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Road/Trk report for Grampians 23rd March 2012 1-May-2013 At 1:00:15 PM gfdonc

Message

(bump).

Tracey, are you able to take up the cause to get access to Eastern Wall (Peking Face, Burma wall etc) reinstated?

I'll tell you about my Saturday morning as background. This is going to sound like a rant, so apologies, but some of the information might be useful to others.

I hadn't been to Eastern Wall since one hot day-trip with Craig Nottle in the 80's. But it makes the Select Guide, and others, and looked worth a visit. Plus we had views of it from Rosea the day before, to pique our interest.

We weren't sure how far the Stony Creek Rd extension was open (there's a gate just past the Bundaleer car park) so (on advice) we went the long way around to Boreang Campground and tried to come in that way (I think it's the Moora track).

Unfortunately there's now a new gate within 50m of the Glenelg River rd that wasn't marked on my map (which isn't that old), with "management vehicles" or "seasonal closure". There was evidence someone had been driving around the gate, but more recently steel posts had been added to block access completely.

So we drove a few more km out of our way, around to Henham track which also had an (unmarked) gate and more steel posts. Parking at either one of these gates would have added perhaps 8-9km of walking (round trip) which has the same effect as putting the area off-limits. But read on.

We'd basically given up, but since we were going to head back towards Halls Gap, the Stoney Creek Rd was a short side-trip so we thought we'd check that option. Bumped into Ro and Peter at the Bundaleer car park for a chat. We kept going and were delighted to find the gate was open. A bit of ground clearance was needed at times but the road was in pretty good condition, and we thought we were home and hosed. What could go wrong?

At Tower Hill, however, there's another gate. This one says the Rosea Track is closed temporarily to vehicles and walkers due to the reintroduction of the brush-tailed rock wallaby.

Now, we'd have parked the car and walked in from there (maybe adding 6km round-trip?), if it was just a simple road closure but the reason was enough to deter us. I vaguely recalled something being posted on Chockstone but we were unable to find anything online at the time (poor reception didn't help). Subsequently I've done some research and add the following comments:

1. If the first two signs had mentioned the reason for the closure we would have given up earlier.
2. Information is surprisingly hard to come by, the Cliffcare site for example doesn't list the Eastern Wall closure under the current Grampians page. Also it's impractical to access this info via mobile phone. Can I suggest the Cliffcare site adds a simple "closure summary" under the Grampians?
3. It was clear there has been recent vehicle access to the area despite the gates.
4. In checking old posts about this issue, the area was closed in 2008, and the last post on that thread was December 2008. How long do those wallabies take to breed? When can we expect a "temporary" closure to end?
5. & is it really still necessary to limit foot traffic to what is, after all, a road? And is there any real justification for banning foot access to the area on a long-term basis after the wallabies have become established?

regards & smiles.
Steve