MOUNT BUFFALO NATIONAL PARK

The article in “Australia Closе-uр” speaks about Mount Buffalo national Park, one of the Victoria’s most popular recreation facility.

With its massive granite furs, sparkling mountain streams, gnarled snow gums, delicate wildflowers spec­tacular views of surrounding river valleys and deep now fields m winter, Mount Buffalo is one of Victorians most popular high country park.

To commemorate the Bicentenary, a Day Visitor Center is being built in the Park. Accessible to both winter skiers and summer tourists and walkers, the Center is designed to become the focus of tourist activity on Mt Buffalo and will offer rest-house facilities, displays and interpretative activities.

Around 300 million year ago, the Mt Buffalo area was covered with a deep layer of sedimentary rock when the sea was covering what is now southeastern Victoria. A great mass of molten rock, forced up under the sedimentary rock from below, cooled slowly and formed granite. Erosion has worn away the overlying sed­imentary rock and, in turn, the granite wear has been hastened by joints or cracks in the rock so that the plateau is now dominated by tors or blacks of all shapes and sizes.

Mt Buffalo was named by explorers Hume and Hovell on their expedition from Sydney to Port Phillip in 1824, because of its resemblance to a buffalo. From where they saw it, on the plains to the west, the broad mass of rock known as The Hump is close behind the thrusting peak of The Horn, which forms a huge beast.

Then, Aboriginal tribes used to be in the area. They used to climb the mountain in summer and collect Bogong moths, regarded as a delicacy. However, with the arrival of the new settlers into northeastern Victoria, the Aboriginal population quickly declined.

The influence of the pioneers on the Mt Buffalo envi­ronment is difficult to assess, but grazing and manmade fires did bring about changes, more obvious activities since settlement are the construction of roads and tracks the building of dams and the erection of buildings.

The flora within the park is diverse. There are wood­land areas dominated by snow gums and alpine ash, heath-lands of low-growing shrubs, grasslands of snow grass, wild flowers and herbs and bog areas where vegetation varies from water-loving sphagnum moss to sedges and heaths. On the lower slopes there are various types of eucalypt forests, while the plateau is dominated by plants that can withstand prolonged wet periods and below-freezing tem­peratures.

With 140 km of walking tracks in summer, and down­hill and cross-country skiing and tobogganing in winter, Mt Buffalo is a favorite holiday destination.

The new Day Visitor Centre will help to disseminate information about the Mt Buffalo National Park and will encourage all visitors to continue to respect and protect the natural environment for the benefit of people now and in the future.