Knott Hill Walk with Four Seasons

On Tuesday 9th June the Four Seasons walking group resumed our walking after the COVID-19 lockdown, with 20 walkers (including the leaders) .

Richard led a lovely walk from the Ironbark Picnic Area around the Knott Hill area.

I’ve included two maps (zoomed differently) to allow you to see the location of the walk and then the finer details.

We met at the picnic area, where there was enough parking space for our dozen or so vehicles, and headed west from there. Unfortunately my watch took a long time to pick up satellites on this cloudy morning.

There was very little climb, which was very kind, and suited the walkers returning from lazy hibernation, or injury.

The greetings of long lost friends were a pure joy as we reunited, months after last seeing each other. It was hard not to exchange hugs, but social distancing continues.

As we walked the chatter rose up into the air – Ahhh! The sound of happy walkers!

At 9am it was still frosty, but that slowly burnt off and the winter sunshine was warming. It wasn’t too long before we were starting to discard the gloves and hats, and by morning tea time more space had to be found in the packs for the outer layers of clothing.

For our morning tea we perched at the side of the track,like a row of sparrows on a power line, but for us it was on a dirt ledge at about the right height for sitting.

We enjoyed the mix of native and pine forest which is offered in the area.

There were an abundance of fungi – including the much sought after saffron milk caps. If you were going to be lost in the forest and knew your fungi you certainly wouldn’t go starving at the moment.

Our lunch break was in a lovely spot of native forest, where we found perches once again (this time mostly on fallen tree branches)

before heading onwards across the creek. The group eventually agreed that the structure discovered was probably a water height recorder (first photo below), which was near a green tank-like structure (second photo below) with door and solar power on pole which stands beside the creek, where the small “spillway” with monitoring box are sited.

The final couple of km were a gentle climb beside the forest edge back towards the carpark.

It seemed strange not to be heading somewhere together for a warm drink and a bit of socialising, but we were happy just to have seen each other.

This walk was a lovely welcome back to walking in beautiful surrounds.

Thanks Richard and Elly for your fine leadership once again and for easing us back in to the walking gently.