A Loopy Walk on the Plateau 5

Day 5: Aches and Lakes 

After a delightfully restful night, we were up early and full of beans for the easy day ahead of us. We’d planned a post-walk lunch at Mole Creek Pub, and we were all keen to get there. It was a simple walk past Lakes Nameless, Snake and Explorer, much of it on an actual named track, then on to the shore of Lake Mackenzie. After that it would be an easy walk around the lake shore back to the cars. A few of us had done most of the walk before, and had no memory of difficulties. Ah, but amnesia among bushwalkers … it’s as rife as it is perilous! 

[Farewell to Ironstone Hut ... click to enlarge]

Our first hint of difficulty came when Tim D disappeared into a scrubby hole while crossing a creek near the start of Snake Lake. He thrashed around for what seemed like minutes, only the writhing branches giving away his position. In the end he broke a walking pole while trying to extract himself. So much for being on a named track! Apparently we weren’t yet at the Explorer Creek Track, which maps – for good reason – show as intermittent. 

[Scoparia in bloom beside Explorer Lake]

It certainly wasn’t here on the eastern shore of Lake Explorer, which we were finding tediously scrubby and undulating. The scoparia might have been flowering handsomely, but progress through or around it was scratchy and difficult. When we did get a view we looked longingly at the western shore and wondered: might that have been an easier option? 

[A bit of respite: looking across Explorer Lake]

We finally scrambled around the end of Explorer, and were relieved to join a more defined track. It led us down Explorer Creek, past a waterfall, to the confluence of the creek with the Fisher River on the shores of Lake Mackenzie. 

[Larry returning from the Explorer Ck waterfall]

We crossed the rushing stream on somewhat precarious rocks, and arrived mostly dry-footed on the other side. It had taken us three and a half hours from hut to lake, more time than we’d expected to take for the whole walk back to the cars. Still, we were almost there now. We just had to walk the 2km or so around the shore. 

[Having a break after the Fisher River crossing]

The maps helpfully showed a track around the shore, except there wasn’t one. Or if there was it was underwater. Instead we began a steep, scrubby, slanted, rocky scramble around the lake. At times the way relented, and we merely had to rock-hop. But then we’d find another steep bluff that wouldn’t allow us to continue close to the shore. At these points we had to clamber steeply into rough bush, and battle our way parallel to the shore until we could drop down again. 

[Tim D on one of the "friendly" bits of the shoreline]

This exhausting cat and mouse game continued until, at last, we found what looked like a rough grader track. Surely now we’d simply follow this until it came out at the dam wall of Lake Mackenzie. No! Inexplicably the grader track suddenly stopped, and there was no obvious track ahead. Talk about a road to nowhere! I wasn’t alone in loudly expressing my dismay. If ever we needed the assistance of an eagle, it was now. Surely a wedgie would be able to see the way ahead. But lacking such avian assistance, we had no other choice than to bush-bash in the general direction of our cars. 

Eventually, scratched, sweaty and far from jolly, we struggled down to the lake again, and across it we saw the dam wall. It had taken us well over an hour and a half to travel less than 2km. And we weren’t even back yet! Worse still our lunch appointment at the pub was looking in peril. We’d previously learned the hard way that they closed the kitchen at 2pm, and it was about 1:15pm when we reached the cars. We hastily sent Tim D and Libby ahead as an advance party, in the hope that they’d be able to keep the kitchen open on the promise that 5 hungry bushwalkers were on their way. 

Larry, TimO and I left a little later. When we finally drove into mobile range it was nearly 2 o’clock, and we were still 10 minutes from Mole Creek. At this point the phone rang, and it was Tim D calling us from the pub. We’d have to give him our lunch orders NOW, as the chef was about to shut up shop. Hamburgers all round (vego for TimO) was the quick and easy answer. 

The timing was perfect. We arrived at the pub a little after 2pm, in time to grab a hard-earned drink. And as we joined the others under the shade of a big old magnolia tree in the garden, the meals started coming out. “Windy, rude and boisterous” our November wander may have been, with a real test on our “easy” final day. 

[Relaxing after lunch: selfie courtesy of Tim Dyer]

But as we sat, ate and drank together, our well-timed finish had us forgetting our pain and declaring it to have been a great walk. It might have been a case of early-onset amnesia, but who said hard days can’t sometimes have a happy ending?