Buffalo Drive

Buffalo drive

Oh, go for a roam
where Buffalo’s home

A scenic 46-km tour from Foster
to Buffalo, Fish Creek and back

Drive, or ride a bike if you’re sufficiently fit, along this scenic, 46-kilometre self-guided tour, which leaves from Foster, goes for a roam where Buffalo’s home, then comes back to Foster via Fish Creek.
Expect a charming South Gipsland town, village and hamlet, picturesque farms, gloriously green pastures and yellow hay, views of Corner Inlet, Wilsons Promontory, the Hoddle and the Strzelecki Ranges, the Tarwin Valley, forest gullies, the sky …
Allow plenty of time, a couple or a few hours at least for the tour if you’re driving, and a good part of a day if you’re cycling, and enjoy some of the most wonderful scenery to be seen anywhere in the world.
Consider packing a picnic basket filled with local berries, cheeses and crusty bread to take with you.
Otherwise, enjoy your choice of refreshments from the hotels, cafés and general stores to be found along the way.

46-km Foster, Buffalo, Fish Creek, Foster Tour

First … including safety first

If driving; check your car, including petrol, oil, water and tyres before beginning the tour.
If cycling; check your bike, including brakes, gears and tyres before beginning the tour. Be sure you are fit, as the tour route involves a serious hill climb from Foster up to Foster North along the South Gippsland Highway. Wear a helmet and take plenty of drinking water.
The tour route includes a section of main highway, as well as sections of major roads, district roads and gravel local roads.
Please drive and ride safely and respectfully, according to the road rules, and the road and weather conditions, too.
Look out for children, livestock including native animals, local traffic, milk tankers, and tractors, especially on gravel roads.
Please note that all distances quoted are approximate.
And finally … to quote the founders of Fish Creek’s Flying Cow Café, “relax, you’re in the country.”

Start outside the Exchange Hotel, Main Street, Foster, with the Foster cenotaph and clock tower on your right.
Set odometer to 0.0, and you’re ready to go.

