A walk on misty Mount Alex

A solid group of walkers was guided by Jeremy Holland through some remote corners of Mount Alexander east on Sunday. The walk started with a pleasant stroll  along the water race, before angling up the mountain south of Aqueduct Creek: a reasonably strenuous ascent through lovely bushland [including some magnificent Red Gums and monumental granite boulders]. We returned along the Ballantinia Track. The walk was enhanced by a dense mist, which obscured possible views but more than made up for it by endowing the bush with an intriguingly mysterious air.

Is anybody there? Jeremy Holland and Lionel Guerin survey the mist.

Many thanks to Jeremy for navigating us through a route none of us had seen before, to corners of the Mount rarely visited. And our thanks to Coliban Water for permission to walk along this closed section of the race.

Part of the group negotiating the ridge through Manna Gum woodland south of Aqueduct Creek, ascending to Ballantiinia Track.

June’s walk will be led by Ian Higgins along Campbell’s Creek. Check the walks program on this website for details.

St John’s Wort is a terrible pest on the Mount, but on Sunday it hosted hundreds of picturesque spider webs, like this one. Photo: Dominique Lavie

More walk photos follow:

Part of the group examine heritage water race structures on the east side of Mount Alexander. Photo: Noel Young.

Believe it or not, there’s a great view behind that mist–we think. Photo: Noel Young