Crooked River Cup Weekend 4WD and Camping Trip

There was no rush in the morning so we took our time and cooked up a hearty breakfast of Bacon, and Eggs in toast. There was heaps of firewood left over from Henric's efforts with the chainsaw (does he ever sit down and relax?) so we decided to load it all up on the roof, not being sure of how much would be available at our next planned campsite. Mindful of how long it had taken us to travel the previous day, and wishing to get to our planned base camp on the Crooked River at a reasonable time without driving all day, I decided to abandon the plans to drive up Mt Margaret and the visit to the Chromite Mine. It was a hard decision to make, but I felt it in the best interest of all involved. Anyway, it left something for the next time we were down this way.

We were soon enough all packed up, despite pleas to just camp here for the rest of the weekend, and had crossed the Barkly River and were climbing out of the valley. The views across to the red rocky outcrops, so typical of this area were stunning but avoided any decent capturing in my photographs.

We continued down Glencairn Road into Licola, passing a very crowded campsite on the Barkly, and a herd of cattle who enjoyed the fantastic views at Primrose Gap.

A leisurely fuel, toilet stop and icecream break in Licola and we were on our way up Tamboritha Road.

We passed a Tiger Snake on Moroka Road, who quickly made his way into the scrub at the roadside as we sat in the car watching him, and we then made a short stop while Henric readjusted the load of logs we collected from the first campsite. The logs were proving to be a little troublesome.

From McFarlanes Saddle we turned off Moroka Road onto Mt Wellington Track. The road meandered down through newly regenerated forest from previous years logging and crossed a small crystal clear creek before winding up the base of Mt Wellington.

The time was passing quickly, and the reality of an early arrival at the campsite was at best most unlikely. The trip across Mt Wellington was however worth every second. Again, that pink hued rock was everywhere; both on the tracks where we drove as we climbed to Wellington's Peak, as well as in the weathered rocks at the sides of the track.

The views from the summit were endless, with azure blue sky with brilliant white clouds fading into distant hills of multiple shades of blue. We spent quite some time enjoying the summit; Henric even trying out a little rock climbing!

We decided to continue on to the Sentinels, given that we were pretty well mostly there and it was unlikely we would be making the trip across Mt Wellington for a long time to come. The journey to the end of the track near Gables End took us past Miller's Hut with a few fewer logs on the top of Henric's car, and one too many on the car bonnet. We eventually arrived at the start of the walking track to the Sentinels, where we set up for a late lunch.

Liam managed to catch himself a giant grasshopper, and the boys and Michelle stayed at the carpark to try out some watercolour painting while Cory, Henric and myself set off on the short walk to the Sentinels.

The walk was reasonably easy, with a little scrambling over rocks after we had dropped down into the saddle. The last part heading out onto the Sentinels was quite heart-thumping, with rock crevasses with sheer drops and magnificent views down to Lake Tali Karng; very much worth the walk!

With a long way still to go to the campsite, and the afternoon quickly escaping us, depsite the overnight introduction of Daylight Savings, we retraced our steps across Mt Wellington. We did afford the luxury of visiting Miller's Hut before continuing across the summit back to Moroka Road.

We raced along Moroka Road through some very beautiful treed alpine countryside, bypassing the Pinnacles which we had seen on our previous trip, due to time limitations. We were soon at the top of Billy Goat Bluff Track, one of the famous must do tracks of this region. The track appeared graded since our last visit a couple years ago, but was still a thoroughly enthralling drive with some really steep sections and endless and unforgettable views down into the Wonnangatta Valley. The track descends from the great heights of the Moroka Plateau into the Wonnangatta Valley in a relatively short distance and was just as enjoyable travelling down as it was a few years ago driving up.

After much downward travelling, we arrived at the Wonnangatta River, which we followed downstream to Kingwill Bridge. The road to Talbotville closely hugged the impossible space between the cliffside and the Wonnangatta River then rolled across the gentle hills near the old Crooked River School site, and then following the course of the Wongungurra River where we had the first of many river crossings to reach our camp.

We crossed the Wongungurra River at least four times before branchng off and following the Crooked River further up the valley. There were 2 more river crossings over the Crooked River before we arrived at Talbotville, which we dubbed Tent City.

The place was crowded so we continued up the Crooked River in search of a quiet private campsite with river access.

We were starting to get quite desperate as darkness was falling and each small campsite along the river was already taken. Henric guarded the most promising of the poor pickings as we continued further upstream ever hopefull. There was a great crossing of the Crooked River where the exit track had actually become a small rivulet, but our mission beckoned.

Finally, with only moments to spare and little river still ahead of us we found a very nice empty campsite just past Bulltown. We called Henric over the radio to abandon the site he was "holding" and we set-up camp and sat down to Spaghetti Bolognaise for dinner.

