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Briggs Bluff - The Grampians

PostPosted: Tue 06 Sep, 2022 8:44 am
by sammyff
Briggs Bluff is a grade 4 walk in the Grampians National Park. It starts from Beehive Falls car park in the Northern Grampians. It is 13km out and back. If you wish you can go further and include Mt Difficult or link on to the Grampians peaks trail and camp overnight. Best time is spring as the wildflowers are everywhere. Be careful in summer, snakes share the tracks. Carry plenty of water. In cooler months be prepared for rapid change in weather. Here is a youtube vid I've put together showing some of the amazing scenery. It's well worth the effort.
https://youtu.be/VeYgsAWoyUA

Re: Briggs Bluff - The Grampians

PostPosted: Sun 11 Sep, 2022 8:51 pm
by paidal_chalne_vala
I have been there. I did
not know you were still allowed to go anywhere or do anything in the Grampians these days. I thought you have to stay near the ice Cream shop in Halls Gap or you will be banned / fined/ fingerprinted/ rugby tackled by the nanny State police. ( sic ).

Re: Briggs Bluff - The Grampians

PostPosted: Mon 12 Sep, 2022 6:13 am
by Baeng72
paidal_chalne_vala wrote:I have been there. I did
not know you were still allowed to go anywhere or do anything in the Grampians these days. I thought you have to stay near the ice Cream shop in Halls Gap or you will be banned / fined/ fingerprinted/ rugby tackled by the nanny State police. ( sic ).

You forgot the body-cavity search to make sure you're not smuggling wildlife illegally.

Re: Briggs Bluff - The Grampians

PostPosted: Mon 12 Sep, 2022 8:05 am
by paidal_chalne_vala
Yes you are right again !

Re: Briggs Bluff - The Grampians

PostPosted: Mon 12 Sep, 2022 1:35 pm
by CraigVIC
The lookout is at the end of the escarpment, what you would naturally think of as the bluff. But Briggs Bluff is marked on the topos as a high point on the ridge a few hundred meters away, basically a rock stack on the ridge that's easily scrambled. Bit of an oddity.

Re: Briggs Bluff - The Grampians

PostPosted: Fri 16 Sep, 2022 1:13 pm
by Biggles
Way, way back in time — 1987, a crazy walking group leader of the VNPA led a troup of bushwalkers from Troopers Creek straight up the cliffs (!) and over the Briggs Bluff and Mount Difficult, where we were summarily hammered by rain and storms all night long. He said it would be a "moderate" walk. :shock:
No ropes, little to hang on to. Just inch by inch, bum push by bum push. It is a funny thing that memory does to people that the walk remembered as being the most troubling and exhausting also turned out to be the most memorable! :lol:

Fast forward to the present day and I am doubtful you can actually do this hard walk now, or camp at Troopers Creek? But I welcome correction. 8)

Re: Briggs Bluff - The Grampians

PostPosted: Fri 16 Sep, 2022 7:01 pm
by paidal_chalne_vala
Nothing remotely adventurous is permitted in The Grampians anymore ;-P AFAIK. The Nanny state Govt. and ambulance chasing Lawyers and other matters such as Indigenous site protection have intervened and disallowed such trips such as the above Ordeal from Trooper's Creek.
I used to camp there often and go up the track to Mt. Difficult . It was a bit of an SAS assault course but I like that sort of thing sometimes esp. if I only have a day pack and the weather is not too hot or too wet.

Re: Briggs Bluff - The Grampians

PostPosted: Fri 16 Sep, 2022 11:29 pm
by CraigVIC
You can re-live the magic courtesy of bigkev,

https://goinferalonedayatatime.blogspot ... l.html?m=1

Re: Briggs Bluff - The Grampians

PostPosted: Sat 17 Sep, 2022 9:56 am
by paidal_chalne_vala
Thanks for the web link. Yes I remember the old Mt. Dificult track.

Re: Briggs Bluff - The Grampians

PostPosted: Sun 18 Sep, 2022 4:42 pm
by Biggles
CraigVIC wrote:You can re-live the magic courtesy of bigkev,

https://goinferalonedayatatime.blogspot ... l.html?m=1


I had a very enjoyable, chuckling few minutes reading BigKev's account. Very interesting! There are at least 4 pics I can correlate with my memory of several airy places where our 1987 walk paused. I recognise the old Troopers Creek campground only; never seen the new one.

The pics are also very jarring. Jarring, because I find it irritating the wild, natural landscape of rock and tree should be scoured, chopped, scraped and stepped, then supplanted by rust-coloured, steel and wooden structures like glass-window huts, verandahs, chairs and tables...and other accoutrements that are too much a reminder of Big Town when really, people are meant to get away from it all, not bring it all with them and not get away from anything! I consider myself fortunate that at least in my younger years I got to experience Gariwerd's wild side and never would have imagined what was to become in 3+ decades, where favourite walking haunts were literally boarded up, available only to those waving their plastic fantastics in the face of Parks Victoria. Dear me. It's all on the wrong track.

Re: Briggs Bluff - The Grampians

PostPosted: Sun 18 Sep, 2022 4:49 pm
by Biggles
paidal_chalne_vala wrote:Nothing remotely adventurous is permitted in The Grampians anymore ;-P AFAIK. The Nanny state Govt. and ambulance chasing Lawyers and other matters such as Indigenous site protection have intervened and disallowed such trips such as the above Ordeal from Trooper's Creek.
I used to camp there often and go up the track to Mt. Difficult . It was a bit of an SAS assault course but I like that sort of thing sometimes esp. if I only have a day pack and the weather is not too hot or too wet.



In 1987, I doubt anybody knew anything at all about indigenous sites within Gariwerd. I'm not saying they didn't exist, but it seems to have taken a lot of arm wrestling between indigenous "custodians" or guardians, and Parks Victoria, and a hell of a lot of boots on the ground research, then debate, then fisticuffs at dawn, more debate and more research and more field surgeys ... possibly spanning decades, before Parks Victoria progressively added strangling rules and regulations, among them being significant bans on rock climbing in an area of hitherto unknown indigenous rock art. Some of my most enjoyable walks and camps were deep in the Victoria Valley, both car-based and on foot, not seeing anybody for 4-5 days, until I returned to Halls Gap. I dunno. Where will the chance for wilderness be, a generation from now when PV and other self-interest bodies see once wild places are potential/very real cash cows?

Re: Briggs Bluff - The Grampians

PostPosted: Sun 18 Sep, 2022 7:26 pm
by paidal_chalne_vala
There are sections of Mc Millan's walking track and the AAWT which are still quite wild and not suitable for glampers at all.
The Northern Prom. will sort out the wheat from the chaff quite quickly too.