Stringybark Creek Trip Report

The club’s September trip was to Stringybark Creek Campground near Tolmie for 2 nights of base camping and some scenic driving.

Day 1 – Bendigo to Stringybark Creek

Friday 7th September 2018

We left Bendigo with 3 vehicles on Friday afternoon, to meet another 8 vehicles at Benalla McDonald’s. We arrived around 7pm at Stringybark Creek Campground, and we pretty much had the place to ourselves, easily fitting 12 vehicles into one of the camp areas and setting up camp.

Paul already had a fire lit and since it was a very cold night we set ourselves up around the fire. For some of us it was a very late one, getting to bed at around 2am, but we had a great night.

Day 2 – Kelly Tree, Powers lookout

Saturday 8th September 2018

Saturday morning we were up, coffee and breakfast and at 9am we went for a walk to start off the day and went down to where Ned Kelly and his gang had the Shootout with the Police. We first came across The Kelly Tree with the metal plaque representing Kelly’s armor replacing the carved names commemorating the deaths of the three police troopers, Sergeant Michael Kennedy, and Constables Thomas Lonigan and Michael Scanlon. We walked around to the actual gunfight area, it felt fairly unreal to be standing where it all happened back in 1878, it was also interesting to read what went on that particular day.

We walked back to camp and jumped into the 4wd’s heading off for a drive to Powers Lookout. Heading out from Stringybark we turned left onto Tolmie – Tatong Road then a right turn up Madhouse Track which is just a dirt road which leads around to Upper Fifteen Mile track, turning left passing some campsites to our right, following the Fifteen Mile creek to a little town called Myrrhee, out the other side turning right onto Benalla – Whitfield road until we got to Evans track. We headed down and it came to a quick dead end having been blocked by trees.

Turning around and heading back, we drove straight to Powers Lookout. Powers Lookout was believed to have been a vantage point where Harry Power (one of the last infamous Bushrangers) would hide from police troopers, before eventually being caught in 1870. There are two lookouts up there, with really awesome views across the King Valley.

: Powers Lookout

: View from Powers Lookout

: Powers Lookout

After admiring the views, we took off again along the Tolmie road then turned right onto Boggy Creek track, this track doesn’t live up to its name, it is pretty much a 2wd track. The track takes you to Frasca’s Dam which was built by the Myrrhee farm co-operative in the 60s to supply water to some farms in the area, with some great little campsites it would be a great spot in the summer to camp. We had lunch for about an hour then we had to head back along the same way we came in, as the track was a dead end.

When we got out we re-grouped and headed for Tolmie, stopping at Tolmie Tavern for a beer or two. Tolmie Tavern is great little pub with friendly staff, definitely worth a stop in. We left here and headed back to camp along the Tolmie – Tatong road cutting some wood on the way, some of the boys went back out to get more firewood and we had a huge fire that night to keep warm, sitting around having a few drinks and a laugh and all getting to bed reasonable early.

: Tolmie Tavern

: Tolmie Tavern

: Tolmie Tavern

Day 3 – Toombullup State Forest

Sunday 9th September 2018

Sunday morning up early and we sat around the fire a bit then at 9am we went for a quick drive around the Toombullup State Forest, a lot of tracks had seasonal closures so we headed up Stringybark Creek road to Old Tolmie road and along the pine forest but every track was closed as well, we went down WC-1 track through the logging area then down along WC-2 track to Whiskey Creek track which was blocked as well, so we turned around and headed back to camp and we pretty much packed up camp and headed for home, some of us stopping at Violet Town pub for lunch.