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Mt Jagungal: Kosciuszko National Park

My walking companion, youngest son, had just swanned in from months of pounding the mountain trails of the Swiss Alps and Nepal.  Lean and fit, he was keen for one final fling before returning to work in early November.  We tossed around the possibilities. Frenchman’s Cap, The Labyrinth, the Western Arthurs were his hot choices while Moreton Island or Fraser Island looked like cushy numbers for me. The art of compromise, a 80 kilometre outing to Mt Jagungal in northern Kosciuszko National Park.  The iconic Jagungal Wilderness Area is part of The Australian Alps Bioregion, the only truly alpine environment in New South Wales as well as the only part of mainland Australia to have been affected by Pleistocene glaciation.

Over the Alps: To Jagungal on Foot and Fire Trail.

Our timing was impeccable. The Bureau of Meteorology’s Snowy Mountains Regional Forecast promised us: Wednesday: ‘snow showers’ and ‘fresh to strong southerly winds’.  The clincher was the ‘minimum of -2ºC, and a maximum of 0ºC’.  More of the same for Thursday with relief coming on Friday: ‘fine sunny weather, minimum -3ºC, maximum 9ºC’.  We somehow misplaced the fine sunny bit.  Youngest son, outfitted with cosy thermals and multiple polapluses, seemed relaxed about all this snow stuff, so I wasn’t overly concerned but wondered if my warm Queensland blood was up to the task.

A cold morning at Whites River Hut in Kosciuszko National Park.
A cold morning at Whites River Hut
The Provedore

Once in Canberra I was despatched to Manuka to source the all important hiking rations.  Too easy: a big bag of beer nuts, no-brand cups of soup, two-serve pastas, mountain bread, ten yoghurt coated muesli bars, tang, eight Laughing Cow soft cheese wedges, twelve mini Mars bars and two knobs of pepperoni salami to placate youngest son’s carnivorous tendencies.  But, when it was too late, at the isolated Whites River hut, he discovered that his confidence in the largesse of this provedore was sadly misplaced.  There is an old saying about living on the smell of an oily rag that seems apposite. But I will return to this well chewed bone of contention later.

More Information:

Map: Geehi Dam: 1:25000.

Map: Jagungal: 1:25000.

Map: Tim Lamble: Mt Jagungal and the Brassy Mountains: 1:31680.

Map: Wyborn, D., Owen, M., Wyborn, L: Geology of Kosciuszko National Park: 1;250000. ( BMR Canberra 1990 ).

Hueneke, K: Huts of the High Country (ANU Press 1982).

Johnson, D, The Geology of Australia ( Cambridge University Press 2009 ).

Flood, J : Moth Hunters of the ACT: ( 1984 ).

Kosciuszko Huts Association: https://khuts.org

Some recent Kosciuszko trip reports.
Map of walk to Mt Jagungal. Kosciuszko National Park.
Views around Mt Jagungal
Tuesday: Guthega Power Station to Whites River Hut: 10 kms.

With a 5.00pm departure we left the bluebell coloured Camry orphaned at the Guthega Power Station, the Australian Alpine Walking Track entrance. The track zig- zagged steeply uphill.  With fine cool weather and a window of three hours to cover the ten kilometres to White’s River, there was no particular hurry and apart from a 240 metre altitude gain it was a most agreeable evening’s ramble, as we beetled along in a companionable silence.

Heading for Whites River Hut late afternoon on Australian Alps Walking Track
Australian Alps Walking Track: heading for Whites River Hut late afternoon.
Australia’s Subalpine Landscapes

We followed the winding track across a typical subalpine landscape of snow gum woodland interspersed with open grasslands. The subalpine zone in Australia is that in which snow gums are the only tree species, lying between approximately 1400 m and 1700 m. Above 1700 m to about 2000 m, on the Australian mainland, is the treeless alpine zone.

Vistas of extensive treeless grasslands unfolded along the valley floor. These grasslands are said to be the result of cold air pooling in valleys forming frost hollows, producing a microclimate inimical to the survival of trees and shrubs. In the dampest parts where the water table is close to the surface, spongy bogs and fens dominate. The higher ridges are covered in snow gum woodland, the lower edge of the community terminating sharply, forming a definite tree line on a contour around each plain.

Horse Camp Hut in subalpine zone dominated by snow gum woodland
Horse Camp Hut set in the subalpine zone. Dominated by snow gum woodland.

It was sobering to find huge swathes of the snow gum woodland burnt out, their dead branches arching over our heads.  Lines of fire-ravaged hills retreated to the far horizon, but, on an optimistic note, the dominant snow gums were now suckering vigorously from their lignotubers.  In 2003 massive fires burnt much of the park and sections of the plateau were still closed until mid 2006. Fire is, of course, part of the natural regime of Kosciuszko, with an average of 100 days annually of high to extreme fire danger. It has the dubious distinction of being one of the most fire prone areas in the world.  Fortunately, this area from Guthega to Jagungal was untouched by the massive fires of the summer of 2019-2020.

Fire damaged snow gums: Kosciuszko National Park
Fire damaged snow gums on Munyang Schlink Trail: Kosciuszko National Park.

We reached White’s on dusk. I wussed out, keen for a comfy bunk in the hut. Surprisingly, I met little resistance … for a change. The plummeting temperature, barely holding at 3ºC, dampened our enthusiasm for things outdoorsy: like sleeping in freezing tents, no camp fire, and fourteen hours incarcerated in a hike tent.

Whites River Hut

White’s River Hut, typical of many high country huts, was built in1935 by sheep farmers who engaged in the transhumance of their flocks, grazing them on the high alpine meadows of the Rolling Grounds in summer, retreating to the protected Snowy River stations for winter.  Summer grazing on high pastures ceased in the 1970’s.

