Something for everyone: Far East Gippsland

The first time I experienced Far East Gippsland I had been living in Melbourne for four years, hanging off the side of 101 Collins Street and other large buildings that were scheduled for asset maintenance. I was employed as a window cleaner.

I first travelled to the Gippsland area to visit my parents who had recently settled there – it didn’t take me long to understand why they had chosen the location. East Gippsland has always struck me as being a place that has a feeling of remoteness yet still offers accessibility to the wild places that exist; and it was this feeling that continues to bring me back.

I fished the Tambo River with Dad and we ate the fresh bream we caught; in one direction lay the mountains and snowfields, the other the pounding seas of Bass Strait. Wind, sand, salt and the stunning Gippsland lakes themselves – all had a hold of me. We poured over maps and other resources planning what day trips and places we wanted to see. There were beach walks at Lakes Entrance and drives along the Tambo and Nicholson rivers towards the high country. As we grew in confidence we were drawn to the hidden temperate rainforest gullies of Fairy Dell and the Den of Nargun.

Time spent in and around East Gippsland’s wild places enabled me to reflect on memories of time spent wandering the bush on my Pop’s farm, growing up swinging through the willows and running among the creeks chasing dragonflies, yabbies and sunny days. Returning to the city was never the same after that first visit; everything had changed. Even though my work offered an interesting perspective on the city, I had begun to question some of the decisions I had made and continued to make in my life. A combination of alcohol abuse and living wild had brought me unstuck many times in the city and the city itself had now become a place of grey glass whose heights I clung to every day. It was a place of cold concrete and moody train rides home on grey afternoons. It had become a strange and ominous place when compared with the sights sounds and smells fresh in my mind from visits to the rivers and lakes.

A floodwater of emotions opened up for me at this time – I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to be or what I was supposed to be doing. In the end however I knew what I had to do; the far east of Gippsland and its hidden wild places were to become home for the next 12 years.

The Gippsland Tree-change

Having relocated and taken up employment on an afternoon shift for a local manufacturer, my days became free to explore the Gippsland Lakes National Park, one of the most extensive inland waterways and internationally significant wetlands in Australia. It is here that seven other rivers from the area mingle before reaching Lakes Entrance and the seas of Bass Strait. The silt jetties – a site of international significance and the second largest formation of its type in the world after those of the Mississippi River- add to the desire to return and explore this beautiful place. All manner of remote and wild places would open up to me spending time among the network of lakes marshes and lagoons and walking the narrow strip of sand dunes and banksia forests leading to 90 Mile Beach.

Rotamah Island, Bunga Arm and Boole Poole Peninsula provide opportunities to explore, swim, fish, kayak and spend time attempting to spot the burrunan dolphins unique to these lakes. Several little known loop-walks exist out among this narrow strip of banksia forests and sand dunes, the lakes on one side and the surf on the other, with all manner of bird and animal species, some protected and some rare, in-between.

The lakes continued to be favoured for a time, but day trips to explore the rivers and bush lead me back towards the foothills of the high country as well. The Den of Nargun and the Mitchell River National Park are accessible yet remote; by walking through a temperate rainforest gully you are lead to this special and important place. It’s one of the many special places featured in the stories of the Brabawooloong People who lived, hunted, danced and sung there. Tradition has it the Nargun lives there – a fierce being, half human and half stone. The Den of Nargun was in reality used for women’s initiation and learning ceremonies rather than being the lair of any predator. The site holds great cultural significance and when visited the den resonates with a wild and ancient quality.

Access to self reliant multi-day walking and river trips with a number of possibilities will allow you to experience the rugged Mitchell River area. The 18-kilometre Mitchell River walking track starts in Angusvale leads to the Den of Nargun, then out again. The Mitchell River is one of the finest examples of the special wild and hidden places that once existed throughout the far east of Victoria. Much time has been spent in these places continuing to heal. My wife and I are always eager to share these unique destinations with visiting family and friends, due to the unique combination of wilderness areas.

Bush Healing

In time I had the opportunity to work with young people in both a refuge and outdoor setting, spending time learning and extending my own knowledge, skills and love of the bush, and being able to share this. During this time I was lucky enough to be able to continue to indulge that inner country boy and started to make more trips on my own. I would occasionally contemplate the journey from swinging through the concrete jungles of the inner city to slinging my hammock between banksia trees and rolling my swag out beside remote bush tracks.

The time spent in solitary reflection has become a part of my own therapy methods. Drawing from my personal experience of transitioning from the normal channels of life. I began to filter more and more of these learnings into my work, aided and guided by the time spent in the bush. The benefits of spending time in nature, the bush or wild places – whichever way you look at it – is time well spent in continuing to learn more about ourselves. I am better able to facilitate my work with young people because of this and I continue to share and help them build on their own strengths through what is becoming widely known as BAT: Bush Adventure Therapy. BAT builds on the benefits of nature in the process of healing and growth for individuals in need of such intervention.

Recently I was able to combine the best of both worlds setting up camp with family and friends at Angusvale for a long weekend and a night alone on the river. A feeling of being the only person around for 1000 kilometres, even though my friends and family where not far upriver (sitting around the campfire), is a feeling that only wild-yet-accessible places like this can provoke.

I slung my hammock among the giant kanooka trees growing out of the water, communing with the lillpilli, ferns and moss covering the weathered rocks while the gentle pulse of the river comforted me. The next day I was paddling past what remains of the massive tumbled bluestone wall known as Glenaladale Weir, destroyed by floodwaters in an early attempt to subdue the river.

The bluestones for the weir where quarried on-site, some as large as one metre square and somehow lifted and placed across the width of the river. It stood like a battlement, testimony to the early settler’s ingenuity and engineering skills, until the great floods of 1891-1894 when it was cracked in two by the raging floodwaters. One side tumbled into the river while the other remained virtually intact. It now stands like an ancient wall from a lost civilisation being slowly reclaimed by the native grasses, vines and kanooka trees; testament to the power of the seasonal changes and wild nature of the Mitchell River.

My thoughts, while gliding past and pondering its symbolism, turn once more to that country boy. The journey from willows, sunshine and dragonflies, to the cold grey concrete jungles, and then the gradual settling among the wild places in the Far East of Gippsland where I plan to remain. Every person should spend at least one night alone in such a place in their lifetime; it is there where we can discover a lot about the hidden and wild places in ourselves.