Mount Emu Creek

Early June can be dreary heading toward the winter solstice and is often a subscription of grey laden days that can produce a sullen disposition. What to do as a counterpoint? Idea! Go for a Plod and endeavour to soak up what there is of a weak Sun trying to replenish diminished Vitamin D stocks, or is that Vitamin E, well one of the 'Vitamin alphabet'!

Arising at the 'you silly boy' absurd hour of 4:30am, I endeavoured to listen to a CD of that boisterous Australian Hard-Rock Group, AC/DC, to 'blast' my sluggish brain into gear and then 'rev it up' with a ridiculous infusion of caffeine without the least pretence of any sugared delusion. Both seemed to work - I was very quickly, very alert. Not only did I wake myself but I am sure most of the neighbourhood and expect 'complaints' to come my way soon, which I will 'soothe' by playing some Rachmaninov Piano Concertos even more loudly - that'll teach 'em not to like AC/DC! Nonetheless, the backpack was soon loaded with the wet weather gear including my rainbow coloured umbrella (well it keeps the rain off even if it looks out of place as I Plod along a back country road), camera, tripod, maps - even upside down versions, GPS receiver, a thermos of coffee, a smaller thermos of hot chicken noodle soup and at least half a dozen chocolate bars. After completing my dutiful ablutions, I was trundling down to the railway station (my few remaining teeth chattering with enthusiasm in the chill pre-dawn) to catch the (very early) train to take me to Ballarat. The beauty of this early train is it is leaving Melbourne, so it has few passengers on board. Most are going the other way with glum intentions to dreary office jobs in the City. This journey, always a delight, gives me plenty of time to wrestle with the Crossword (successfully this time), browse a Book - am reading Bill Bryson's 'At Home : A Short History of Private Life' and it's a delight. Reaching Ballarat around 8:00am, it was mightily chilly, around a very un-Australian 6 degrees Celsius (not cold by other climes but cold enough for me). I had a couple of hours to occupy before a connecting Bus that was to take me to my destination, so I took the opportunity to avoid attempting to drink a cup of Tea (evil brew) and instead explore the grand Ballarat Railway Station. The Station is an old dear to me being well over 150 years and has recently undergone restoration and repair works. I also took the time to chat to the railway workers whom I have got to know over the years and are very courteous and full of information which I soak up.

My Bus (gosh, I sound like I own the Bus) left Ballarat at 10:10am to take to me Skipton, a small town (population just over 500) that is located 54 kilometres to the south-west of Ballarat and over 160 kilometres from Melbourne (you can work it out what that is in miles because at 4:00am as I write this up my brain is mashed up like a can of sardines). The Bus journey takes just under an hour from Ballarat and follows the picturesque Glenelg Highway, passing through rolling hills with pretentions of being mountains, through stands of Eucalypt forests and fenced off, cleared of trees paddocks, attempting to be replicas of little England. You also pass through a number of dot-map towns, rich with settlement and hard labour that are as if in a time-warp in many aspects. Places such as Smythesdale, Scarsdale, (nearby is one of the longest and preserved wooden trestle railway bridges) Linton, and Pittong (with its Kaolin Mine) . A railway line once operated from Ballarat to Skipton taking passengers as recently as the 1970s and freight until the late 1980s. The area located around Skipton is country of the Wada Wurrung who were a powerful and populous tribe having custody of an area about 120 by 150 kilometres. This tribe was a part of the much larger Kulin Nation that occupied large swathes of present day Victoria. The first European settlement occurred in 1839, with Skipton deriving its name from a town in Yorkshire, England. Today, Skipton is essentially a farming district with fine-Wool as its principal commodity, along with Crops and Cattle. The 54 kilometres long Ballarat to Skipton Rail Trail starts (or ends depending on your preference) at Skipton. This Trail for the most part follows the old railway right of way and following recent resurfacing works considered one of the better quality Rail Trails in the State. I've walked the Trail, along its length a few times in the last couple of years and it's one of my favourite Plods.

Skipton itself is nestled on the banks of Mount Emu Creek, a rather long Creek that meanders (in varying degrees of hydrology) for over 250 kilometres through western Victoria. Drought has greatly curtailed water flows in the Creek, though the past year has seen a patchy but hopeful improvement. As the Creek courses through Skipton it has become famous as a 'home' of the Platypus. A very oddly shaped mammal that lives in the water and in burrows under the banks. The Platypus, once described as 'God in a creative bind' due to it having an appearance of a duck shaped bill, fur, claws and appearing to be a door mat is a very elusive creature. The female lays eggs and weans her young on milk (hence being a mammal. These (to me) gorgeous Australians are not as common as they were before European times though they are very slowly recovering their numbers, to an extent, after being placed under severe stress due to habit loss, killing and capture. There is a 'viewing platform' on the Creek at Skipton at a place called Stewart Park near the centre of town.

Getting off the Bus, armed with supplies for the day and not terribly dangerous in the least, I headed off for a ramble around the town. My Plod took me along part of the rail Trail and parts of the Creek, finding a few Geocaches along the way. Even with a GPS I still got lost a couple of times but my 'handy sextant' (called look at the map not the GPS) got me back on track as I spent a handful of hours trying to have my body act as a solar panel, even though the UV index was a very modest 2 (low). You'd be very hard pressed to get sunburnt on a June day in my climes unless you had lived in a Cave for the past 50 years or had smeared your skin with cooking oil.

Alas, I did not see a Platypus and 'resisted' all thoughts of going for a swim in the Creek. Though it was a delight sitting on the Creek bank, slurping the hot soup, soaking up the peace and quiet and dreaming of summer. Too soon, it was time to catch the Bus back to Ballarat and then the train journey home after sunset. Coming home was a drab, though with my large Poster of the Sun on a wall in the Study, I managed to delude myself and mess with my serotonin levels, again.

Nothing a toasted peanut butter sandwich could not fix.