 

Track Summary & Travel Times

Track Name	Surface	Travel Time	Total Distance	Avg Speed	Min Alt	Max Alt
Rumpff Flat to Licola	2WD Gravel	1 hour 2 minutes	28.8km	28km/hr	208 metres	641 metres
Licola to Arbuckle Junction (Tamboritha Rd)	Highway/2WD Gravel	45 minutes	46.7km	62km/hr	213 metres	1485 metres
Arbuckle Junction to Wellington Tk exit(Moroka Rd)	2WD Gravel	22 minutes	17.4km	48km/hr	1281 metres	1499 metres
Wellington Tk (to summit)	4WD	35 minutes	7.6km	13km/hr	1195 metres	1652 metres
Mt Wellington summit to The Sentinels (Wellington Tk)	4WD	45 minutes	9km	12km/hr	1385 metres	1652 metres
Wellington Tk exit to Billy Goat Bluff exit (Moroka Rd)	2WD Gravel	25 minutes	22.7km	55km/hr	1054 metres	1275 metres
Billy Goat Bluff Tk	4WD, some steep descents	35 minutes	8.3km	14km/hr	1416 metres	328 metres
Kingswell Bridge to Talbotville (Crooked River Tk)	4WD, numerous river crossings	41 minutes	14.9km	22km/hr	249 metres	311 metres
Talbotville to Bulltown (Crooked River Tk)	4WD, numerous river crossings	36minutes	7.4km	12km/hr	295 metres	384 metres

Crooked River Cup Weekend 4WD and Camping Trip

Participants: Henric, Cory, Michelle, Mark, James & Liam

Saturday 30th October 2004

This is the trip were I learnt that planning out a trip in detail, picking the tracks you wish to travel on, and estimating where you will be camping for the night doesn't match what will happen in reality...

It all started well enough, Henric and Cory were around at our place early on Saturday morning, and the cars were all soon packed ready to go. There was some last minute artistic arrangement of the food into the car fridge, but once we were sure we'd taken advantage of every skeric of space we were off on our travels.

The first alteration to the plan came some hours down the road when the turnoff from Woods Point Road marked clearly on all the maps I have just didn't exist in reality. Reversing, backtracking and double checking eventually showed a small overgrown goat track so we continued along Woods Point Road into Woods Point, and took advantage of the last civilised toilets we expected to see for a little while. Oh, we also took time out to enjoy an ice-cream.

Woods Point is certainly a lovely town worthy of some time, but today we had grander travel plans. Our first bit of 4WDing had us climbing the Old Coach Road. It's hard to imagine horse drawn coaches being dragged up this narrow winding dirt track. We stopped at a switch back near the top to let the air down in the tyres to a safe and comfortable pressure.

The Old Coach Road joined up with Webber Spur Track at the site of the Mountain Home Hotel. We looked around for any remains of the old hotel, only spotting a bit of rusting iron. There wasn't much left of the sawmill site either as we continued along Webber Spur Track along the ridge top, through a number of shallow bog holes.

Webber Spur gradually descended, giving us some great views off into the distance before rising again to a helipad where we took a breather and enjoyed the panorama.

The descent from the helipad down Webber Spur was reasonably steep, and the girls decided to walk down, not trusting either the cars or the drivers, or maybe both. Walking down was certainly the harder way of getting to the bottom, and they did call half seriously for us guys to drive back up and pick them up.

All back in the cars, we passed Baileys mine on the side of the track and continued along what was marked as a walking track on the map, but was clearly an alternate 4WD track, even if a little steep at times.

The nerves of the girls were soon put to the test with the final descent to the Goulburn River. This was very steep, dropping straight down the spur and falling 100 metres in a distance of 280 metres. Something most definately to be avoided in the wet.

We set up for lunch on the banks of the Goulburn River, enjoying the hot dogs and trying a bit of fishing and gold panning as well as chatting about our journey so far. This was Cory's first 4WD trip, as well the first for a while for Michelle, so there were a few comments about the steep tracks experienced so far.

Given that lunch was about 2:00PM, and we had ommitted a good portion of 4WDing already from the original plan, it was starting to become evident that the anticipated travel time, and the total time expected to be driving before reaching our campsite was grossly underestimated...

With lunch sorted out and the fishing unsuccessful, we tackled our first (of very many) river crossings on this trip. The Goulburn was quite shallow, and we all made it across easily and up the steep exit on the other side of the river.

We were now on Champion Spur, which rises quickly between the Goulburn and Black Rivers. The track soon descended again, and take a look again at the picture. Yes, that is us driving up a creek. Now before you get all high and mighty and start spouting about Tread Lightly, the track actually follows the creek. And what a great track it was; driving up the thickly planted creek bed pushing our way through tree ferns we both managed to get stuck. Henric sitting on his diff on a rocky ledge in the middle of the creek which he managed to get over on his own, and myself resting on my step on the rocky creek bank, requiring winching to get over.

