I think this is my favourite photo from our Easter 2017 trip. It captures the epic scenery but more importantly, us in the D4 actually in the landscape, almost a part of it. Thanks to Jon, who we were travelling with waiting up the top to take a few shots.
The High Country has been a dream of mine for a long time. It's an iconic destination but also very different to the sub-tropical environments I am used to, being Brisbane born and bred, and the outback trips that we have undertaken so far. Obviously a lot of distance covered to get there and back from Brisbane and we really only touched the surface with 4 days actually in the area, so hopefully it won't be the last time. This trip was born out of an offer from Jon who has been many, many times and came up with a "best-of" itinerary for us northerners to extract the most from the few available days away. It was a generous thing to do.
The High Country is larger, more diverse and significantly more impressive than I expected. It's also beautiful and calming, when you know how to get away from the hordes. The camping was brilliant, at sites where we were the only people there over the extremely busy Easter break thanks to Jon and Maya's experience, as well as being willing to camp away from facilities. The lifted hilux brigade seem to stick to the valleys and drop toilets.
The D4 was flawless at the multiple roles required of it; long-distance-minimal-fatigue transporting, offroad track driving and camping base-station, although I do need to refine what goes where a bit. Our extended travel to date has been with camper trailer in tow, so organising the D4 efficiently when traveling with it alone requires more thought and refinement especially when moving camp every day. This trip went very well but has also given me a few ideas about how to do things better. By the way, the best mod I've done would have to be the tailgate lights, absolute gold for campsite tasks like cooking and cleaning and getting things sorted at night. Almost makes the LED strip lights redundant.
The KO2s were very impressive on a number of surfaces where I expected less traction (slick rock, wet rock and loose scrabbly rock/gravel). I anticipated more work for the traction control at least half a dozen times only to find it walking up or down without fuss. It was also a great opportunity to experiment with driving modes. In particular, swapping between using terrain response and not, manual gear shifting versus auto and best use of HDC versus foot brake. It's really not the passive driving experience the live axle set seems to believe, if done well. Driving relatively slowly just taking it all in, being sympathetic to the vehicle and the tracks, is absolutely the way to experience these places. Most tracks are relatively simple (in the dry) for a D4 but still with plenty of technical challenges to keep it more than a little interesting, still managed to lift wheels a couple of times.
And the long distance point-to-point aspect? Well, 1,200km over 13 hours by myself** to get home from Canberra to Brisbane was the biggest test of that job so far. I wouldn't say I felt fresh at the end but I certainly expected to feel much worse. And I think I'll always remember driving north out of Canberra into the misty dawn light and then whiling away hours listening to podcasts and music.
** Jill flew home from Canberra due to work commitments
We stopped a couple of nights on the way down from Brisbane, the first in Newcastle and the second camping at the Billy Grace Reserve outside Wee Jasper, which is reasonably close to Canberra.
There's a few camping reserves at Wee Jasper which are all really well situated. A nice, large open grassed area with quite a few trees and no specific sites. We set up and enjoyed the birds, sheep in the adjacent paddock and a beautiful sunset.
This single malt whiskey has been waiting since the year 2000 when we bought it in Scotland.
This little guy greeted us in the morning.
We headed off south taking back roads via Tumut, Tumbarumba and Yackandandah to get to Beechworth, our gateway to the High Country. It was a really nice drive with a lunch stop in Tumbarumba at the bakery.
Beechworth is a great little town and we managed to fit in two of my favourite things, honey and craft beer. Beechworth Honey offers around 40 varieties most of which you can't get in the supermarkets. We had dinner at the Bridge Road Brewery and enjoyed a pizza, the IPA and also the Scrumpy Cider.
We were booked into Provenance, which is a well known local restaurant in a converted 1800s bank with luxury suites out the back in the old stables. It was really good but perhaps a bit overpriced at $310/night. Next time we'd find a more cost effective b&b instead.
Day 1 in the High Country
From Beechworth it was a nice run down the bitumen to Myrtleford to fill up. Continuing, we went around the back of Lake Buffalo to Abbeyard, where there was lots of popular campsites along the river. This was the spot to air down and select low range for the first track.
