A Breathtaking Somber Visit

Since we still had the hired car and Anthony on holiday, we wanted to continue taking good use of the car so we piled back in to venture inland and away from the water. We opted to visit Kinglake National Park.

Kinglake National Park is located in Kinglake, Victoria, Australia, the closest national park from Melbourne, about 65 km (~40 miles) north east. You may recall in early 2009, those in the States heard about some really bad bush fires in Australia. Well, this was a big part of it. February 7, 2009 is known as Black Saturday here. About 400 individual fires were recorded on that day, burning 1.1 million acres resulting in173 confirmed deaths, 414 injuries, and over 3,500 houses and structures burned. The hardest hit was the Kinglake area in which 98% of the national forest was burned including all the park lodgings and essentially decimated an entire town.

NASA image of the Killmore East-Murrindindi Complex South Fire, Victoria, Australia, taken on 2009 Feb 14. "This image from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite on February 14 shows the large scale of the bushfire damage to the Kinglake area (left) as well as a close-up of the burned area northeast of Yan Yean Reservoir (right), one of the reservoirs that supplies Melbourne’s water.

7 February 2009 MODIS Aquabushfires burning in Victoria satellite image of smoke plumes from bushfire burnings in Australia.

We drove towards Kinglake National Park knowing the severity and impact of the fires but nothing could prepare you for seeing first hand the charred remains of trees, growing in density as we moved further in. Driving upward on winding, circling, and very narrow roads, despite my growing nausea from a bit of motion sickness in the car, the impact of seeing the aftermath of the fires, even almost a year later, was not diminished one bit. As we climbed higher, as far as the eye could see, we saw nothing but black tree trunks. I can imagine if we saw this place before the fires, it would have been breathtaking with the valleys of thick trees. But now, it was sad and you could not but feel the weight of the loss of the land and it's inhabitants, big and small.

Here are some pictures that I attempted to take as we were circling up the mountain in the car. Because the path was so narrow, there was no place for us to stop to take pictures so they had to be taken while on the move (again, while I was nauseous).

The hills off in the distant are all black tree trunks. There are some fresh growth, as you can see, but many are still black and bare.

Most of the house/structure sites look similar to this. Many are still in temporary housing while the main lodging is being built. However, there was also quite a bit of For Sale signs where people are choosing to move rather than rebuild.

Sharp drop off to our right as we climb up this winding path up the mountain. Remember, we drive on the left here.

 

Our rental car. So as you'll know, Anthony was chagrined in not being able to take it off road here.

We found a dirt road and pulled off to the side for a walk. The road looked a little too uneven for a regular sedan to travel down so we opted to hoof it. Most of the park is still closed whether due to construction/renovation, unsafe, or high fire hazard (since it is the summer here).

Found myself a walking stick!

Hope in a sea of darkness......

Appreciate this picture, it took us 5 attempts before we got most of the words on the sign.

And of course, I have to mention that Anthony wants to go back so he can ride the trails on his bike. I told him he shouldn't ride the road here since it's narrow with tons of blind curves. But the likelihood that he'll heed my warning.....none!

Oh and take that last picture from the previous post of Anthony and Sete sleeping and imagine it's here because the exact same thing happened when we got home.

- julie