Messmate Track

A friend of mine, a park ranger, invited me to join them in a bit of track marking for a new walking track. Okay, I say. The track, to be known as Messmate Track, will link a couple of popular spots in a popular park, a walking track alternative to slogging down a dirt road. So we meet in the morning and leave one vehicle in the camping area and drive to the top of the hill for the start of the walk.  

At 3 to 4 km in length, you’d be thinking about an hour’s walk. But … there is no track. We have rolls of pink tape to tie to trees and things and away we go. The route has been walked before and pink tape shows the way – usually. There is the occasional “Which way do we go now?” and we mark the path to make it a bit more obvious.

Can you see the pink tapes?

The park has a history of forestry and there are various snig tracks – tracks used to drag felled trees to where they can be transported to the mill. We start off along one of these old snig tracks, but that soon comes to an end. Before us are masses of young eucalypts and wattles that have sprung up after a fire went through the area in 2009. (It was one hell of a fire, the worst in history; Google “Black Saturday” if you want to know more.) Straight after the fire the area was scorched earth – no shrubs or grasses, just burnt trees – and we climb over many blackened trunks during the walk. What is amazing is how the bush has sprung back. Seed in the ground and buds under the bark of the surviving trees left standing have made the area green again. The standing trees are furry green and the ground is thick with saplings. The vegetation is thicker after the fire than it was before. Over time as the saplings become trees many will be crowded out and the forest will open up.

The path in front of us!

As well as eucalypts and wattles springing up there has been much regrowth of wire grass, which should be renamed “cut through your skin grass”, and bracken, which should be renamed “cut through your skin bracken”.  Pushing through it made me wish I had brought my machette. (When the track is built these nasties will be conventiently off to the side and hopefully not a problem.) these plants are often first after a fire, when the sun can get down to ground level. As the tree canopy develops overhead, less light gets through and the grasses are replaced by other plants.

Lost, back-tracking, looking for faded pink tape and adding new bright pink tape, sweating, stinging from the vegetation tearing at my arms, tripping over logs hidden under the grass, hoping sticks aren’t snakes, pushing vegetation that thick it grabs you around the waist and stops you going anywhere, unknown bits of flora that grab your ankles and trip you up. I was having fun. 

We slowly made our way across the hiislide until eventually the track breaks out onto another old snig track from the area’s logging days. We are getting near the end. The snig track makes for easier walking and leads to a four wheel drive track that we follow back to the camping area and the vehicle. 

We had walked about three kilometres in about three hours. 

A lot of work is required  before the track is open, which is meant to be sometime in 2012. Trees damaged by the fire will continue to fall for a long time yet. The hill it wanders around is steep and work needs to be done to make sure the track drains properly and doesn’t wash away. The walk will be repeated many times with chainsaws and other tools to make a clear path. The final walk will have great views down the valley and through the forest to the sandstone cliffs of The Sugarloaf.  You will also be able to see how forest recovers after fire. And it will save a bash along a road waving to people in vehicles to slow down and make less dust and smiling politely when they just politely wave back. 

Mt Sugarloaf seen through the furry green trees

Hundreds of feet will march over this track every year keeping it clear. And it will be about an hour’s walk – not three. Can’t wait. Or maybe I can, at least until the cuts on my arms heal.