Whites River Hut in Kosciuszko National Park.
Whites River Hut

Constructed of sheet iron, White’s is a basic, dingy hut, appreciated in cold, wet weather, but rarely used on hot summer days. Like most Kosciuszko huts it has sleeping bunks, a fireplace or woodstove, wood store, tatty table and bench seats and an outdoor dunny.  Whites is unusual in that it had an additional, stand-alone four person bunkhouse (since burnt down accidentally), known as ‘The Kelvinator’, for obvious reasons. If it is not obvious to the reader then Kelvinators were a famous brand of Australian refrigerators. This was the last refuge for desperate winter skiers, no doubt thankful to escape from the malevolent Rolling Grounds but usually arriving frozen to the core only to discover there was no room left in the inn.

Image of Whites River Hut before The Kelvinator was removed.
Whites River Hut with “The Kelvinator” in the background.

The main hut is also the refuge of the notorious Bubbles and Bubbles Jnr, bush rats extraordinaire: legends of High Country Huts as walkers and skiers record their exploits of marsupial derring-do and innate native rat cunning at avoiding all manner of water traps and flying footwear.  On a visit in 2005, Bubbles made off with our leader’s head torch, dragging it towards his bolt hole stopping occasionally to dine on its hard plastic coating.  Tonight, these pint sized bush banditos were content with keeping son in a state of high alert as they tip-ratted through hut rubbish and skittered along the wooden beam highways above our beds. For my part I slept as well as can be expected for a Queenslander. Cold air seeped through my down sleeping bag, thermal liner bag, two thermal shirts, a polar plus jacket, beanie, gloves, woollen socks x2, thermal long johns and over trousers. How cold could it be?

Wednesday: Whites River Hut, Schlink Hilton Hut, Valentines Hut and Grey Mare Hut: 19 kms.

We found out in the morning.  All was quiet.  No birds, no Bubbles, no sound of running water.  Just the muffled fall of light snowflakes susurrating against the hut. Nature called and I emerged at six o’clock and applied my final layer, a thick Gore-Tex rain jacket, which seemed to do the trick. Youngest son surfaced soon after, although I have observed that he normally lies doggo until Jeeves has a fire blazing and breakfast is on the way.

A cold morning in Whites River Hut
Whites River Hut. Snowing outside. Toasty inside.

There is nothing like walking in a light snowfall. Cold it may be, but to be out walking on a high country trail in crisp alpine air, is an experience to be remembered. Our bodies quickly warmed up as we ascended towards Schlink Pass at 1800 metres. In any case our warm gear and wind proofs kept us snug and dry.  All too soon we topped the pass and descended to The Schlink Hilton. This twenty bunk ex-SMA hut was named after Herbert ‘Bertie’ Schlink, who was one of a party of four who were the first to complete the Kiandra to Charlottes Pass trip in three days in July 1927.

Climbing up to Schlink Pass. Kosciuszko National Park.
Climbing up to Schlink Pass.

We ducked in, out of the drifting snowflakes, deposited plops of melting snow, removed several thermal layers, and then squelched off again to the start of the Valentine Fire Trail. Valentine’s marks the start of The Jagungal Wilderness Area.  Centred on Mt Jagungal (2060m), this isolated area is a bushwalking paradise: mountain peaks, snowgrass plains, high alpine passes, the massive Bogong Swamp and a derelict gold mine. The area is closed to vehicles but numerous fire trails provide sheltered walking when bad weather closes in over The Kerries and Gungartan.

Valentines Hut

By 10.30, the snow showers clearing, we sighted Valentine’s Hut, its fire truck red livery standing out against a grey skeletal forest of dead snow gums.  Valentine’s is my all time favourite high country hut.  Another ex-SMA hut, this natty little four person weatherboard hut has a clean airy feel, with table, bench seats and a wood stove in its kitchen.  A home away from home. Other huts are usually dark, sooty, plastered with candle grease and graffiti and generally described as dirty and dingy. Valentine’s has been painted inside and out, has ample windows and, for added creature comfort, a newish corrugated iron dunny close by.

Valentines Hut
Valentines Hut

Youngest son, ever hungry, was keen for an early lunch in the snug comfort of Valentine’s, out of the clutches of the blustering southerlies.  Two mountain bread roll-ups filled with peanut paste, salami and cheese, a mini Mars and a few handfuls of beer nuts vanished in a flash. He: “What’s next?”  Well nothing.  Some grumbling about catering arrangements and we were on our way to the Grey Mare, but not before I deemed it politic to requisition a packet of cous cous and pasta from the ‘please help yourself food pile’.  The final leg would take us across Valentine’s Creek, over the Geehi (boots off for me), then up and over a 1700 metre alpine moor to Back Flat Creek with a final unwelcome crawl 60 metres up to the Grey Mare Hut for an early mark.

Grey Mare Hut

Grey Mare was a miner’s hut. Gold was discovered in the vicinity in 1894 at the Bogong Lead, later called Grey Mare Reef. Initially it was worked as a pit but flooding of shafts ended the first sequence of occupance in 1903.  An output of 28.3 kgs of gold in 1902 made it one of the highest yielding gold fields in New South Wales. A second phase of mining started in 1934 with an adit blasted to get to the reef.  The ruins of a hut on the creek flats below dates from this period.  A final attempt to get at the gold came in 1949 when the present hut was built.  The bush around the hut is littered with all kinds of mining knick-knacks: a crusher, a steam engine, a huge flywheel weighing more than two tonnes and a shambolic tin dunny teetering over the abyss of an old mine shaft ( since replaced with something safer).