0.0 km
Exchange Hotel, Main Street, Foster, circa 1907. Head west along Main Street, past the Foster War Memorial Arts Centre, then along Toora Road towards the South Gippsland Highway.
Waratah North metal artist Trevor Wheeler created Foster’s unique lyrebird entrance sign, which may be seen on the left, just before the corner of Toora Road and the Highway.
The adjacent parkland has shade trees, seating and a paved circle of decorated bricks made by local students.
0.7 km
Turn left at the South Gippsland Highway and travel north east towards Foster North.
For those who like rock strata there are some remarkable cuttings along this section of the Highway as well as wonderful views of rolling farmlands, the Inlet, the Prom, Hoddle and the Tarwin Valley.
6.1 km
Turn left at O’Grady’s Ridge Road and immediately turn left again to follow the road to the Foster North lookout.
6.6 km
On a clear day at the Foster North ookout it seems as though you really can see forever, across the Inlet and down the Yanakie isthmus to the unmistakable profile of the Prom to the south.
The foothills of the Strzelecki Ranges and the turbines of the Toora wind farm on Silcocks Hill may be seen to the east, and Mount Hoddle and Mount Nicoll stand proudly to the south west.
There is a bronze direction plaque erected by the Country Roads Board at the Lookout, with dozens of places and the distances from Foster North set in relief.
There are also a number of picnic tables and an open grassy area, too, as well as a sign that reads, “There are no rubbish bins provided here, please take your rubbish with you.”
7.1 km
Return to the O’Grady’s Ridge Road corner and turn left on to the South Gippsland Highway, towards Grassy Spur.
9.4 km
Turn left at Falls Road, which is also marked with a direction sign to Fish Creek.
Falls Road runs roughly parallel with O’Grady’s Ridge Road and also follows a ridge of its own.
Look to the left and the right as you go along for vistas of what many people think look a little like rural Britain – green hillsides divided into meadows, rows and copses of European and native trees, brooks and ponds, picture-book dairy cows, farmhouses, milking sheds …
12.8 km
Turn right at Whitelaws Track, at a corner in the district known locally as Fish Creek North. Whitelaws Track was named after an early Government surveyor and it takes you past more dairy and mixed farming enterprises.
14.5 km
Turn left at North Road, which is a relatively narrow and winding gravel road.
Much of the native vegetation that used to clothe these hills has been replaced by pasture and shelter belts on either side of this higher section of the road.
17.8 km
There are grand views of the Hoddle Range to the left and the Tarwin Valley to the right to be had along this section of North Road.
19.6 km
Continue along North Road past Boys Road, which leads to Fish Creek, some 13 kilometres distant. This road runs through the Boys district, which once had its own station on the Great Southern Railway, and then on to join the Meeniyan-Promontory Road.
19.9 km
Native vegetation including some magnificent old eucalypts may be seen along this section of North Road.
Look to the right to see gullies full of local trees and shrubs in between sloping paddocks.
20.5 km
One of the prettiest sections of North Road, with tall gum trees creating a shady lattice over the roadway.
21.5 km
Turn left at the Buffalo-Stony Creek Road.
Now you’re back on the bitumen and heading into the outskirts of the hamlet of Buffalo.
23.1 km
Here is the Buffalo entrance sign and the start of the 60-km zone.
23.5 km
On the right is the Buffalo Primary School, which only closed its doors at the end of 2001 after student enrolments fell below the Victorian Department of Education and Training’s required minimum.
Generations of Buffalo people went to school here, and the last crop of students’ country landscape mural is still as fresh as when it was it was first painted only a few years ago.
To the left is the turnoff to the Buffalo Hall, which is the venue for many local community events, including dances, wedding receptions, 21st birthdays, anniversaries, auctions, concerts, get-togethers and back-tos and even the occasional South Gippsland Shire meeting.
23.6 km
To the right is the Buffalo General Store, a great, old-fashioned kind of a store that sells just about everything imaginable, from ice-creams, drinks, groceries, fruit and vegetables, newspapers and beer to elastic-sided boots and gumboots, rope and a selection of tools.
23.7 km
You’re now travelling along Neals Road, which crosses over at this point what used to be the Great Southern Railway.
The former Victorian Railways staff houses and where the Buffalo Railway Station used to stand may be seen to the left, and just to the east of the reserve itself, the Station sheds are still standing.
The rail reserve is now being turned into the Great Southern Rail Trail so walkers, cyclists and horse-riders may explore South Gippsland at exactly their own pace.
Like other railway reserves, the Great Southern line is lined along much of its length with significant remnant old growth or regrowth indigenous vegetation.
Sometimes railway reserves are either among the few or are the only places left where examples of particular species and even ecosystems may be found in a region, and this is certainly the case here.
The original bush throughout South Gippsland must have been truly magnificent, from what can be seen along the Rail Trail.
Two sections of the Rail Trail have already been completed; from Leongatha Koonwarra, and between Meeniyan and Stony Creek.
These sections are regarded as among the best of their kind in Australia in terms of their usability, and for the sheer beauty of the environment they pass through.
The Foster to Stony Creek section of the Rail Trail is expected to be completed by the middle of 2003, and will reconnect Foster, Hoddle, Fish Creek, Boys and Stony Creek as they once were when the trains ran up and down their line.
