As I proceeded down the trail from the summit of the Bluff in the Victorian high country, I began to lose some altitude and reached an area of the trail known as the Blowhole:

The Blowhole provided a great view looking up mountainous valley where the Howqua River flowed from to the north. From the Blowhole I then had to again hike up some steep terrain to regain altitude on a second high mesa. As I hiked up the mesa it had a striking resemblance to some of the mountains I hiked up in Victoria’s Grampians Mountains:

In the below picture you can actually see the summit of the Bluff on the far plateau in the distance:

The ridgeline running from the far plateau is the route the trail took towards the Blowhole and eventually to where I’m standing to take this picture from. As I climbed up to the cliff’s edge of this mesa I had another great view of the surrounding mountains:

I climbed down the mesa and went down the trail towards the tree line:

As I entered the tree line I also entered an area that was highly scorched from last summer’s bushfires:

I continued to drop in altitude through the scorch forest until I reached the burned out remains of Bluff Hut:

This part of the mountain has been extremely scorched by the bushfires and all around me was burned out trees. From the hut I could look back towards the high plateau of the Bluff and see how scorched the side of the mountain is that I walked through:

However, just like other scorched areas, the forest in this area is also regenerating itself:

From the Bluff Point lookout there are plenty of fabulous views of the surrounding high country, especially towards the north:

From Bluff Hut the trail actually becomes part of the four wheel drive road that takes you up into the Victorian high country. It was just a simple matter of me walking down the road and back to my Jeep at the trail head. Along the way I was reminded once again of the devestation of last summer’s bushfires:

But once again along the road I saw signs of nature recovering as well:

Before long I was back at my Jeep and ready to drive back to Mansfield. The hike took me 6 hours and I really didn’t kill myself to do it. This hike I highly recommend for people living or visiting Victoria and are into bushwalking. This is one of the best one day hikes I have been on in Australia. The only down side to the hike is that it is a remote place to get to. It was another two hour drive on the Howqua Track to get back down the mountain to Mansfield and then another two hours from there to get back home. However, I did get to take in a stunning sunset from the Mansfield high country before heading home:

Next Posting: Video from the Bluff

Prior Posting: Hiking Up the Bluff - Part 2