Langi Ghiran

Langi Ghiran State Park.

June 2010.

Its mid winter and we decided to do a walk in the Langi Ghiran State Park. Its located just off the Western highway between Baeufort on Ararat.

We parked the car at the southern most car park and headed off along the Lar-ne-Jeering track at 8.15am. A short easy walk saw us arrive at the Aboriginal shelter and art work.

The Parks Vic guide suggested off track walking is OK so we headed north for the peak of Mt Gorrin. 757m. This took a bit of climbing and as we ascended higher the thick bush thinned out to reveal large sections of slippery rocks. Navigating our way to the top took time and required great care but we were rewarded once we hit the summit.

The views of the Grampians were great but as we cast our eyes north we saw our next challenge, Mt Langi Ghiran, 949m.

To get from Gorrin to Ghiran you have to go straight down then straight back up, even higher. We headed north zig-zaging our way down My Girrin and at stages slidding down damp rocks. We arrived at the base of the mountain where it flattened out a little then we hit the track that runs east/west between the 2 peaks. As we walked along the track towards Hidden Lagoon we started to make the accent to Mt Langi Ghiran.

The lagoon was nice but bone dry, even in the middle of winter, good spot to camp. It took us about 3 hrs to reach the lagoon and after a short break it was time for the main peak.

So far the weather had been perfect with great views all round but once we got higher than about 850m we were in the low clouds and couldn't see a thing. Everything near the top was soaked and there were thick shrubs to push through that were difficult. It took a huge amount of care to make the summit as the rocks were like ice but we got to the top about midday where we had planned to stop for lunch. If I were to guess it would have been about 2 degrees, absolutely freezing so we found a spot out of the wind, had a quick bite to eat then it was back down. Once we got off the peak the views returned and it made the walk down to the mountain enjoyable.

We followed the track west until we hit the Langi Ghiran Track, then south, arriving back at our car at 2pm.

This was an absolutely brilliant walk, to stand near the top of Mt Langi Ghiran and look back and realise we just climbed over Mt Gorrin gave us a huge sense of accomplishment.