Dunkeld

Friday, 1 August 2025

Off on our third holiday for the year, this time on a road trip to the Flinders Ranges. We actually left Melbourne yesterday afternoon after completing our volunteer shifts in the morning. After a quick lunch in the city we raced home to finish packing the truck to hit the road about 3.30pm … which coincided with the peak our traffic heading west towards Ballarat. That made for a very slow start to our journey but eventually we were on the M8 heading through Bacchus Marsh and Myrniong.

Nearing Ballarat the signs said we should turn left to reach the Southern Grampians. Not Syri though, Syri said we should keep right to take the M8 bypass around the north of Ballarat. OK, then, doing it Syri’s way we stayed on the M8 until Windermere where we turned left onto Weighbridge Road to start heading cross country towards the Southern Grampians. It was dark by this stage, which made the possibility of a wildlife encounter a bit worrying but, with other vehicles travelling the same way, we hoped that any kangaroos would be scared off by the cars ahead of us.

We made it to the C296 without incident and turned right towards Streatham travelling through Carngham and Mount Emu, still following behind another vehicle heading our way. We took a right turn onto the B160 (Glenelg Highway) and arrived in Streatham soon after. Finally, the car in front of us had arrived at its destination and we had the road to ourselves. Straight away Bernie took the opportunity to switch on the front mounted LED light bar (or, as I like to call it, the bogan light!) to turn night into day and melt bitumen at 50 paces!! That thing is BRIGHT!

We blazed our way through Westmere, Lake Bolac and Glenthompson, without encountering any nocturnal wildlife and pulled into Dunkeld at 7.30pm. We checked in at the Royal Mail Hotel (the cheap rooms!) parked the truck around the back and unpacked a few items before heading to the Parker St Project restaurant for our 8.00pm dinner booking.

After a delicious meal (duck leg for me, teriyaki beef neck for Bernie, with chips and salad to share) we made our way back to our room. Bernie unpacked a few more items from the truck and we settled in for the night.

This morning we woke to a fine morning with blue sky and sunshine but it was only 2° Celsius and the ‘feels like’ temperature may have been even less. After breakfast in our room we dressed warmly to venture out with a plan to hike up Mount Sturgeon (Wurgarri), the bluff that looms over the small town of Dunkeld.

We drove along to Izzy’s Cafe to buy chocolate – in case we needed a snack on our hike! Taking the C216 towards Halls Gap we made our way to the Mount Sturgeon Walk Car Park. We unpacked our cameras – me with a new camera since our trip to Africa – and set off towards the summit of Mount Sturgeon.

With the sun shining, I soon found that I had dressed too warmly! Why do I find it so difficult to get the right match between the weather, my wardrobe choices and my level of activity, ha, ha? I was soon stripping off my polar fleece and tying it around my waist. At least I did have layers on so that I could do some wardrobe fine-tuning BUT I definitely should not have worn my fleece lined pants and I probably didn’t need my ski socks on. Yup, the ones that I wished I had packed for early morning safaris in Africa!!!

We didn’t push ourselves too hard with much of the trail quite rocky underfoot. Lots of trip hazards if you didn’t watch where you put your feet. After a reasonably strenuous hike, we found ourselves at the summit of Mount Sturgeon an hour and a half after we set off from the car park. Not bad, since the sign had said it was a 3.3km trail that should take an hour and a half.

The weather was perfect for hiking up a mountain with outstanding views towards the Northern Grampians in the distance, The piccaninny (Bainggug) across from us and the township of Dunkeld below us. We met a couple newly retired to Dunkeld on the summit. We took photos of them to prove to their children that they had climbed Mount Sturgeon and they took photos of us so that we also had photographic proof of our efforts.

Having climbed to the summit via a section of the Grampians Peak Trail on the north-eastern flank of the mountain we decided to return to the car park along the Mount Sturgeon Trail on the southern flank. When we reached the base of mountain we had an easy walk back to the car park along the Sturgeon to Dunkeld Trail. Although the signs told us that this trail was longer at four kilometres (estimated time to complete it two hours) we were back at the car in an hour and fifteen minutes. We’re not sure how we managed that since we were delayed attempting to photograph a wedge-tailed eagle and a kangaroo (unless it was a wallaby?)

It was now about quarter past one so we drove back to Dunkeld to the Old Bakery and Cafe for a late lunch. We managed to snaffle the last ham and cheese toastie which we shared. OMG, even after our seven kilometre hike I could not have eaten a whole sandwich. So much cheese. It had cheese on the inside and cheese on the outside so we think at least two types of cheese, maybe even three? and some delicious mustard.

Of course the other reason for only eating half a sandwich was to be able to return to Izzy’s Cafe for ice-creams!! After consuming the second course of our late lunch we drove out to the Dunkeld Arboretum. The arboretum consists of 18-hectares of land at the town’s old water reserve, showcasing a collection of the world’s trees including the largest collection of oak trees in Australia.

In an interesting juxtaposition the arboretum is also home to the Old Sawmill. The sawmill closed in 2002, but was revived in 2012 by volunteers who still operate the sawmill machinery as a working museum which can be visited on open days. We also enjoyed a couple of chainsaw sculptures, a wedge-tailed eagle and a yellow-tailed black cockatoo by Angie Polglaze aka The Chainsaw Chick. After the Aboretum it was time to head back to our room to put our feet up for a few hours before dinner.

At 6.30pm we headed across the road to the Parker St Project again for dinner. Tonight we splurged on the seasonal sharing menu that saw us eat our way through two ‘snacks’, two small plates, two mains and dessert. And then we rolled back across the road to our room! Thank goodness we did all that exercise this morning to off-set tonight’s kilojoules.Steps: 17,281 (11.11kms)