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Traralgon is a town located in the east of the Latrobe Valley in the Gippsland region of Victoria. The first non-Indigenous visitors to the area of Traralgon included the party of Count Pawel Strzelecki on their journey from the Snowy Mountains in April 1840, after Strzelecki had named Australia's highest peak as Mount Kosciuszko. Charley Tarra, a Burra Burra man from the NSW town of Taralga, was the Indigenous guide for the party, which included Strzelecki, and it is thought that the city was named after Charley’s home town.
In order to reach Melbourne, the party had to cross the heavily timbered mountain range, later named the Strzelecki Ranges. Part of the forest was named Tarra Valley, which was later merged into Tarra Bulga National Park. Bulga is the aboriginal name for mountain. It was to Tarra Bulga NP that we headed to do some hiking. The first track we explored was the Lyrebird Ridge Track, hoping but not expecting to see a Lyrebird in the wild. We weren’t too far into the forest when we heard a variety of loud bird calls in three second bursts up ahead on the track. Around a bend in the track was a
Superb Lyrebird, sending out machine gun like imitations of all the birds in Tarra Bulga NP. In between the imitation bird calls, we watched a dance spectacular from the Lyrebird including a few “shimmies”. We must have watched the display for around ten minutes before we tried to get closer and unfortunately spooked the Lyrebird. We heard several Lyrebirds calling out as we walked through the NP.
Some of the other walks we did in the NP included the Mountain Ash Track, Fern Gully Nature Walk, the Scenic Track and we walked across Corrigan’s Suspension Bridge. The Mountain Ash trees were awesome, being the world’s tallest flowering trees, reaching up to the sky. Ancient Myrtle Beech trees were also located in the cooler valleys. Fern Gully was an amazing valley full of every kind of ferns and tree ferns of all sizes, alongside a cool mountain stream. We then drove to Tarra Valley to do the Tarra Valley Rainforest Walk and to view Cyathea Falls. In all we walked 7.6 kms, and although it was a steep drive up into the foggy mountain range, it was well worth the effort.
The Grand Strzelecki Track is over 100 kms
long and connects Tarra Bulga and Morwell National Parks. That will have to wait for another day or days. The following day we drove to Morwell National Park at the other end of the Grand Strzelecki Track and walked along the Billys Creek Track. Whilst not as spectacular as Tarra Bulga NP, we really enjoyed our walk, seeing a variety of colourful birds in the trees, trout in the creek and a shy deer. We had to cross the creek a few times, balancing on slippery logs and stones, but we made it across without falling in. We walked 6.3 kms return in crisp but sunny weather.
It is a juxtaposition that the Latrobe Valley has some of the world’s most polluting power stations in Loy Yang and Yallourn, fed by dirty brown coal mines, yet the valley is very fertile and supports a large dairy industry and has two incredible National Parks. It was only recently that the Hazlewood Power Station closed down, which is good for the environment but not so good for employment in the Latrobe Valley.
The Isuzu odometer had advised us that a service was due, so we took the opportunity to stay
here an extra day and book the car in for it’s 30k service in Traralgon.
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