The bulky massif of the Baw Baw plateau is a serene bookend to the view as you look north from the Latrobe Valley. It is ringed by tall forests of Alpine Ash, Shining and Tingaringy Gum, Mountain Ash and Messmate. Despite years of intensive logging, the landscape still feels largely intact, as foothill forests give way to mountain vegetation and then the snow gums. The plateau itself is a gorgeous undulating landscape of ridge and shallow frost hollow valleys. The rare treat of seeing Nothofagus (myrtle beech) intermingled with snow gums adds to the magical feel of the place, as do the granite boulders and lime green carpets of moss that cover the rocks.
It is also important in terms of the animals that live here. The Baw Baw Plateau and parts of the adjoining Upper Thomson are recognised as being of global zoological significance. Animals in the park include:
- The endangered Leadbeater’s Possum, Victoria’s state faunal emblem. Inhabiting the Mountain Ash forests, they rely on old hollow trees and the dense understorey of wattles for nesting and feeding.
- The critically endangered endemic Baw Baw Frog.
And the snow gum forests of Baw Baw are incredibly important. This area was terribly burnt during the Black Friday fires of 1939. Now the forests on the plateau are the largest area of long unburnt snow gum remaining in Victoria. While only a little more than 80 years of age, many trees are now of a size that the forests remind us of what much of the Australian high country looked like before the climate change driven fires that have dominated over the past three decades.
There is also quite limited evidence of dieback, which is killing snow gums across most of the high country.
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