

We have just spent a few days in Bendigo (Victoria’s third largest regional city) where there is still a strong history of gold mining. We had a sunmptuous dinner at our favourite regional restaurant (The Woodhouse) with its fine steak meals as well as a few hours at the Bendigo Gallery which is one of […]

Read More
Local Getaways

More Exploration Around Creswick

We had a lot of rain overnight and  we watched it move across our area this morning on the weather radar on my phone. It had cleared by mid morning so we were clear to do some more exploring. Rather than head west as we did yesterday, today we drove north towards Castlemaine. Our first […]

Read More