One of the best kept secrets in Gippsland would have to be Blue Pool at the start of the Freestone Valley, north of Briagolong.
This natural rock pool on the Freestone Creek with its backdrop of craggy boulders, a wide, sandy expanse downstream and grassy picnic and barbecue areas just a few metres from the water is a favourite local swimming hole. Most visitors go there simply to swim, but on the ridges above are a number of pleasant walks that offer superb views and interesting historic and natural features.
Directly below Blue Pool, the Ridge Walking Track narrowly winds its way to the spur above Freestone Creek, where it becomes a wider, pleasant walking track through a dry forest of mainly red box, messmate and black wattles. Recent fires have removed much of the scrubby understorey and the many open spaces are now abundant with alpine daisies, trigger plants and tall bluebell, but the understorey is gradually returning with shoots of dogwood and bootlace bush sprouting from the scorched earth.
A short way along this spur is an intersection, the right hand branch being Fern Gully Track, a circuit track which meets the Ridge Track again higher up the mountain but which also links with the Bluff Track back down the hillside behind Blue Pool. Just past this junction is an old gold mine with its protective cover, a remnant from the 1870s when gold was an attraction in the area. Nearby, though now hard to discern, all that remains of a chimney sits a little way off in the bush.
As the Ridge Walking Track continues to wind its way up, the other end of Fern Gully Track branches off to the right, an easy downhill walk through ferns and moss-covered boulders to the back of Blue Pool, now about 15 minutes away.
Beyond this point the track is an easy walk until it starts to climb a little more steeply then somewhat unexpectedly you reach Peregrine Lookout. The sign indicating this lookout was destroyed in recent fires, but there is no mistaking the spot as you come upon an expansive view of the Freestone Creek and the surrounding ranges. The lookout is named for the peregrine falcons which regularly nest in the area.
From here the track continues winding up and down the ridge tops for some time until descending to the Freestone Creek at McKinnon’s Point camping area, a natural amphitheatre on a bend of the creek. In the 1920s people mined this area for gemstones; earlier still, it provided a natural ‘corral’ for cattle duffers hiding stolen stock. A pleasant place for a spell, this area usually abounds with red-browed finches and pardalotes and sitting peacefully you may be rewarded with a swamp wallaby or two coming to the creek to drink.
McKinnon’s Point is just below the Freestone Creek Road from Briagolong to Dargo and the easy, if at times near-overgrown Freestone Walking Track follows this road back to Blue Pool, crossing Gladstone Creek and the Froam picnic area. If it’s not too cold, a dip in Blue Pool is an ideal way to refresh after completing the walking route – in fact, after kicking back in the pool a while with its idyllic scenery and the pleasant background murmur of birds and insects, you feel recharged enough to do it all again.
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Words and photos_James Adams