By Tyler Wright
Local CFA and SES crews have helped rescue a family of hikers who found a walk at Taggerty’s Cathedral Ranges more difficult than expected.
Two parents were walking on Wells Cave Track with their two children on Sunday 6 August when they unable to get down the cliff and called emergency services.
Marysville and Alexandra SES units were called by police at around 3.30pm and located the family an hour later.
Monbulk Fire & Rescue Brigade and Wandin Fire Brigade crews were called just before 5pm to assist in a high angle rope rescue.
Also supported by the Buxton and Marysville fire brigades, the family was brought down the rock wall to safety and escorted back out on the track in torchlight to the the carpark.
The incident was deemed safe at 8.19pm, a CFA spokesperson confirmed.
The family members were uninjured.
On Facebook, rescuee Bleuenn Udin thanked the emergency service units for their help.
“Yesterday afternoon, we decided to go for a walk. It was much more difficult than expected. But even after deciding to give up and go back down, it wasn’t possible with our 2 young children,” Ms Udin wrote on Monday 7 August.
“Thank you all for your help last night. It’s been a long day for us, but also a long evening for you. You’re a great team, kind, attentive… Don’t change a thing, you save lives and that’s great,” she said.
Monbulk Fire & Rescue Brigade captain Simon Schroder said it was “the wise thing” for the family to err on the side of caution and call for help rather than risk falling.
“We go [to the Cathedral Ranges] for a variety of reasons; mainly injured people entering an area that’s out of their capability but they’re unaware at the time or didn’t read up on it,” he said.
“It’s not a bush walking track; there’s several vertical cliff faces within the walk itself that you’ve got to climb and if you’re not a competent climber, and particularly for young kids, it’s not a great point to find yourself in.
“It’s definitely always more than one brigade. It’s a multi-agency combined effort at these sorts of jobs.”
