2006 Great Divide Tours - Victorian High Country Trek

Saturday - 7 January 2006

We left Sydney on Saturday 7 January and headed to Bright with our car packed for a 7 day 4WD tag along trip to the Victorian High Country. It was our first camping trip that was longer than an overnight stay.

As we drove Mike kept thinking that there was something that we forgot and eventually we worked out that we forgot the pole for the tent!!! No tent pole, no camping, as our tent was a centre pole tent. With much desperation we finally located a camping shop in Wodonga that stocked our Freedom tent only to arrive and find that they closed half an hour before we arrived.

With usual Skovron perseverance and luck the owner came back down and sold us a pole for our tent. We wondered what else we had forgotten and vowed to make a check list to tick off for future trips.

The views as we drove from Wodonga to Bright were just spectacular.We met for dinner on Saturday night at the pub in Bright with all the other participants of the trip. It looked like it was going to be a great trip with lovely people.

Views of the valley as we headed for Bright

Magnificent first view as we headed to Bright to start our Victorian High Country Trek

Victorian High Country

Views of the valley as we headed for Bright

2006 Great Divide Tours - Victorian High Country Trek

Sunday - 8 January 2006 Day 1.

We started bright and early on Sunday morning with Wayne, our trip leader, outlining the trip and headed off from Bright to Lake Cobbler, where we had morning tea, on the Mt Buffalo power line trail.

The sky was blue, the scenery was magnificent, the bush flowers were plentiful and varied and the day was beautiful.

We drove in convoy procedure and slowly got used to each other.

We stopped at Lake Cobbler for lunch and viewed our first cattleman’s hut.

Our first major challenge was to drive down “The Staircase”. Every vehicle was carefully guided down “The Staircase” by our trip leader Wayne as correct wheel placement was most important to avoid damage. This was a most exciting start to what Wayne promised would be a week of increasing challenges, from a driving point of view, with fantastic sights and scenes getting better every day.

We headed for King River where we set up base camp for the following two nights. It had been a really hot day and so cooling off in the river sounded like a really great idea even though the water was REALLY cold.

At least we could get rid of the dust of the day.

The camp fire was fantastic, a BBQ dinner and getting to know everyone a little better was a perfect end to a full day.

We slept well and were ready for an early start on Monday.

Our first meeting - Wayne outlining the trip

Our first group shot
Back: Terry, Lynn, Lloyd, Milan, John, Ken
Front: Wayne, Belinda, Eliza (hidden), Carol, Chris, Kristina, Barbara, Wendy and Jonathan

Our first look at the track

Views of the Mt Buffalo Power Line

Mt Buffalo Power Line

First viewpoint on the Mt Buffalo Power Line trail

Wayne Desmond - our fantastic trip leader

Wild Thistle

Morning Tea stop on Mt Buffalo Power Line

Mt Buffalo Power Line

Mt Buffalo Power Line

Lake Cobbler

Lake Cobbler

Cattleman hut at Lake Cobbler

Two Kookaburras in Gum Tree

Wild flowers

Wild flowers

Wild Bottlebrush

Looking down the waterfall

View down the valley from the waterfall

Terry at the edge of the waterfall

Not much water flowing at this waterfall

Twins? Carol and Wendy at the waterfall

Shaggy Mountain Pea

Gorgeous wild Daisy

Huge tree just fallen over - look at the shallow root system

Colours on this fallen tree were fantastic

Ken on the Staircase

Terry coming down the Staircase

Terry on the Staircase - check out his wheels

Lloyd on the Staircase

John coming down the Staircase - look at his wheel

John coming down the Staircase

Mike at the start of the Staircase

Mike coming down the Staircase

Mike coming down the Staircase

Mike coming down the Staircase

Mike coming down the Staircase

Mike on the Staircase

Wayne directing Mike down the Staircase

Cattleman hut at King River camp site

We pitched our tent at the King River camp site

It was so hot Carol had to put her feet in the King River

King River by our first camp site

King River

Carol - the water is crystal clear but oh so cold - King River