The track continued in the creek bed for a total of over 300 metres and we had just gotten back onto proper dry track when the creek got it's revenge on Henric. He had slipped off the track into the creek at the very last small crossing leaving the back of his car firmly wedged against the drop-off, and the front left wheel a good foot into the air. Clearly the Pathfinder was not going anywhere without recovery. As I was behind with the winch, we hooked up a tree protector and snatch block to a tree in front of Henric and managed to winch him forward and out.

We were now climbing Burnt Camp Spur, which eventually rejoined Champion Spur. Time was passing quickly and it was evident we would not make our planned campsite on the Maccalister River any time before dark.

We considered camping down near the crossing of the Black River, however the descent had been quite steep, and we figured if it rained over night, then we'd pretty well be spending the whole long weekend down here so we continued on, planning to camp at Rumpff Flat on Mount Skene Creek.

We crossed the Black River and climbed out of the valley, eventually arriving at the heavily logged area near the Heyfield Jamieson Road. The road naming isn't very imaginative here, but at least you know where the road comes from and where it goes too. And it's certainly better named than the N14, N13 N12, N11 and N10 tracks we passed branching off before we turned down McMillan Track! Now we were getting somewhere! This track even had two names, being also known as Morris Road. Though a road it certainly wasn't.

Surprisingly, and despite all expectations we arrived at Rumpff Flat before dark. The place was crowded and so we continued up Middle Ridge Road to avoid the crowds and soon came to a magical grassed and empty secluded spot on a bend of Mount Skene Creek. The perfect campsite. It wasn't long before the tents were up, the fire going and the BBQ sizzling away.

Track Summary & Travel Times

Track Name	Surface	Travel Time	Total Distance	Avg Speed	Min Alt	Max Alt
Home to Healesville	Highway	42 minutes	41km	59km/hr	58 metres	233 metres
Healesville to Marysville	Highway	46 minutes	34km	44km/hr	90 metres	528 metres
Marysville to Woods Point	2WD Gravel	1 hour 32 minutes	85.8km	55km/hr	424 metres	1209 metres
Old Coach Rd	4WD	11 minutes	4.5km	25km/hr	708 metres	1111 metres
Webber Spur Track	4WD, some very steep descents	1 hour 19 minutes	8.7km	6.5km/hr	476 metres	1133 metres
Champion Spur Tk (from Goulburn River to Burnt Camp Tk exit)	4WD, shallow river crossing, some steep ascents	8 minutes	1km	7km/hr	461 metres	552 metres
Burnt Camp Tk	4WD Hard, recoveries. Travel through overgrown creek bed	1 hour 35 minutes	6.8km	4km/hr	515 metres	1028 metres
Champion Spur Tk (from Burnt Camp Tk exit to Champion Spur Link Tk exit	4WD	19 minutes	4.9km	15km/hr	1028 metres	1196 metres
Champion Spur Link Tk	4WD, steep ascents/descents with shallow crossing of Black River	49 minutes	12km	15km/hr	653 metres	1303 metres
Morris Rd	4WD	18 minutes	7km	23km/hr	490 metres	1199 metres

Mt Terrible and Enoch Point

Michelle's Mum had a High School friend visiting from England who she wanted to show a bit of mountain Victoria to. The tracks to Craig's Hut were still closed off for the winter, so we decided to head up to Mt Terrible as it is an easy 4WD Trip from Melbourne, and the views are most spectacular.

We dropped into Burnt Bridge Camp Ground on Big River and did a quick bit of fishing. I "caught" a nice sized brown trout after only a few casts with a lure. I say "caught", as he managed to escape just as I was landing him. I would have released him anyway, so he saved me the trouble of getting the hook out I suppose.

We tried some fishing further upstream without success, so next stop was Enoch Point. We had lunch at the day visitors site by the river, and were visited by a Satin Blue Bowerbird. After lunch we walked upstream to Enoch Falls, a small cascade but worth the walk. Even though we had to cut through a few blackberries to get there. I cut through all of these blackberry bushes with the machette so Liam could get through without getting torn to pieces; but he tripped over and fell on all the cut blackberries anyway!

After lunch we went looking for the cemetary, but it wasn't easily visible from the road so it is left for another trip. We climbed Dane Spur Track, and were soon at the summit of Mt Terrible.

Liam, Arthur and I went off searching for a geocache that we knew was up here, finding it easily on the the side of the mountain. Liam scored a wibbly wobbly bouncy ball, and we dropped off Myrtle the Dancing Turtle Travel Bug.

We returned to the hut and enjoyed the views to Buller which was still covered with snow.

It was time to start heading home, so we returned down the mountain via Newmans Track. There were some spectacular views over Lake Eildon to the north as the track steadily descended back down to the Eildon-Jamieson Road.

We dropped into Snobs Creek Falls on our return journey. The falls were in very good flow due to recent rains and snow melt, and well worth the short detour to visit them.