Beeripmo Walk 5-6 March 2022 (Mt Buangor/Mt Cole)
Posted: Mon 07 Mar, 2022 1:18 pmDid the 2 day Beeripmo Walk with partner and a friend this weekend. It had been sold to me as "easy logistics", and I can confirm! Just over 2 hour drive to Richards Campground from Melbourne, with maybe 1-2 km of dirt road. The walk is incredibly well signposted, so we rarely had to consult a map to see what was going on.
Saturday
The original plan was to go up Friday night and camp at Richards (great campsite! shame we didn't), but I forgot that I something on. A late start was compounded by my insistence on a bakery stop in Bacchus Marsh, which was very slow. (Apple strudel and a coffee, plus a takeaway bagel and chocolate brownie for lunch). It was further compounded by my insistence on checking out another bakery in Bacchus Marsh (sausage roll), and another in Beaufort (nutella donut). Things started going strange when we somehow ended up in an op shop buying pants... We finally started actually walking around 1.30 pm.
Given the dodgy weather forecast, we were pretty surprised to see a packed carpark at Richards, but no tents - ergo, a lot of walkers.
The path was pleasant, easy to follow, gently climbing. I've seen descriptions of it as "steep", but with my most recent reference point being Stanley's Name Spur, I'll stick with "gently climbing". There were signs to a "Raglan Falls", but nothing really stood out as deserving the name "waterfall", even by our modest expectations. Various trickles of water over various rocks. Some really impressive boulders to walk around and eventually over, though.
We kept overtaking and getting re-overtaken by a group of 4 young men, Indian maybe? A bit of friendly banter each time we changed places. Apart from one young family heading back out, we didn't actually meet any other hikers the whole time.
It was drizzling on and off, but nothing too unpleasant. At one point on the path, I saw something very unfamiliar - a collection of bubbles slowly being added to by new bubbles emerging from a leaf. We watched it for quite a while, but couldn't really decide if they were juts water bubbles, perhaps eggs of some kind, or some substance like sap causing this strange behaviour.
The weather cleared up just in time for the great views from Grevillea Lookout across to Langhi Giran. We also saw a wedge-tailed eagle very close up, soaring up past eye level from below. Spectacular! Then the fog set back in, giving us very atmospheric views through the trees, but no views from Mt Sugarloaf.
We wandered into Beeripmo Campsite a bit after 5 - a pretty easy day's walk! There were something like 8 groups scattered about, but everyone seemed to be in their tents already, very quiet. Somehow we still ended up with a great campsite with a table, which was really handy for cooking on.
The water tank there is pretty irritating to use - for some reason, the tap is set extremely close to the ground, just above a metal grill. You can't actually fit a water bottle under it without removing the grill first.
Sunday
After a pretty rough night's sleep (intermittent gusts of wind and rain kept waking us up) we didn't get moving till after 11. We made the trek up to Mt Buangor summit, with no view due to dense fog, but the windy conditions kept things interesting. A very easy walk around and down, with no big highlights, although lunch at Mugwamp Hut was nice. The path is well made everywhere, and well maintained. A couple of fallen branches to negotiate, but not too many. Down and out by 4pm, just too late get a repeat visit to the bakery in Beaufort
Definitely a worthwhile, easy walk for one of those weekends where you don't the time to organise anything complicated, and maybe you have to squeeze in other stuff as well. It's really more like two half-days, which suited us fine.
I had Optus reception pretty much everywhere except down at Richards.
Saturday
The original plan was to go up Friday night and camp at Richards (great campsite! shame we didn't), but I forgot that I something on. A late start was compounded by my insistence on a bakery stop in Bacchus Marsh, which was very slow. (Apple strudel and a coffee, plus a takeaway bagel and chocolate brownie for lunch). It was further compounded by my insistence on checking out another bakery in Bacchus Marsh (sausage roll), and another in Beaufort (nutella donut). Things started going strange when we somehow ended up in an op shop buying pants... We finally started actually walking around 1.30 pm.
Given the dodgy weather forecast, we were pretty surprised to see a packed carpark at Richards, but no tents - ergo, a lot of walkers.
The path was pleasant, easy to follow, gently climbing. I've seen descriptions of it as "steep", but with my most recent reference point being Stanley's Name Spur, I'll stick with "gently climbing". There were signs to a "Raglan Falls", but nothing really stood out as deserving the name "waterfall", even by our modest expectations. Various trickles of water over various rocks. Some really impressive boulders to walk around and eventually over, though.
We kept overtaking and getting re-overtaken by a group of 4 young men, Indian maybe? A bit of friendly banter each time we changed places. Apart from one young family heading back out, we didn't actually meet any other hikers the whole time.
It was drizzling on and off, but nothing too unpleasant. At one point on the path, I saw something very unfamiliar - a collection of bubbles slowly being added to by new bubbles emerging from a leaf. We watched it for quite a while, but couldn't really decide if they were juts water bubbles, perhaps eggs of some kind, or some substance like sap causing this strange behaviour.
The weather cleared up just in time for the great views from Grevillea Lookout across to Langhi Giran. We also saw a wedge-tailed eagle very close up, soaring up past eye level from below. Spectacular! Then the fog set back in, giving us very atmospheric views through the trees, but no views from Mt Sugarloaf.
We wandered into Beeripmo Campsite a bit after 5 - a pretty easy day's walk! There were something like 8 groups scattered about, but everyone seemed to be in their tents already, very quiet. Somehow we still ended up with a great campsite with a table, which was really handy for cooking on.
The water tank there is pretty irritating to use - for some reason, the tap is set extremely close to the ground, just above a metal grill. You can't actually fit a water bottle under it without removing the grill first.
Sunday
After a pretty rough night's sleep (intermittent gusts of wind and rain kept waking us up) we didn't get moving till after 11. We made the trek up to Mt Buangor summit, with no view due to dense fog, but the windy conditions kept things interesting. A very easy walk around and down, with no big highlights, although lunch at Mugwamp Hut was nice. The path is well made everywhere, and well maintained. A couple of fallen branches to negotiate, but not too many. Down and out by 4pm, just too late get a repeat visit to the bakery in Beaufort
Definitely a worthwhile, easy walk for one of those weekends where you don't the time to organise anything complicated, and maybe you have to squeeze in other stuff as well. It's really more like two half-days, which suited us fine.
I had Optus reception pretty much everywhere except down at Richards.