Over the weekend a small party of us went walking to one of our favourite nearby bushwalking sites – Mustering Flat which is on the Mt Baw Baw Plateau. We left from the St Gwinnear car park and followed the well defined track to the top of Mt St Gwinnear and then along the footpad up the creek valley into Mustering Flat.
Mustering Flat is a broad plain, so named as in the days when the cattlemen grazed cattle in the high country, it was a convenient place for mustering the cattle before they were bought down below the snow line for winter. There’s a good campsite in the snow gums on the edge of the plain.
Our party consisted of the usual ‘Dad & Dave’ combination along with Bob Neil, Rob Weir, Fiona and Rose Marie.
After years of drought, this area is the driest that I have ever seen. The sphagnum bogs were once lush and deep, but now it’s possible to walk over many places without even leaving a boot impression in the ground. The streams had enough water for us to easily meet our needs, but they are really only a small trickle. This is part of the catchment area for the Thompson Dam and it is no wonder that it is at its lowest level ever.