It's around 20km of reasonably simple track driving along the Lake Cobbler Track to get to Lake Cobbler itself, a small lake that actually reminded us of the perched lakes on Fraser Island, although obviously without the sand. It's a popular place and we felt, too crowded for a longer stop so we continued on to the King River via the Staircase, another 12km.
I'm told the Staircase used to be more challenging but to be honest I couldn't even be sure when we were actually on it.
We felt there wasn't enough time for Craig's Hut to make sure we made camp at a reasonable hour and to see the sunset. It has iconic status but is apparently quite overrun by daytrippers. So instead we simply continued along Circuit Road to Bindaree Road and another 10km of good dirt road to the Howqua River. We then followed the river past Bindaree Hut and Pikes Flat to the bottom of 16 Mile Jeep Track. 16 Mile includes 5km of steep climbing up to the Bluff Track and was an excellent drive, great scenery without too many difficult or overly technical sections. Apparently there's also a short cut for wet slippery conditions (Bluff Link Rd). This photo is at the top of the 16 Mile.
The Bluff Track would surely have to be one of the best in the High Country and is one of Jon's favourites, having been all through the area over many years. We continued along part of it to camp after stopping for a look at Bluff Hut and completed it the following day. It's a really nice mix of high alpine scenery (snow gums and epic landscape views) and 4WD track driving.
There's an open plateau at around 1,600m elevation covered in low flowering bushes with 360 degree views just nearby the camp site. You can see across to Mt Buller and Mt Buffalo in one direction and all around over a great expansion of alpine hills in the other direction.
We set up camp just a little way off the track sheltered under a grove of twisted snow gums. There was already a fireplace and some left over wood so it was just a matter of collecting a bit more. This wasn't too difficult thanks to all the dead trees in amongst the living ones, which seems to be a common feature of the high country; we guessed from past bush fires.
Before too long we wandered back out to the open plateau to take in the sunset and stillness. Only a couple of vehicles came along in that time and there seemed to be no one camping anywhere near us despite a number of other very good sites just nearby.
Photos don't really do it justice. The quality of the light, stillness of the evening and crispness of the air made for a magic combination.
And the morning had a similar magic quality to the light. We went for a walk amongst the gums in the morning mist and I think they are my new favourite tree.
This one is looking out towards the south, you can see all the valleys were blanketed in a low cloud that extended as far as you could see.
Then it was time for the morning coffee and breakfast. Everything was covered in a light dusting of frost.
Day 2 in the High Country
After packing up, the first part of the day was travelling the remainder of the Bluff Track to King Billy, a seemingly classic High Country touring experience. We stopped in at Lovick's Hut, which looked to be another great place to camp, with lots of nicely grassed flat areas under the trees all around.
The light inside was pretty cool, thanks to all the holes in the tin. Great big fireplace too.
The track was alternating flat and steep but always slow and rocky with a few muddy puddles along the way. Even had wheels lifted in one steep, rocky section but that was the exception. Most of the way it was either on a ridgeline or traversing a steep side slope.
We stopped a few times to let other people pass and basically took our time. It was quite simply one of the best drives I've done, anywhere. The mix of scenery and technical driving was perfect.
From the King Billy junction we took the King Billy Track down to the Macalister River and then up on to Howitt Plain. The King Billy Track was surprisingly steep in sections and was also quite overgrown with saplings. Immediately across the river the track changed completely to in effect a wide open fire road. Travelling along the top across the Howitt Plain, we noted a number of other famous tracks that just couldn't be fitted into the itinerary for this trip; Zeka Spur Track, Butcher Country Track & Caledonia River Track to name just three. Given another night the Butcher and Caledonia loop would be an obvious one to tackle.
Howitt Plain gives way to Bryce Plain and by early afternoon we drove off the road a short distance at an anonymous side track to a fantastic camp site tucked into the trees that had another great view out over the high country. And it was another camp that we didn't have to share with anyone, which again surprised me given it was Easter. The quality of the light was once again amazing and difficult to capture with the iPhone.
The colours of the trees was really something else.
But that's enough standing around gazing at the landscape, there was work to do back at camp.
