^'^"^ '1 Excursion to Loch Vallev. ic^ 



1920 J ' -J -J 



only settlers remaining at this high altitude (about 2,500 feet). 

 Lunch was spread under a fine apple-tree, and keen appetites 

 soon made havoc amongst the good things. About 1.30 p.m. 

 Mr. Camille Litaze undertook to act as our guide to Mount 

 Horsfall, some four miles easterly along the divide. Fifty 

 years before, Whitelaw's track had been cut from Berwick to 

 Wood's Point, along the summit of the range, and we were 

 still able to discern the blazes, but scrub, principally Heli- 

 chrj^sum, and fallen timber made it difficult to follow, and 

 after getting within about a mile of the top of Mount Horsfall 

 we had to abandon the attempt, but we had been rewarded, for 

 we had seen and passed through some of the finest milling 

 timber in Victoria, the trees, Encalyptns regnans, known as 

 Mountain Ash, standing almost as close as they could stand, 

 and running up 150 feet or more without a branch. Near one 

 of the heads of Alderman's Creek (flo\\ang to the Yarra) were 

 found a number of plants of an orchid, Chiloglottis, but they 

 were past the flowering stage. Fine bushes of the Balm Mint- 

 bush, Prostanthera mellissifolia , were occasionally seen, but 

 few of the delicate lavender flowers remained. From a height 

 of about 3,500 feet on Mount Horsfall there was a fine view 

 of the Yarra valley and its enclosing hills, while far away, 

 slightly to the east of north, was a very prominent mountain, 

 which I took to be Mount Buller, near Mansfield. We 

 scrambled back the way we had come, and reached Litaze's 

 again about 7.30 p.m. By g p.m. we had despatched tea 

 under the apple-tree, and then prepared to make ourselves 

 comfortable for the night, which, thanks to the hospitality of 

 the Messrs. Litaze, was easily accomplished. Next morning 

 was dull and \\indy, and, though I\Ir. Litaze said it would not 

 rain till the afternoon, one member was persistent in the 

 opinion that it would rain before 11 a.m. Mr. Charles Litaze 

 offered to guide us down through Petschak's abandoned 

 selection on to the Loch valley road, and we gladly accepted 

 his offer, for it took us round the other side of the Skerry's 

 Creek basin. By 10.30 a.m. rain was falling, and our prophetess 

 was right. Many delightful scenes had to be hurriedly passed 

 as we descended the range, but at Skerry's Creek we decided 

 to stop a while for lunch, and imder the shelter of a fine beech 

 hardly noticed the rain. The ground was strewn with the 

 fallen beech leaves, which made the track, at a distance, 

 resemble a gravelled path. We w^ere still about eight miles 

 from home, and, as the rain was gradually increasing, we had 

 to hurry along, and had little time to admire the magnificent 

 vegetation along the road, which, from its beauty, is known 

 as Callaghan's Avenue — after a settler who hewed a home 

 out of the forest alongside the road. The track crossed the 

 Loch two or three times, and finally joined the main road at 

 the foot of the hill we had turned up the previous morning, 



