Thursday saw me having a free day, so Bob Neal & I spent a morning visiting the Ada Tree near Powelltown. This tree is a gigantic remnant of the old forest. It is about as tall as the MCG light towers and was once twice its current height (before the top fell off in a storm). That would then have made it about as high as the Great Pyramid in Egypt. It is well worth visiting.
We had intended to walk past the site of the New Federal Mill and then on to the Ada River. The DSE have closed the road and rather than a having the short walk that we expected , we had to walk along a new track all the way from the Ada Tree carpark. This meant a 3.1 km walk even before reaching the Federal Mill site. This required more time than we had available, so we had to stop at the first ruined bridge and return to the car. We plan to do a longer walk in this area later in the year.
The weather was cold (about 3 degrees) and it was overcast, making it difficult to take many good photos – our real purpose in going there. The new track is pretty enough – past ferns and within site of some magnificently large trees. At one point we were entertained by a lyrebird which wass in full song somewhere to the right of the track.
On returning to the car it had begun to drip with rain and I was dripping from three large leech bites on my ankle.