VicRoads is building the Koonwarra to Meeniyan section of the Rail Trail as part of its current South Gippsland Highway realignment and upgrade project, though a finish date is yet to be announced.
23.8 km
Turn left at Moores Road, which is another gravel road, running parallel with the rail reserve.
24.6 km
There are more magnificent gum trees to be seen along this section of Moores Road.
25 km
Turn left at the Meeniyan-Promontory Road, which is a major road carrying quite a lot of traffic.
25.8 km
On the right is the turn-off to Inverloch, Tarwin Lower and Walkerville, all of which are well worth visiting.
28 km
This section of the Meeniyan-Promontory Road really is pretty, with patches of bush on either side, interspersed with rich grazing land.
30.2 km
Continue past the Boys Road intersection on the left. This is the southern end of the road you passed on your left going along North Road.
32.4 km
Here you are at the bridge over Fish Creek proper, and the 60-km zone.
32.4 km
Fish Creek has always been a charming country village serving the dairy farming community around it, but now it’s also developed it’s very own modern day style.
Look out for Trevor the Waratah Bay metal artist’s groovy Fish Creek Town Centre sign just before you get to the intersection of the Meeniyan- Promontory Road you’ve been travelling on with Falls Road to the left and Old Waratah Road on the right.
At the crossroads, you’ll find the Fishy Pub and its famous fish-draped roof, a café and bar, fuel and takeaway food and computers and Internet access.
Park your car or your bike somewhere here and stroll around Fish Creek.
Turn left into Falls Road, which you met earlier when turning left off the South Gippsland Highway out of Foster.
There’s a fresh fish shop before you go over the Great Southern Railway line again and past the pavilion designed and built by Fish Creek timber artist Adam Murfitt beside where the Rail Trail will go through.
Then there’s the Fish Creek Centenary embankment with the words and the dates spelt out in rocks, which are lovingly repainted on a regular basis, and above, the parkland and picnic area the Fish Creek Jaycees built.
To the left is the former Fish Creek Butter Factory and straight ahead you’ll find the Fish Creek Memorial Hall, another café, gifts and home décor, books and art supplies, antiques and collectables, a hardware, a supermarket and newsagent, and a post office
Opposite is a wonderful adventure playground for children and tennis courts too, with the Fish Creek Fire Station further along on the same side.
Just past the shops is the Fish Creek Kindergarten, and Terrill Memorial Park, with an oval, bowling greens and more hard courts.
Still 32.8 km
Back to your car or bike, and continue along the Meeniyan-Promontory Road towards Foster.
33.1 km
On the right is the Fish Creek and District Primary School, and on the left, plants, outdoor gear and more gifts.
33.3 km
On the right is the turn-off to Yanakie and Wilsons Promontory, as well as Waratah Bay, Sandy Point, Walkerville and Cape Liptrap, all of which shoudn’t be missed.
38 km
On the left is Lowrys Road, serving the Hoddle district.
On the eastern side of the intersection, hundreds of young native trees and shrubs can be seen near where the Hoddle Railway Station was, which have been planted to help create vegetation corridors linking the Strzelecki Ranges’ lyrebird population with the Walkerville lyrebirds.
38.7 km
On the right is the Mount Nicoll Road, which leads to a car park just short of a great lookout, two km up a very steep indeed gravel road. Walk the last few hundred metres for a spectacular view towards Foster, Toora, the Inlet, the Prom, the Isthmus, the Strzeleckis …
Sorry, this side trip wasn’t allowed for in the odometer readings, so …
Still 38.7 km
Continuing along the Meeniyan Promontory Road, you almost immediately cross a road bridge over the Great Southern Rail line.
39.4 km
Coming around a sweeping left hand bend, all of a sudden another panorama of the Inlet and the Prom opens up on the right.
There is a picnic table under a big pine tree just along this section, also on the right.
Look left and you will see up on the hill the former Hoddle State School, whose students would have had one of the most brilliant natural scenes to look at through the windows of their classroom.
40.9 km
On the left is the southern end of O’Grady’s Ridge Road, whose other end meets the Foster North lookout road.
42 km
Windy Ridge Winery is located on the right, and its vineyards may be seen stretching down the hillsides.
There is a quite dramatic run downhill off the Hoddle Range towards Foster soon after this point (the cyclist’s reward!).
44.7 km
Turn left at the Promontory Road towards Foster. Going right will take you to the entrance of Wilsons Promontory National Park, about 30 km to the south.
45.3 km
On the left is the Foster Cemetery, and its headstones have many stories to tell about the district’s history and its families.
45.5 km
Foster’s 60 km zone starts.
45.8
The first stage of South Gippsland Secondary College’s two-stage rebuild project has been done, as you can plainly see!
45.9 km
Cross over Stockyard Creek, just upstream from where “worthwhile” gold was first discovered in 1870.
46 km
Turn right at the Foster roundabout to take you back to the Exchange Hotel.
Straight in front is the Stockyard Gallery complex, which includes the Foster Library and Parks Victoria’s Foster office.
46.1 km
On the right is Pearl Park, with Stockyard Creek running through it.
There are picnic tables and beautiful garden beds, and soon a bronze statue of Harry the Miner will stand on the granite block commemorating the five timber-cutters who found gold in the Creek, just about here 132 or so years ago.
46.3 km
Turn left at Main Street and Station Road corner and you’re right back just from where you started.