Mount Donna Buang is a

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher ...

in the southern reaches of the

Victorian Alps The Victorian Alps, also known locally as the High Country, is a large mountain system in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria. Occupying the majority of eastern Victoria, it is the southwestern half of the Australian Alps (the other ...

of the

Great Dividing Range The Great Dividing Range, also known as the East Australian Cordillera or the Eastern Highlands, is a cordillera system in eastern Australia consisting of an expansive collection of mountain ranges, plateaus and rolling hills, that runs rough ...

, located in the

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

n state of

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

. Approximately from

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metro ...

with an elevation of , Mount Donna Buang is the closest

snowfield A snow field, snowfield or neve is an accumulation of permanent snow and ice, typically found above the snow line, normally in mountainous and glacial terrain. Glaciers originate in snowfields. The lower end of a glacier is usually free from s ...

to Melbourne.

Location and features

In winter, it usually receives snow suitable for snowplay and tobogganing, and during the non-winter months the area is well visited by bushwalkers and cyclists. The summit of Mount Donna Buang is surrounded by alpine ash (or woollybutt) trees and sub-alpine snow gums, and at nearby Cement Creek there is a

canopy walkway Canopy walkways - also called canopy walks, treetop walks or treetop walkways - provide pedestrian access to a forest canopy. Early walkways consisted of bridges between trees in the canopy of a forest; mostly linked up with platforms inside or ...

through

myrtle beech ''Nothofagus cunninghamii,'' commonly known as myrtle beech or Tasmanian myrtle, is the dominant species of cool temperate rainforests in Tasmania and Southern Victoria. It has low fire resistance and grows best in partial shade conditions. It ...

and

mountain ash Mountain ash may refer to: * '' Eucalyptus regnans'', the tallest of all flowering plants, native to Australia * Mountain-ashes or rowan The rowans ( or ) or mountain-ashes are shrubs or trees in the genus ''Sorbus'' of the rose family, Rosa ...

trees known as the Mount Donna Buang Skywalk. Mount Donna Buang with its 21m high observation tower

Mount Donna Buang is part of the

Yarra Ranges National Park Yarra Ranges National Park is located in the Central Highlands of Australia's southeastern state Victoria, 107 km northeast of Melbourne. Established in 1995 and managed by the statutory authority Parks Victoria, the park features a carbon-ri ...

(established in 1995). The nearest serviced town to the mountain is Warburton.

Flora and fauna

The lower and middle slopes of the mountain are characterised by very tall forests of

with a cool temperate rainforest mid story on the southern slopes and sheltered areas elsewhere on the mountain. Trees such as

sassafras ''Sassafras'' is a genus of three extant and one extinct species of deciduous trees in the family Lauraceae, native to eastern North America and eastern Asia.Wolfe, Jack A. & Wehr, Wesley C. 1987. The sassafras is an ornamental tree. "Middle ...

and

soft tree fern ''Dicksonia antarctica'', the soft tree fern or man fern, is a species of evergreen tree fern native to eastern Australia, ranging from south-east Queensland, coastal New South Wales and Victoria to Tasmania. Anatomy and biology These ferns ...

as well as large shrubs like hazel pomaderris are fairly common in this zone. On the higher slopes sub-alpine species such as woollybutt and snowgum predominate, although myrtle beech is also common almost to the summit. It contains a number of native mammals including the rare

Leadbeater's possum Leadbeater's possum (''Gymnobelideus leadbeateri'') is a critically endangered possum largely restricted to small pockets of alpine ash, mountain ash, and snow gum forests in the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia, north-east of Melbou ...

, and is home to 120 species of native birds. Some examples include the

pink robin The pink robin (''Petroica rodinogaster'') is a small passerine bird native to southeastern Australia. Its natural habitats are cool temperate forests of far southeastern Australia. Like many brightly coloured robins of the family Petroicidae, it ...

yellow-tailed black cockatoo The yellow-tailed black cockatoo (''Zanda funerea'') is a large cockatoo native to the south-east of Australia measuring in length. It has a short crest on the top of its head. Its plumage is mostly brownish black and it has prominent yello ...

and the

crimson rosella The crimson rosella (''Platycercus elegans'') is a parrot native to eastern and south eastern Australia which has been introduced to New Zealand and Norfolk Island. It is commonly found in, but not restricted to, mountain forests and gardens. The ...

. The Mount Donna Buang wingless stonefly is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

to the area. Mount Donna Buang is the type locality of the

velvet worm Onychophora (from grc, ονυχής, , "claws"; and , , "to carry"), commonly known as velvet worms (due to their velvety texture and somewhat wormlike appearance) or more ambiguously as peripatus (after the first described genus, '' Peripatus ...

'' Ooperipatus centunculus''.

History

In the 1860s, “Mount Acland” was the name given to the 1,250m high mountain by a Police Magistrate called

Joseph Anderson Panton Joseph Anderson Panton (2 June 1831 – 25 October 1913) was a Scottish-born Australian magistrate and goldfields commissioner. Panton was born in Knockiemil, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the son of John Panton (of the Hudson's Bay Company service ...

. The name it has today, “Mount Donna Buang”, probably came from the

Wurundjeri The Wurundjeri people are an Australian Aboriginal people of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin nation. They are the Traditional Owners of the Birrarung (Yarra River) Valley, covering much of the present location of Narrm ( Melbo ...

. A walking track to the summit of Mount Donna Buang was cut during the 1890s and the much wider Donna Buang Bridle Track, which the current road from Warburton to the top of Mount Donna Buang follows, was opened in 1912. Federal government minister

Lee Batchelor Egerton Lee Batchelor (10 April 1865 – 8 October 1911) was an Australian politician and trade unionist. He was a pioneer of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in South Australia, which at the time was known as the United Labor Party (ULP). He w ...

suffered a fatal heart attack while climbing Mount Donna Buang in 1911. Timber from the mountain was harvested from the early 1900s to the mid 1920s with seven cable hauled tramways moving logs from the Ben Cairn - Donna Buang ridge down to sawmills near Warburton. While the forest has regrown and the mountain appears to have never been logged, relics such as tram rails and cables can still be found in the forest. From 1925 to the early 1950s Mt Donna Buang was a popular ski resort. It had four ski lodges, day visitor shelters, cafes, a ski hire, a ski jump and six runs cut through forests of myrtle beech and woollybutt. For over 20 years it had thousands of visitors every weekend there was snow. However, the runs were fairly short and the snow cover was always erratic, so after the Second World War, better transport meant it lost out to higher ski resorts further from Melbourne, although the mountain remained popular with family snow play groups.

Cycling

The road from Warburton to Mount Donna Buang is a challenging cycling route, averaging 6.2% over 16.6 km and has also become a popular destination for recreational driving, motorcycling, and in the summer a challenging training route for endurance cyclists and triathletes. The main public roads on Mt Donna Buang are: * Donna Buang Road, sealed from Warburton to a bit past the Mount Donna Buang Summit Road junction. * Acheron Way, joining Donna Buang Road about halfway up, leads to Marysville. It is sealed except for a 12 kilometre section in the middle. * Don Road runs from Healesville to the Warburton Highway between Yarra Junction and Launching Place. It connects with Donna Buang Road, and is unsealed for much of its length.

References

External links