The camping setup we tried for the first time on this trip is one Oztent Jet Bunker and one stretcher in the tent, both using 50mm Denali self-inflating roll mats. This arrangement provides a good amount of space in the tent for all the bags for both of us and the various bits and bobs you have in camp that are best not left outside. It also works well for getting changed in privacy. We have also considered running two bunkers and using a wall or two attached to the awning to achieve privacy when required. Or getting an Oztent RV and running two stretchers. But will probably stick with this arrangement for a few more trips and see what we think over time. When I'm camping solo the bunker is excellent.
Jon and Maya cooked a leg of lamb that had to be shortened a bit just to fit in the camp oven.
Day 3 in the High Country
After packing up we continued down Howitt Rd to Arbuckle Junction then along Moroka Rd to The Pinnacles. This is 60km of good dirt road that takes about an hour.
After walking out to the fire tower at The Pinnacles and taking in the stunning 360 degree views we headed down Billy Goat Bluff. The 10km descent to the Wonnangatta River took about an hour. Once at the bottom it's an easy 45 min run up the valley to Dargo, where we had a quick look in the famous pub but decided to push on up the Dargo High Plains Rd to Lankey Plain. This was our intended camp in early planning and did look very good but we ultimately decided to push on to Dinner Plain with a side trip to Blue Rag Trig so as to reduce the intensity of the following day.
This is one part of the view from The Pinnacles fire tower.
In this landscape below you can make out Billy Goat Bluff Track running along the second ridge line over. There was tree covered ridges as far as can be seen and once again the quality of the light doesn't quite translate to the photos.
Here we are on the Billy Goat track. It is actually easy driving, steep in parts and very dusty but not technical. I'm told it used to be far more of a technical challenge but has been sanitised over the years, I guess with its popularity. As a result, we felt that travelling top to bottom as we did was actually the best direction because it allowed you to look around easily and freely while taking in the spectacular views. The fire you can see in the photos had been stopped at the track only about 2 weeks before we were there.
So then Blue Rag Trig Track, was it any good? Absolutely stunning in the afternoon light. Again, not especially technical four wheel driving but the views and in particular being able to see the track continuing on over the ridges out into the forested distance was something special. It ranks as one of the absolute best days of 4WD travel and sightseeing that we have done so far. The blue green light over the hills interspersed with ridge lines of dead trunks is far more impressive in real life than the photos can show.
And of course the 360 degree view from the top is quite something. Also shows the dead tress along ridge lines clearly, looking like porcupine quills.
And that's what all the fuss is about, the trig point.
So after that it was backing tracking down to the Dargo High Plains Road again, which was as enjoyable as coming up thanks to the beautiful conditions and the different views when travelling in the opposite direction. It is then a short drive up to the Great Alpine Road and through to Mt Hotham and further down to Dinner Plain where we turned off and sought out another quiet campsite a few kilometres along the Dinner Plain Track, which this time was a bit of a minefield of cow pats.
Day 4 in the High Country
Here's our last campsite that last morning with a light frost over everything.
And here's our last true high country outlook for the trip from an amazing view point just off the track called Precipice Plain.
We continued along the Dinner Plains Track, turned onto the Victoria River Track until finally exiting back on to the Great Alpine Road and heading down to Omeo to get a coffee and refuel.
From Omeo we headed towards Jindabyne via the Limestone Road, which cuts through Kosciuszko National Park. This was a beautiful drive in its own right with at least 3 great camping spots noted along the way, one of which we stopped at for a cuppa and a bite to eat.
From there it wasn't too far to Suggan Buggan and then on to the Barry Way after crossing into NSW, which follows the Snowy River for a time and is also a fun drive winding around all the bends and curves. It was dark by the time we got in to Canberra but not too late and it was very nice to have a hot shower and get cleaned up.
So there it is, a bit of a whirlwind trip and a long way to go from Brisbane. But well worth it. Would I change anything? Well perhaps stay at one of the campsites for two nights and do a loop day trip instead of moving and the associated packing/unpacking every day. However, the would have necessitated missing something and it's very hard to say what to drop or miss. So in the end probably change nothing but next time (and there will be a next time) take it a bit slower and ensure that there's at least two nights in one place.
