Eight of us assembled on Saturday morning at our meeting place at the start of the Mount Cheeseman Ski-field road, quickly organising ourselves into the three available four-wheel drive vehicles. Being able to drive all the way to the lodge at 1550 m elevation was a huge advantage – a much better option than walking from the locked gate by the Forest Lodge 600 m lower down the mountain!
Once at the lodge we split up, two of us setting out to walk up to the crest of the Craigieburn Range (c. 1860m), while the rest explored the slopes immediately above the lodge where there was a richer diversity of sub-alpine plant species than towards the top of the range. After a relaxed lunch on the deck of the lodge we headed down to a small but prominent ridge by the main car-park, before slowly cruising down the first of the zig-zags while looking out for scree plants growing immediately above the road.
Plant species in flower included Dracophyllum pronum, Kelleria dieffenbachii, Leptinella pyrethrifolia var. pyrethrifolia (button daisy), Myosotis traversii var. traversii (scree foxglove), Notothlaspi rosulatum (penwiper), Raoulia grandiflora, Stellaria roughii (scree chickweed) and Veronica tetrasticha. We also photographed the hardy sub-alpine fern Polystichum cystostegia and non-flowering plants of Haastia recurva var. recurva.
Thanks to Nadine Campbell who organised the trip, and our three four-wheel-drive owners who saved us all a long climb to the ski-field.
John Leathwick