Mining equipment: Grey Mare Hut.
Old flywheel and boiler at Grey Mare Hut.
Frosty morning at Grey Mare Mine site.
Frosty morning at Grey Mare Mine site

The six berth hut is standard dingy but large and comfortable with a huge fireplace and the best hut views in the park.  From our doorstep we had views northwards up the grassy valley of Straight Creek and peeking above Strumbo Hill, the crouching lion, Mt Jagungal, tomorrow’s destination. Looking to the east I could see Tarn Bluff, Mailbox Hill and the Cup and Saucer which I visited in 2017. Behind us was the Grey Mare Bogong topping out at 1870 metres.

 By three o’clock, the worms were biting and son was already scruffling through the rations looking hopefully for cups of soup and pasta with Nescafe caramel lattes and chocolate chasers to appease his now constantly rumbling tum.  Meanwhile, I set to with bush saw to lay in our wood supply for what was shaping up to be a windy, cold night.  No problems with collecting bush timber here, the hut is set in a stand of dead snowgums.  By five o’clock it was cold enough to rev up the fire.  Come dark we banked the fire and drifted to our bunks, snuggling down into warm bags.  The predicted ‘windy’ conditions made for a restless night with a banging door and overhanging branches raking the corrugated iron chimney.

Grey Mare Hut
Grey Mare Hut.
Thursday: Grey Mare to Jagungal and return: 22 kms.

Up at six o’clock in anticipation of the long walk to Jagungal and back.  Snow showers again, a gusting tail wind catching our rucksacks and driving us sidewards off the Grey Mare Trail as we headed north.  With Phar Lap out in front and Dobbin coming at a steady gallop behind, we burned up the kilometres, hayburners from hell, past Smith’s Lookout (1748m), across the Bogong Swamp (dry), rock hopped over the Tooma River, and thence to our Jagungal access at the Tumut River campsite.  And not a single grey mare in sight.  A heap of beer nuts and a yoghurt bar each and we were off again, a 220 metres climb onto the mist shrouded south west ridge, a sharp turn left and an easier 160 metre ridge walk to Jagungal Summit at 2062 metres. The Roof of Australia, or near enough. The mist cleared…. how lucky was that?

On the Grey Mare Trail heading for Jagungal
On the Grey Mare Trail heading for Jagungal.
Mt Jagungal 2061 m.

Jagungal is instantly recognisable from over much of Kosciuszko. A reassuring landmark for bushwalkers and skiers alike, a beacon… an isolated black rocky peak standing above the surrounding alpine plains.  It is at the headwaters of several major rivers: the Tumut, the Tooma and the Geehi.  It was known to cattlemen as The Big Bogong or Jagunal. The later spelling, Jagungal, is considered by the old timers a latter day perversion. Jagungal appears on Strzelecki’s map as Mt Coruncal, which he describes as “crowning the spur which separates the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers”.  The aborigines often called mountains in the alpine zone Bogong, indicating a food source, the Bogong moth.  Europeans applied their own nomenclature to differentiate the Bogongs: Paddy Rushs Bogong, Dicky Cooper Bogong and Grey Mare Bogong.

Mt Jagungal: Kosciuszko National Park.
Mt Jagungal: 2061 m.

Unlike most of the other Bogongs whose granitic origins are revealed by their characteristic whaleback profiles, Jagungal’s summit is distinctively peaky. It sports a lizard like frill of vertical rock towers, some intact, other lying in jumbled heaps. Jagungal is different because it is capped by amphibolite, a black igneous rock more dense than granite, formed by the metamorphosis of basalts, the Jagungal Volcanics. Its origins date back to 470 to 458 Ma, to the Middle Ordovician. It is surrounded by the Kiandra Volcanic Field, part of a belt of volcanoes called the Molong Volcanic Arc.

During the The Ordovician ( 485 to 444 Ma), Australia was part of a single super-continent and much of Eastern Australia was covered by the sea. Chains of active volcanoes occupied parts of central New South Wales. These were mainly submarine volcanoes but some emerged to form small islands with fringing limestone reefs. The Ordovician saw the first appearance of corals and land plants.

Jagungal was ascended by Europeans in the winter of 1898 when a party from the Grey Mare Mine climbed it using primitive skis called ‘Kiandra snowshoes’.  Ours was a much less adventurous walk, but we still savoured our time on the summit.  Especially magnificent were the views south to the snow capped Main Range, four days away.  It was so clear that we could even discern Victoria’s Mt Bogong on the far southern horizon.  But the cold wind soon drove us into a protected sunny nook just under the summit.  We hunkered down, lunched, son eased into one of his regular catnaps…. no doubt dreaming of Nepal and wolfing down a huge bowl of Nepali boiled potatoes and rice; or perhaps a large slice of pizza; or even, given our now parlous food situation, a plate of succulent fried Bogong Moths.

Bogong Moth
CSIRO: Bogong Moth
Bogong Moths

I had noticed on a previous trip and again on our ascent today, huge raucous flocks of crows cawing around the steep summit cliffs. I had seen the same phenomenon on Mt Alice Rawson near Kosciuszko.  Inexplicable at the time. Recently, I came across an explanation.  The ‘crows’, actually Little Ravens (Corvus mellori), were gathering to feed on Agrotis infusa, the drab little Bogong moth, found only in Australia and New Zealand. To escape the summer heat, these moths migrate altitudinally and set up summer holiday camps in the coolest places in Australia, the rock crevices of the alpine summits.  They come in millions from western New South Wales and Southern Queensland, distances in excess of 1500 kilometres, often winging in on high altitude jet streams, and settle in crevices and caves, stacked in multiple layers, 17,000 of them in a square metre, where they undergo aestivation or summer hibernation.  The migrations seem to be a mechanism to escape the heat of the inland plains and they gather in the coolest and darkest crevices on western, windward rock faces. A tasty morsel for our corvid buddies.

