Fainter Falls Walking Track - Bogong

The Fainter Falls Walking Track was opened to the public in January 2009.

It's located just off the Bogong High Plains touring road between Mt Beauty and Falls Creek.

The start is well signposted, opposite a large car-park 2km south of Bogong Village (near the "orange bridge").

It's a 700 metre (one way) walk on a Class 2 track (easy) and suitable for most abilities. It contours above the course of the Pretty Valley branch of the East Kiewa River with two lookouts along the route. The lookouts have great views of the river and Fainter Falls.

For the more adventurous, a further 200 m stepped track goes to the base of the falls.

Our visit was on March 7, 2009.

A walk not to be missed!

See the full set of Photos of our visit!

Lake Guy Hike, Bogong Village

Bogong Village is a small village with 26 houses available for rent, the Alpine Village Belle restaurant and bar and an Outdoor Education campus for school children attending Victorian Government schools.

It is located on the Bogong High Plains Rd, midway between the towns of Mt Beauty and Falls Creek, about 320 km NE of Melbourne.

A resident manager looks after accommodation and guests as well as overseeing care of the gardens and facilities.
The village was established between 1938 and 1940 by the State Electricity Commission (SEC) to provide accommodation and services for engineers and construction workers on the Kiewa hydro-electric scheme. A post office, a primary school and a shop were also established. The existing Bogong Outdoor Education Centre was established much later, in the 1970s.

Following completion of the Kiewa scheme in the early 1960s, the SEC took steps to beautify the village by planting the terraced wedding garden and garden beside the lake. A team of gardeners were employed to maintain the beautiful seasonal villages gardens that people enjoy today.

With the passage of the seasons the gardens burst into life in spring with the flowering of the rhododendrons, camellias, azaleas and dogwoods, take on a cool and leafy green appearance in summer and then transform into a spectacular blaze of colour in autumn. About once every winter the village wakes up to snow.

Energy company AGL Energy is constructing a new $230 million underground hydro-electricity station at Bogong Village.

The 140 MW power station, which is being built adjacent to the village beside Lake Guy, adds the final power station to the Kiewa Hydro Electric Scheme as it was envisaged in the 1950s.

There are two construction sites at Bogong, with the one closest to the village being tucked away out of sight around a bend of the lake. Both construction areas have been closed off to the public but there is a viewing platform near the Lake Guy site so that visitors can watch heavy equipment such as dozers and excavators at work. The construction site has its own access road to the Bogong High Plains Road.

The project does not involve building a new dam but instead will bring water via a 6.5 km underground tunnel from the existing McKay Creek Power Station to the new station at Bogong before recycling the water yet again through Clover Power Station and then the West Kiewa Power Station.

McConnell Dowell, the principal civil contractor responsible for construction of the tunnel, has reassembled a tunnel boring machine, at its construction site. The machine is 30 metres long, but with all the back-up gantries including control cabin, transformers, staff amenities and conveyor belt it is 140 metres long.

The Bogong Power Station, due to be commissioned in late 2009, will produce an additional 140 MW of electricity and generate 94,000 MWh of emission free new renewable electricity each year. This is enough to supply approximately 18,000 Victorian households’ annual electricity usage, abating around 93,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year.

An interesting 4 km circuit walking track has been constructed around Lake Guy, some of it passing through forest, with views of the Alps. The track goes through the inspection tunnel and under the spillway wall of the original dam.

We did the Lake Guy Walk on October 18, 2008 - signs along the track indicate the containment lines of the big bushfires of 2003.

See http://www.bogongvillage.com/ for information about the Village and the Power Station.

See the full set of Photos of our trip

Exploring the Mountain Creek Forest, Alpine National Park

The Mountain Creek Forest is at the foot of Mt Bogong, Victoria's highest peak, 10 km east of the township of Mt. Beauty. 300 k m NE of Melbourne.

This riparian forest is characterised by tree ferns, sedges, and tussock grasses, surrounded by forests of Peppermint and Blue gums.

Several walking tracks radiate from the picnic ground, following the Mountain Creek Gully. We visited this beautiful forest on April 26, 2008, exploring the Tree Fern, Black Cockatoo, and Peppermint Walks.


Here is a scrolling slideshow of the full set of photos! Click "Visit this Album" to see the images and captions.