Babes In The Wood: The California Redwoods in Warburton

Mother Nature is a temperamental minx, Jarrod. She didn’t quite wreak havoc on our road trip this week, but she definitely threw us a few curve balls. I became just slightly obsessed with visiting the Redwood Forest after seeing some stunning pictures on Instagram (thank you @placestovisit_victoria)  They’re located about 8km east of the sweet little town of Warburton, which is roughly an hour fifteen from the city. My good friend Lisa (whom you may remember from the Japanese Bath House excursion a few weeks ago?) anyway, she leapt at the chance to accompany me on a blog-scursion that would actually involve wearing clothes, as opposed to communal nudity. We plotted a day trip with the aim of tackling both the Redwood Forest and the Tree Gallery Walk, and I for one, mentally fast forwarded to the gorgeous photos I’d get for the blog. The sunlight dappling through the trees. Oh the dappling, Jarrod. There was going to be some truly spectacular dappling….

Naturally there was a flurry of texts on Friday night about outfit options (sigh, the Japanese Bath House was so much simpler!) Both of us decided that we didn’t need to dress too ‘outdoorsy’ as we’d probably only need to walk a few 100m at most.  I may have even used the phrase “STEP AWAY from the polar fleece and sensible hiking shoes.” Saturday rolled around, and despite the grim forecast of rain, possible hail and a top temperature of 11 degrees–we dressed in outfits that I’ll choose to describe as ‘optimistic.’ There was not a single waterproof component in either ensemble, and we were both in footwear suitable for the following range of activities: brunch.

Any delusions we may have had about being bathed in winter sunshine were well and truly quashed as we drove towards Warburton. It was sleeting rain, and the clouds were cloaking the tops of the mountain ranges. Ominous. Lisa tried for about half an hour to get a photo of this from the passenger window but somehow only succeeded in capturing roughly fifty photos of blurry lampposts/telegraph poles. (Look out for her forthcoming photo blog: Telegraph Poles Of Lilydale). But we did get this one.

Mother Nature basically giving us the finger

After some lunch (bacon and egg panini, in case you were wondering) in Warburton we headed to the Tourist Information Centre to procure a map, and arrived to find a very rattled lady more or less tearing the poor volunteer staff  a new one. Seems she had been told that the road up to the top of Mount Donna Buang was open for business and perfectly safe, only with snow AND rain it had become downright treacherous and the Police, along with Parks Victoria had closed the road before the Tree Gallery (nooooooooooooooo!) and were making all the cars up there turn around to head back down. Now, had Rattled Lady just imparted that information and left, it would have been appreciated. Instead she stood there banging on for a good ten minutes about how she felt she was going to die and how honestly, she was still shaking blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. I wanted to usher people into an orderly queue in front of her–to shake her shoulders and slap her in the face. It seemed to work on that hysterical passenger in Flying High. Seriously, I’m not sure that a particularly difficult three point turn or a possible ‘slide off the road into a large fern at 10km/hour’ qualifies as a near death experience.

Anyway, the salient information was that we could no longer go to the Tree Gallery. We did ask if we could potentially walk there, and the lovely volunteer gentleman said no, glanced at our footwear, and said definitely not. But we armed ourselves with directions to get to the Redwood Forest so all wasn’t going to be lost. It was foolproof. Head east out of Warburton, turn left onto Cement Creek Road which is quote unsealed and a little rough in parts unquote, and about 700m on your right you’ll see a gate and a carpark.

Did I say foolproof? Ha ha ha ha ha.

Not with my unparalleled ability to get lost!

We headed down the unsealed road with the Barina shaking and rattling, which is actually vehiculan for “were you NOT paying attention to the TV commercial? I am suited to zippy city driving and parking in snug spaces!” The rain was teeming, the mud roads rendered the steering an apparent ‘optional extra’ at some points, and both of us were silently praying that we wouldn’t get bogged. Because you know, outfits. And then we encountered this:

What. The. Actual. F&%$

We were being stymied at every bloody turn. Quick powwow and we decided that we hadn’t driven all the way to Warburton just to have a bacon and egg panini. It was agreed that we would regard this sign as more of a ‘suggestion’ and clamber around it.  Yes that is very irresponsible, but this blog is not called useful advice for avoiding very preventable adverse incidents. We were going to see our Redwoods damnit! So we left the Barina to sulk in the slippery mud, begged it not to slide away while we were gone, and headed off on foot in the pouring rain.

Postcard Perfect Conditions

The track looked like the stuff of a Wolf Creek location scout’s wildest dreams. (“I’m just after a place with…you know, a good ‘screaming, half mauled woman running terrified through the bush with a psycho wielding a sawn off shotty in hot pursuit’ vibe. Why is that so hard to find?“)

Sinister Beautiful

It soon became apparent why they’d decided to close the muddy road. Huge tree branches littered some parts of the path.  Our impractical jackets and jeans were soaked. But we pressed on, scouring the landscape for these curiously elusive 50m tall trees. Besides, we shouldn’t have to go far. They said only 700m, right?

I was both determined to find the Redwoods, and terrified that we’d be killed by a falling tree, the price we’d pay for having FLOUTED THE RULES. My catastrophiser mind already had the news reel about the senseless, totally avoidable tragedy composed. A Parks Victoria ranger being interviewed and calling us an “unfortunate reminder that they put these signs up for a reason.” Police saying the motive for us disregarding the sign is a mystery, but based on the photos from the camera of one of the deceased, we appeared to be looking for telegraph poles in the area… We pressed on.

This doesn’t feel right…

And on. And on. We started to get ranty. This was bullshit. This was further than 700m. Would it kill them to put up some signage? We walked in the rain for a good twenty minutes.

Nuthin but gum trees. Pout. I can see THOSE any old time.

At the twenty five minute mark we declared we were calling it, time to turn back. The day was a total bust. As we got closer to the start, we noticed that off to our left, we could actually see what appeared to be Redwoods back behind the Gum Trees. But how to get through to them? Gah!! This was positively exasperating! We got to the road closed sign and climbed back up and around it.

Then we spotted the gate. Literally 10m from where we parked the car. If we’d just turned our heads even 45 degrees right, instead of conspiring to flagrantly disregard Parks Victoria rules, we could have just walked right through. And there were the Redwoods. Plain as day. Don’t ask me to explain how we missed it and walked RIGHT PAST the gate to stroll 50 minutes in the mud and rain but we did. Alright? We did. In any case, we were now being rewarded.

Ah. The Symmetry

They probably don’t look that remarkable on screen–but when you put something against them for scale, like, say, a person, you get a feel for just how tall they are. If you squint a wee bit, you’ll see me in the next photo.

Teeny Tiny Megs

And teeny tiny Lisa

And from ground zero looking up, it’s dizzying…

Then the sun decided to finally come out and join the party–

Dappling: check!

And it even bought it’s buddy along, Sunshower–

Now that IS a bonus.

It’s very pretty, and genuinely peaceful in amongst the towering trees. So, you’d probably not have quite the difficulty that I did in actually getting there, but regardless, as always I’ll throw the question over to you. The Redwood Forest near Warburton: Jarrod, would you go there?