Aborigines and the Bogong Moths

With the ravens came the aborigines, from Yass and Braidwood, from Eden on the coast and from Omeo and Mitta Mitta in Victoria. All intent on having a good feed and a good time.  Large camps formed with as many as 500 aborigines gathering for initiation, corroborees, marriage arrangements and the exchange of goods.  It is thought that advance parties would climb up to the tops, and if the moths had arrived they would send up a smoke signal to the camps below. The arrival of the moths is not a foregone conclusion. Migration numbers vary from year to year. Some years they are blown off course and out into the Tasman Sea.  1987 was a vintage year, but in 1988 the bright lights of New Parliament House in Australia’s bush capital, acted as a moth magnet, and they camped in Canberra for their summer recess, unlike our political masters.

  Men caught the moths in bark nets or smoked them out of their crevices. They were generally cooked in hot ashes but it is thought that women sometimes pounded them into a paste to bake as a cake. Those keen enough to taste the Bogong moth mention a nutty taste. Scientists say they are very rich in fat and protein; this diet sustained aborigines for months and the smoke from their fires was so thick that surveyors complained that they were unable to take bearings because the main peaks were always shrouded in smoke.  Europeans often commented on how sleek and well fed the aborigines looked after their moth diet. Edward Eyre who explored the Monaro in the 1830’s wrote: “The Blacks never looked so fat or shiny as they do during the Bougan season, and even their dogs get into condition then.” At summer’s end, with the arrival of the southerlies the moths, aborigines and ravens all decamped and headed for the warmer lowlands.  As did my travelling companion and I.

Descending Mt Jagungal
Descending Mt Jagungal. View south.
Friday: Grey Mare Hut to Horse Camp Hut: 24 kms

Of necessity, a long day’s walk ahead to put us close to our Guthega exit.  Windy and cool again, and no sign of the fine sunny weather promised by our BOM friends. Which was just as well as my radiator was boiling on our way up the steep 200 metre climb out of Back Creek en route to Valentine’s.  Today we would be walking south, towards the Main Range.  Here was an excellent opportunity to identify from our map the classics of Kosciuszko walking that had been shrouded in mist on our outward walk: The Kerries, Gungartan, Dicky Cooper Bogong, the Rolling Grounds, Mt Tate, Twynam and the biggest Bogong of all, Targan-gil or Mt Kosciuszko.

View southwards towards the Main Range and Mt Kosciuszko.
View south towards the Main Range and Mt Kosciuszko.
Horse Camp Hut

Late in the afternoon we turned off the Schlink and found our way to Horse Camp Hut, tucked in snow gum woodland 300 metres below the Rolling Grounds, a high altitude granite plateau above the tree line at 1900+ metres, cold, windy and exposed but spectacular. It is said to be very difficult to navigate in bad weather.  I noted in the hut log book that a number of winter skiers had ‘GPSed’ their way to Horse Camp from the Rolling Grounds.  It is claimed that the Rolling Grounds are so named because during the summer grazing, stock horses would enjoy a good old dust bath and roll in the many depressions that dot this high altitude plateau.

Horse Camp Hut
Horse Camp Hut

Horse Camp Hut, of Lilliputian dimensions, still manages a serviceable fireplace, kitchen cum lounge cum wood storage, table, a few decrepit chairs and a separate room with a wood stove and two bunks. Apparently nine girls from SGGS Redlands and their gear were crammed into the room on a wild wet night earlier this year. With temperatures hovering at 2ºC I lit the fire and we polished off whatever meagre rations were left: soup, pasta, noodles and Nescafe Latte laced with Milo lifted from the hut ‘left overs’.

Interior of Horse Camp Hut
Interior of Horse Camp Hut.
Horse Camp Hut in the evening. Rolling Grounds in the background.
Horse Camp Hut in the evening. Rolling Grounds in the background.
Saturday: Horse Hut Camp to Guthega Power Station. 4 kms.

Up at 6.00.  Freezing and no fire or breakfast genie this morning.  We set out ASAP, fully rugged up, as the sun lifted over Disappointment Ridge for our final four kilometres into Guthega, downhill.  Hopefully Bluebell would be still where we left her. She was, and despite her coat of frost, she fired up and we were away.  Off to Sawpit Creek for breakfast, a coffee in Cooma then a slap-up feed and a cold goldie back in Canberra.  A fitting end to an outstanding alpine sojourn.

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Bluff Tarn: A hike in Kosciuszko National Park

Exploring Australia’s High Country.

by Glenn Burns

Nestled high up in Kosciuszko National Park’s Jagungal Wilderness Area at about 1850 metres is Bluff Tarn. It is a small alpine lake set in an extensive landscape of alpine ridges, swiftly flowing rivers and the vast swamps that make up the area loosely called Australia’s High Country. Robert Green in his book ‘Exploring the Jagungal Wilderness’ describes Bluff Tarn as “…one of the prettiest spots in the mountains”.

On an early November afternoon I set off with five bushwalking friends, Sam, David, Joe, Richard and Brian on a seven day, 60 kilometre cross country circuit from Guthega to Bluff Tarn on the upper Geehi, then to Tin Hut on the headwaters of the Finn River. Our route started at Guthega Power Station and took in Whites River Hut, Gungartan (2068 m), The Kerries Ridge (2000 + m), Mawsons Hut, the Cup and Saucer (1934 m), Bluff Tarn, the Mailbox (1900 + m), the Brassy Mountains (1972 m), Tin Hut, the Porcupine (1960 m), and Horse Camp Hut via the Aqueduct Track.

Bushwalkers Kosciuszko National Park
Left to Right: Brian, Joe, Richard, David, Sam. On snow patch under Gungartan
THE WEATHER

The alpine forecast wasn’t quite what this leader was hoping for. Showers most days, starting with a possible thunderstorm for our first day on the track. Temperatures would be pretty friendly though: 7°C to 18° C . Apparently, our luck really would desert us on Friday, 6 days hence. A 90 % chance of 20 to 40 millimetres. Upgraded later in the week to 100 millimetres. I was disinclined to hang around to test out that old saying that ” there is no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing”.

November is my preferred alpine hiking month. The weather is starting to settle; night temperatures are bearable, day temperatures are just perfect; and even light snowfall makes for magical walking. Water is abundant and easy to find. Wildflowers are blooming but best of all, those nuisance bush flies and their high country cousins, the biting Horse/ March/ Vampire flies have yet to descend on the unsuspecting walker.

March Fly CSIRO

Horse or March flies appear as adults almost unvarying in the second week of December and hang around all the way through to February. Although they are called March flies they are rare in alpine areas in March.

These are large members of the Family TABANIDAE (genus Scaptia). March flies, at 25 mm, are the largest of our biting dipterans. The female does the blood sucking bit, while the benign male is content to feed on nectar and pollen.

On one mid-December Kiandra to Kosciuszko trip in 2006 with my friend Brian, March fly numbers were truly appalling. There was no escape from these pests. They operated on a sunrise to sunset roster and were so bad that it was unpleasant to stop for the vitals like meal breaks, water stops and even navigation checks. They attacked with persistence and determination, and could bite through clothing with impunity. We often tried to find huts for meal breaks, but failing that, donned fly veils, rain jackets and long trousers or rain pants to keep the blighters at bay while we ate. As Queenslanders, our preferred hiking apparel is usually shorts and short sleeved shirts, not thick rain jackets and long trousers. On the warmish December days the rain jacket/rain pants garb was not for the faint hearted.

Whites River Hut
The heavens about to open. Early morning at Whites River Hut
Alpine Wildflowers: Photos by Sam
Royal Grevillea: Grevillea victoriae
Alpine Hovea: Hovea montana
Alpine Marsh Marigold: Psychrophila introlaba
Ovate Phebalium: Phebulium ovatifolium
Reddish Bog Heath: Epacris glacialis
Silver Snow Daisy: Celmisia longifolia
Click on photo to enlarge view
More Information:

Map: Geehi Dam: 1:25000.

Map: Jagungal: 1:25000.

Map: Tim Lamble: Mt Jagungal and The Brassy Mountains: 1:31680.

Green, K and Osborne, W: Field Guide to Wildlife of Australian Snow-Country. (New Holland 2012).

Hueneke, K : Huts of the High Country (ANU Press 1982).

Codd, P , Payne, B, Woolcock, C : The Plant Life of Kosciuszko. (Kangaroo Press 1998).

McCann, I: The Alps in Flower. (Victorian National Parks Assn 2001).

Slattery, D : Australian Alps. (CSIRO 2015).

Kosciuszko Huts Association: Website

Bluff Tarn: Jagungal Wilderness : Kosciuszko National Park.
Map of Bluff Tarn & Jagungal Wilderness

Sunday:  Guthega Power Station to Whites River Hut: 8 kms.

With cars stabled at the Guthega Power Station we wandered off, ever upward. Sam, David and Richard setting a pretty lively pace under a low leaden sky.  There were just enough irritating spots of rain to encourage the old laggards creaking along in the rear to lift our pace. Mid- climb, a squadron of two-wheeling weekend warriors swooped around a blind corner. Braking furiously, some nifty controlled slides, a spray of gravel, and they were off again, pedalling downhill at speed. Eat my dust, Boomer. Our mountain biking friends also anxious to reach cover before the heavens opened. Given my weighty rucksack, I too, could be sucked into this mountain biking game. Though I’m pretty sure that I would end up pushing said mountain bike up the current 250 metre ascent.

I may curse my heavy rucksack but mostly I am grateful for the good things its contents make possible: a snug downy sleeping bag, the protective cover of my little Macpac one-man tent, a comfy sleeping mat and a generous supply of crystallised ginger and chocolate licorice bullets.

By 3.30 pm we landed at Whites River Hut, disconcerted to find four tents moored on the creek flats below the hut. The tents belonged to a bunch of hikers from the Newcastle Ramblers Bushwalking Club, apparently intent on doing much the same circuit as we had planned. No sweat. Plan B. They were no shirkers, these Novocastrian types. Instead of lolling around the hut for the afternoon (as I would have happily done), they struck out on a somewhat damp stroll across the tops from the Rolling Grounds to nearby Dicky Cooper Bogong (SMA 0113: 2003 m). The place name ‘Dicky Cooper Bogong’ recognises the the traditional Aboriginal custodian of this mountain, one Dicky Cooper.

Aborigines inhabited these highlands as far back as 21,000 years ago with evidence of their occupation coming from Birrigal Rock Shelter in Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve and many sites in the upper Snowy River. Small stone scatters can be found in the alpine landscapes with the highest being a collection found near the saddle of Perisher Gap (1800m).

It is well known that aborigines travelled to these highlands in the summer months to collect and eat the abundant Bogong Moths which were found sheltering in the rocky crevices of all the major outcrops in the Snowy Mountains. I have written extensively about this in my trip report Kiandra to Kosciuszko.

Aboriginal stencils Yankee Hat site Namadgi National Park
Aboriginal stencil art. Yankee Hat site. Namadgi National Park

Many place names in the Alps have been derived from local Aboriginal languages: Jagungal, Jindabyne, Talbingo, Yarrangobilly, Suggan Buggan, Mitta Mitta and Tumut. It is not hard to find many other examples from your maps. Apparently the Geographical Place Names Board of NSW is considering giving Mt Kosciuszko a traditional Aboriginal name (Kunama) which would sit alongside its current name.

Whites River Hut Kosciuszko National Park
White River Hut in fine weather.

On dusk the predicted showers finally arrived, as did a damp and dishevelled clutch of boys and their teachers from Bathurst. No hanging out in comfortable huts for this lot: they pitched their tents in the rain, had a quick feed then quietly settled down for the night. Meanwhile back at the ranch, Brian’s traditional first night treat of bangers and mash seemed to have  spread like some medieval contagion. Most of my fellow hikers had succumbed to this dubious culinary delight and were enthusiastically whipping up dollops of instant mash leavened with green peas, sun-dried tomatoes, and heating neatly folded alfoil cylinders containing pre-fried bangers: beef for preference but maybe lamb & rosemary for those with more delicate taste buds.

Monday: Whites River to Mawsons Hut via Gungarten and The Kerries: 11.5 kms.

Showers overnight but with the mist lifting from The Rolling Grounds and Gungartan, things were on the up and up, weather wise. As were Brian and Joe, clanking about in the dark, soon after 5.30 am. Disturbing my slumber. Our crafty Newcastle Bushwalkers friends still got the jump on us and had drifted off by 7.30 am. A comprehensive report of their walk can be found in the KHA Newsletter: No 178 Autumn 2018. But we were soon hot on their heels desperate not to be pegged as a bunch of idle slackers. Today’s walk would take us to Schlink Pass thence to Gungartan, down into Gungartan Pass, up along The Kerries to Mawsons Hut, tucked in a thicket of snow gums at the northern end of The Kerries. But first, the 300 metre climb from Schlink Pass to the Main Divide through snowgum forest.

David in Schlink Pass
David in Schlink Pass

The Kerries Ridge (2000 m), a spur of the Great Dividing Range, offers open alpine walking at its very best… in fine weather. This trackless ridge is a landscape of huge granite outcrops and vast alpine meadows. Suffice to say by the time we were well into The Kerries  traverse, we watched a succession of storm cells sliding along the high peaks to our north and west, heading our way. Come lunchtime we hunkered down in the lee of a granite boulder, sheltering from the rain that Hughie dropped over us . I’m always a bit disconcerted to be caught out in the open alpine zone with distant lightning and thunder rolling around. But my fellow travellers didn’t seem all that concerned as they disappeared into their rain jackets and munched contentedly on muesli bars, dry biscuits and slabs of cheese. The rain eased to light drizzle, and we moved out, heading north, following the crest.

The Kerries Ridge Kosciuszko National Park
The Kerries Ridge (2000 m) . Storms heading our way.

A further four kilometres of alpine tramping dropped us down to Mawsons Hut. Joe and Richard navigated us off the heights and down to our destination. Pretty much spot on. Being tucked into a grove of snowgums, the hut can be a bit difficult to find. Mawsons was deserted. A Novocastrian-free zone. When we last saw them ambling across Gungartan Pass, they were heading for Tin Hut on the Finn River. Another afternoon thunderstorm and hail swept through, driving us into the hut to finish drying our gear and have a feed. No fry up tonight. It was strictly dry rations for the rest of the week for this lot.

Mawsons Hut Kosciuszko National Park.
Mawsons Hut
Mt Jagungal from Mawsons Hut
Photo: Sam: View to Mt Jagungal from our front yard at Mawsons Hut.
Tuesday: Day Walk to Cup and Saucer, Bluff Tarn and The Mailbox: 7 kms.

Fine weather and an easy day walk called us to the hills on our third day. From Mawsons we would cross the Valentine River; scamper up the Cup and Saucer; cut across the grasslands of the upper Geehi to Bluff Tarn; returning to Mawsons via The Mailbox. That was the plan and for once I stuck to it.

We left Mawsons in brilliant  weather. A superb day of walking beckoned. We dropped down to the Valentine which still flowing strongly from the spring thaw but we sussed out a partly exposed gravel bed. Richard, Brian and Joe volunteered to check it out. Sacrificial lambs. I am told that there is nothing so grumpy as a leader with wet boots this early in the day.

Valentine River: Kosciuszko National Park
Valentine River with Cup and Saucer in background

The Cup is a granitic dome ( Happy Jacks Monzogranite: < 20 % quartz) sitting on its saucer, a shelf of nearly horizontal granitic rock. This Silurian granite is 444 to 419 my old and dates from a time when the Earth entered a long warm phase which continued for another 130 million years. Oceanic life flourished and vascular plants increased in size and complexity. The supercontinent Gondwana drifted south and extended from the Equator to the South Pole. Australia was located in the Equatorial zone.

From a distance the Cup and Saucer are well named and form an unmistakable landmark for kilometres in all directions. Topping the Cup is an old Snowy Mountains Authority Trig 133 standing at 1904 metres. This was our first objective. From the top of the Cup we should be able to see a line of travel across to Bluff Tarn.

Crossing swampy ground enroute to the Cup and Saucer

It was only one and a half kilometres to the Cup but swampy ground made our approach more circuitous than I anticipated. My original plan was to clamber up the long south western ridge to reach the Trig. But the final steep and damp and moss encrusted granite slabs thwarted all but Brian. Unsurprising really. His friends call him “Straight Line Brian”. Contouring or backing off isn’t part of Brian’s bushwalking lexicon. But the rest of us were content to retreat and scarpered up the more accessible northern face … without any further difficulties. Where upon we settled on the rock outcrops to take in the landscape and enjoy a leisurely morning tea.

Summit of the Cup and Saucer
Sam atop the Cup and Saucer

From the summit of the Cup and Saucer unfolded a vast alpine panorama. To the east rose up the high range of the The Brassy Mountains, part of Australia’s Great Dividing Range system. To our east was the valley of the Geehi River and its tributary, the Valentine River. Directly to our east and just below our vantage point is the Big Bend. Here the Valentine swings off its northerly course to flow south-west another six kilometres to its junction with the Geehi. No doubt the granitic dome of the Cup and Saucer forms a structural control over the direction of flow of the Valentine.

Photo: Sam: View south from the Cup and Saucer ( 1900 m ) .

To our north , less than a kilometre across the swampy headwaters of the upper Geehi valley was Tarn Bluff (1900 m) with Bluff Tarn tucked somewhere still out of sight.

Bluff Tarn
Bluff Tarn Kosciuszko National Park

Bluff Tarn certainly met our all our expectations. It is, indeed, “one of the prettiest spots in the mountains”. But is is not, strictly speaking, a tarn. Merely a lake. My inner pedant would tell you that a tarn is “a small mountain – rimmed lake, specifically one on the floor of a cirque”. No cirque here. But quibbles over geographical precision couldn’t detract from the beauty of our surroundings.

While Bluff Tarn is a small lake, it is fed by a major headwater tributary of the Geehi, with the stream cascading through and over large rounded boulders. The lower reaches of the cascades were still covered by a thick snowbank, even though we were only a few days short of the start of summer. I’m not sure of the origins of Bluff Tarn, but it appears to be formed as a shallow pool fed by the cascades dropping over a shelf of harder rock. Its outlet was restricted by a prominent bank of coarse, unsorted gravels. It would have been interesting to spend more time checking out Bluff Tarn but the worms were biting and my fellow walkers had lost interest in playing in the snow. They were itching to move on for their lunch break.

Our lunch spot was Mailbox Hill about a kilometre due east of Bluff Tarn … first though, one of Brian infamous uphill flat bits to raise a sweat and develop a healthy appetite for lunch. The Mailbox or Mailbox Hill, your choice, is a series of rounded outcrops standing at about 1910 metres. It was named The Mailbox because, I guess, mail was collected there by the cattlemen in the days of summer grazing.

The Kosciuszko Huts Association, my alpine bible, have researched the origin of the placename: Post was delivered to the men on the lease by a Mrs Bolton. She was engaged to deliver the mail on horseback to the Grey Mare Mine, travelling the old dray route from Snowy Plain across to Strumbo Hill. Ernie Bale recalled that on Mailbox Hill “there was a clump of rocks and they had shelves in them and she used to leave the mail for Mawsons Hut – it was always known as the Post Office – she used to leave the mail and put a rock on top of it“.

After a leisurely lunch spent sprawled on slabs of rock well out of the reach of those pestilent little black alpine ants, we wandered off towards Mawsons keeping a weather eye on the clouds building over The Kerries. But not before some male argy bargy about its location.

Later in the afternoon our Newcastle friends arrived from Tin Hut while the males were down at the creek having sponge-downs. We spent a very congenial evening around the campfire trading tall tales, listening to their hiking stories from far flung parts of the globe and getting some very handy gear tips from Shayne.

Mawsons Hut at dusk.
Photo: Sam: Mawsons Hut on dusk.
Wednesday: Mawsons Hut to Tin Hut: 8.5 kms.

A pleasantly cool and clear high country morning. By 8.00 am we were packed and on the road. Our route would take us across to the western bank of the Valentine then a gentle 80 metre climb following an old fence line that is marked on my old Tim Lamble map. Tim’s maps, if you can get hold of one, provide a plethora of details useful to the bushwalker and skier: rock cairns, old fence lines, posts, old yards and even magnetic bearings. Anyone interested in maps will appreciate the quality of Tim’s cartography.

An extract from Tim Lamble’s Jagungal & Brassy Mts map

We followed the fence line up to a low rocky knoll overlooking the north-south trending Brassy Mountains (1900m), directly in front of us. Klaus Hueneke in his well researched Huts of the High Country (ANU Press 1982) gives an explanation of the naming of Brassy Mountains .. “named in the early days on account of the reflection from running water over rocks. At certain times this resembles polished brass and can be seen from up to 16 kms away.”

A navigation huddle soon sorted out our next moves. The Brassy Peak (1900 m) was directly in front of us while The Big Brassy (SMA Trig 1972 m) was off to our south east, directly behind The Brassy Peak. But between our eyrie and The Brassy Mountains were the swampy headwaters of Valentine River. I had originally planned to follow the main divide of the Brassy Mountains south to Tin Hut. But an easier option was simply to cross the swamp and then contour along the western base of the Brassies keeping the thick heath just to our left but staying above the fens and bogs of the Upper Valentine to our right ... sound strategy in theory.

Brassy Mountains Kosciuszko National Park
Crossing the upper Valentine, heading towards the Brassy Mountains

But before we trundled off towards Tin Hut there was plenty of time to clamber up to the rock cairn sitting atop The Brassy Peak. From here we looked westward over the vast network of fens and bogs of the upper Valentine to the craggy outline of the Kerries Ridge which we had traversed three days ago.

Bogs and Fens

The upper Valentine is a wide alpine valley of impeded drainage: a fluvial landscape of bogs and fens. A fen is a specific geomorphic and botanical entity: namely still clear, pools of standing water with ground-hugging matted plants and the easily recognisable Tufted Sedge, Carex gaudichaudiana. A number of small but showy flowering plants manage to thrive in these waterlogged conditions: the pale purple Mud Pratia (Pratia surrepens), the pale cream or white Dwarf Buttercup (Ranunculus millanii) and the white Rayless Starwort (Stellania multiflora).

Bogs and Fens in upper Valentine River
Photo: Sam: Bogs and Fens of the upper Valentine River.

Bogs are areas of wet, spongy ground also found in areas of impeded drainage. Floristically bogs are dominated by Spagnum Moss (Spagnum cristatum) and associated with a variety of rushes and sedges, especially the Tufted Sedge. Bogs are associated with the decomposition of organic matter which will ultimately form peat.

These high alpine valleys are commonly underlain by peats formed by the decomposition of plant material after the last glacial period (15000 years ago). The peats are important for absorbing and regulating waterflows in alpine Australia, thus are listed as protected communities under both State and Federal legislation. (PS: tell that to the brumbies).

So with sodden boots and a sense of achievement we pulled into Tin Hut after a full morning’s hiking; just in time for another well deserved bite to eat. Always looking for the next feed. Tin has a bit of reputation for being difficult to locate in bad weather and is hidden in a belt of snowgums. But with fine , clear skies this was no issue for us.

Tin Hut

Tin is the oldest hut in the High Country built specifically for ski touring. Its origins go back to Dr Herbert Schlink’s attempt at the first winter crossing from Kiandra to Kosciuszko. Schlink needed a staging post for his final push along The Great Divide. In the summer of 1925/1926 a bespoke hut was built on the site of an old stockmans’ camp at the head of the Finn River. As 2017 was the 90th anniversary of its construction, our visit was timely.

Tin Hut on the headwaters of the Finn River

It is called Tin Hut because the roof and walls are constructed of corrugated iron. Some of the timber and iron for its construction was packed in by horseback across The Snowy Plain and The Brassy Mountains. It had a wooden floor and was lined with tongue and groove with the door opening to the east. Initially it was stocked with a horse rug, 24 blankets, a stove, tools and firewood. When Schlink’s party arrived from the south, a blizzard trapped them in the hut for three days, forcing them to give up the 1926 attempt.

On 28 July 1927 Dr Schlink, Dr Eric Fisher, Dr John Laidley, Bill Gordon and Bill Hughes skied out of Kiandra to reach Farm Ridge Homestead on the first night. Excellent snow cover allowed them to reach Tin Hut by 1.00 pm on the second day. They pressed on to the Pound Creek Hut (now Illawong Hut) on the second night. They completed the first winter traverse finishing at Hotel Kosciusko on the third day.

In 1928 Tin Hut served as the base for two winter attempts to Mt Jagungal. The party led by Dr John Laidley skiing to the summit…. for just the second time in history.

In 2017 restoration work on Tin commenced with a partnership between the Parks Service and the Kosciuszko Huts Association. Men, gear and materials were helicoptered in for the major facelift. One KHA member, Pat Edmondson, eschewed the helicopter ride and walked in from and out to Schlink Pass. Pat was over 80 years old. I can only hope that I can still climb from Schlink Pass to Gungartan when I turn 80.

Afternoon stroll: Tin Hut to The Porcupine & Return: 5.5 kms.

Brian, ever keen on filling in his (and our) afternoons, decided that we shouldn’t waste time hanging around the hut. A more productive use of our time would be a quick jaunt over to The Porcupine, a nondescript alpine ridge (SMA 0109 :1960 m) which separates the Finn River from the Burrungubugge River. From the hut we climbed the long ridge behind the hut to a knoll from which we could look across to the Trig on The Porcupine. Unfortunately, a very steep drop into a saddle then a climb back up to the Trig separated us from our quarry on this decidedly warmish afternoon. Brian and his co-conspirators Richard and Joe were still keen as mustard, happy to descend and climb up again onto The Porcupine ridge. David and Sam seeing the lie of the land, sensibly returned to Tin Hut for an afternoon of leisure. The walk to Porcupine is a scenic enough walk, but on reaching The Porcupine ridge I observed that the heat was getting to them and so the lads weren’t pushing me to go any further. Bless their little hot socks.

View from The Porcupine towards the Kerries and Gungartan.
View from The Porcupine (1960 m ) west to Kerries Ridge and Gungartan

We waddled back, avoiding the dreaded climb back up the knoll and reached Tin about 4.00 pm and set about a major rehydration, downing multiple cups of tea, soups and choc-au-laits. An evening perched around the campfire finished off a very satisfying day.

Thursday: Tin Hut to Whites River Hut : 7.5 kms
The troops about to leave Tin Hut for Whites River Hut.

The easiest route to Whites was to climb the long ridge which separates the Valentine and Finn Rivers, keeping Gungartan to our west. An ascent of a mere 200 metres vertical, but with dense knee-high heath and the odd snake or ten lurking underneath, it seemed endless. One snake had decorously draped its ectothermic body across the top of a heath bush, obviously hoping to warm up in the feeble sunlight and frighten the bejesus out of a passing bushwalker.

Once on top of the Great Dividing Range we bypassed Gungartan, skirting around its rocky spine until we had a view of Guthega Village.

Richard and Joe looking south down the Munyang River Valley

Time for a snack stop, perched atop huge boulders. A well tested strategy to keep out of the clutches of the maurading hordes of those little black alpine ants that swarm over any rucksack carelessly tossed on the ground. More disconcerting is their ability to overrun boots, climb up gaiters and finally ascend the thighs of any alpine rambler. Trying summer camping in Wilkinsons Valley and tell me how it goes.

Alpine Ants: Iridomyrmex sp.

The ants are probably Iridomyrmex sp, which my copy of Green and Osborne’s Field Guide to Wildlife of the Australian Snow-Country tells me are ” a conspicious part of the fauna in a few habitats, such as herbfield and grassland…. this omnivorous ant is the only common ant species in the alpine zone. It nests in waterlogged areas such as bogs, fens and wet heaths, and raise their nests above the water surface by constructing a mound of plant fragments in low vegetation. They are also found in tall alpine herbfield and dry heath.”

From our rocky eyrie we were treated to superb views across this small patch of Australia’s alpine wilderness. Time also for a weather update from duelling smartphones. Tomorrow: (Friday): 90 % chance of 20 to 40 mm. Maybe 100 mm. No arguments about pulling out a day early.

After a good laze around we skirted Gungartan and commenced the long descent to Schlink Pass (1800 m). