Hiking Melbourne

This article was written for Argus - the member's magazine of the Victorian Climbing Club Before I get into the details, I have to clean up a couple of fairy tales: Magical Phones If you see the "No Service" or similar on your phone, that's pretty much it. Your phone is as useless as your coffee cup or a brick. NO! Neither of them will magically turn into a satellite communication device. I see that proposed in hiking forums all the time but it's a myth . All SatCom devices work - NOT All PLBs/EPIRBs* have very limited function - "I need help! I'm here" - but they do it very well. They are cheap and very reliable. You can't go wrong with any model. However if you need a bit more function, you got a couple of options for off-grid (emergency) communication Satellite Phone >> Not so cheap but great functionality Garmin inReach  >>  two-way satellite messenger and tracker  Iridium Go >> Mobile data thingymebob...

Whoooo! Is it already that time of year again? Oh yes. The Mount Bogong Club has their annual working bee to get the Cleve Cole Hut in shape for the upcoming winter season. This weekend from Saturday 22nd April until Tuesday 25th you can chip in to make our backyard fit for the snowy fun-times ahead of us. A couple of geocachers will be there as well which is a clear indication of an upcoming goon-bag-port-party.  If you want to join a casual hike up the Mountain, we'll make a late Friday night start from Eskdale or Granite Flat. The aim is to be back in Melbourne by Sunday night 😀 Cheers Cleve Cole Hut in Summer 2017

On the northern outskirts of Melbourne's 'burbs you can find the township of Kinglake. Although the name suggests at least a bit of a water body, there's none. This place was actually named after the British historian Alexander William Kinglake. As we all know tragedy struck the area eight years ago and most of it went up in flames. However since then nature, people and the local community recovered and these days Kinglake is hiding some nice hikes which are easy to reach. Over the last couple of weeks I ventured out there for some on- and offtrack hikes. Mostly because I didn't feel like driving all the way to the Cathedral Ranges or the hills above the Yarra.  Because the area sits on a ridge which is roughly 300m higher than the northern suburbs, the Kinglake hikes offer some stunning view over Melbourne. Especially the sunsets are worth a visit which means if you're looking at a nice after-work hike, this is it. Mt Everard Track is a good recommendat...

Here some pics from the weekend. Anja already did a write-up and there's also the logbook of the geocaching event . Enjoy :)

If you are a trailrunner, mountaineer or just an eager hiker, you heard this name before: Mount Juliet. At a little bit over 1100m this is the steepest training hike around Melbourne. Yes there higher mountains, yes there are longer walk but no there's nothing which can compete with the elevation profile of this little gem.  The roughly 930m of vertical ascent you have to cover stretch over only 4.3km and almost 700m are hidden in the last 2km. Yes the elevation profile looks like a sadistic mathematician's creation. It's the 1000 steps times four. If you read various blogs about Mt. Juliet it's always the same verdict: This is a dumb idea unless you want to punish yourself. Judging be the state of the track - fairly well - a lot of people do exactly that: Punish themselves.  In 1910 Nicholas Caire described the summit with these words: "A trigonometrical station. The highest and about the most accessible mountain near Healesville, from the top of which a...

You need some inspiration for the next hike?  Darren and Julie Edwards have created a rather fancy website which should give you plenty of options: