Bentley Plain Scenic Reserve is perched 1080m high in the Nunniong State Forest to the northeast of Ensay.
Six Ben Cruachan Walking Club walkers recently gathered at lunch time on a Saturday at the well-appointed Bentley Plains Campground for two days of walking and exploring.
The Bentley Plains Reserve is a remnant jewel set in a forest with a long history of logging and cattle grazing.
Adjacent to the camp ground is a large peaty wetland fed by the waters of the small tributary of Bentley Plains Creek.
The group spent the afternoon doing three short but beautiful walks from the campground. First they checked out the Moscow Villa Hut 500m up the road. It is a very substantial and well used hut that was built by timber man Bill Ah Chow in 1943.
Adjacent to the hut is a track that leads through huge Alpine Ash and tree ferns to a wide vegetated waterway with a newish over-engineered steel bridge.
The old wooden bridge had been pulverised by two giants of the forest which still lay below the new construction. Any future falls of these giant ash trees would surely squash this new steel bridge as easily as the old one.
This track was closed beyond the bridge because of other tree falls.
The group retraced their steps and began a walk on the southern side of the road. Again they trod beneath towering Alpine Ash and marvelled at tall tree ferns. Sheltered beneath a canopy of some Mountain Tea Tree was a patch of rich, deep sphagnum moss. It was such a treasure and so vulnerable to any disturbance.
Beneath one enormous tree was a visitor’s book protected in a
damp wooden box. It dated back to 2007 and showed the club’s visit last year.
The track was strewn with long strips of bark and eager leeches found the group as they paused for a drink and refreshments.
The third afternoon walk starting opposite the camp was through more open grass and sedge land to the fast-flowing Bentley Plains Creek, which the group imagined was an excellent platypus habitat with its reedy banks.
Not far from the campground, one hiker showed an old dug out fire shelter which foresters or cattlemen had dug and lined, hoping they would never need
to use it.
This hiker has a long generational family association with the Nunniong Plain as her family, the Commins, have a long-term cattle lease which her brother still runs.
They shared fond childhood memories of trips over narrow forest tracks bumping along on the back of a truck on the road up from Ensay.
Saturday night the group shared good friendly company around a camp fire and barbecue while in the rest of Australia, voting in the Federal Election was concluding. Sunday morning after a chilly breakfast the group drove 7km through the forest to Lowe Plain Track and walked along a short badly eroded and rutted track to Murphy’s Hut set serenely in a grassy valley.
From there they walked back to the main road and drove 5km to Nunniong Plain Track, a four-wheel drive track that led through a damp grassy plain to Commins Hut built circa 1940, also by Bill Ah Chow.
This area has become a haunt of four-wheel drivers and deer hunters. Again the track was deeply rutted in parts causing environmental damage in a beautiful alpine environment. Two small fenced areas of vegetation on the open plain clearly contrasted with the surrounding short bowling
green grass and demonstrated
the impact of heavy grazing by feral horses, deer, cattle and native animals.
The group returned to camp and had lunch before heading home.
