Grey Nomads: Brown Trails

When you pack up the car and head off on a holiday, what is the first type of attraction you map out? Travel styles can be a wonderfully eclectic mix, and our family is the perfect example. Jo’s dad, Glen, completely lives for a magnificent, roaring waterfall, while Julie prefers hunting down local markets to check out cooking styles. Jo loves nothing more than exploring tranquil gardens, Peter loves with tracking down historical buildings and old engineering, and Harley is at his absolute happiest when he’s surrounded by rugged mountains and deep, sweeping ravines. We love following the “brown signs” wherever they lead, but our recent excursion tracking down cascades in regional Victoria took a slippery, heart-pounding turn that had us rethinking our entire travel strategy!

We are currently enjoying a month-long house-sitting stint near beautiful Mount Franklin, on a stunning 50-acre property. The winter mornings down here have been properly freezing, often dipping into negative degrees. In fact, it gets so cold that the outdoor water hose freezes completely solid until midday. Thankfully, our caravan and its trusty diesel heater have been keeping us incredibly cozy inside. However, after a heavy week of weather dumped about 45mm of rain over the property, we decided the local creeks would be primed for a waterfall safari and we felt it was important to do in honour of Glen.

The Great Slippery Escape at Loddon Falls

If you want the absolute, definitive reason why we are warning everyone to be careful around winter cascades, look no further than our trip to Loddon Falls. Unlike the highly polished, safety-railed tourist tracks in other areas, this spot is completely wild. We had to navigate a muddy track so thick that we were forced to park the car a fair way away, squelching our way forward guided only by a single weathered informational sign that was completely unreadable.

The track brought us straight to the literal, unprotected edge of a sheer 15+-metre drop. The ground under our boots was incredibly wet, muddy, and slick, and the massive basalt columns lining the gorge looked like they were on the absolute verge of collapsing into the water below. As Jo tried to edge closer to get a shot, her boots lost traction on the wet mud and grass. It was an incredibly hairy, heart-in-mouth moment. Peter, usually the adventurer decided that walking any further along that crumbling path was an absolute “no”, and we backed away as fast as we could. It was a terrifying near-miss that officially cured us of our waterfall obsession!

The Volcanic Waterfall Wrap-Up

Before the mud nearly claimed us at Loddon, we did manage a few safer viewings around the region, which gave Peter a fantastic fix of local geology:

• Sailors Falls: This was a magnificent stop near Daylesford where we got to see three separate waterfalls running simultaneously side-by-side. We opted for a lovely 7km bushwalk through the surrounding forest to stretch our legs which meant that we did not have to see too much of the crowd of Daylesford tourists who were hanging around near the falls (no chance for flying a drone in that environment…).

• Trentham Falls: This is one of the largest single-drop volcanic waterfalls in Victoria, plunging 32 metres over a massive wall of hexagonal basalt columns. The volume of water roaring over the edge was wider than our entire caravan! Again there were a number of people here so Peter got the shot while Jo sooked that she could not get her drone out.

A Quick Public Safety Announcement: Ironically, the waterfall didn’t get us at Trentham, but the concrete pavement in town nearly did. Walking down a slight hill past the council chambers at 11:00 AM, the concrete path was coated in pure, completely invisible ice. We both went sliding and scrambling like uncoordinated penguins, realizing that surviving a massive cliff overlook only to be taken out by a main-street footpath would make for a very embarrassing blog update!

• The Blowhole: A fascinating historic site where gold miners back in the 1800s literally blasted a car-sized tunnel straight through a solid rock spur. They rediverted the entire creek through the mountain to wash their gold, leaving behind a bizarre, rock-strewn landscape. Here at last, Jo got to put her drone up again to give you a better shot of the region…

Retiring to Caravan Comforts

After all the muddy escapes and icy sliding, retreating back to our van has been an absolute dream. We are settling in beautifully to the quiet house-sitting life, hanging out with our neighbor, the artist at the local musical instrument gallery, and keeping our feet firmly planted on stable ground!

For those of you who might remember the music charts back then, there’s an old 90s pop song by a group called TLC that has a famous chorus warning: ‘Don’t go chasing waterfalls.’ For the rest of our readers who skipped that musical era, take it from us instead—stick to the rivers and lakes you’re used to, or at least leave the sketchy cliff edges to Glen!

So, what about you? When you hit the road, what are the absolute must-see spots on your travel bucket list? Drop a comment below and let us know what you most look forward to discovering on your own holidays!

Love,

Jo and Peter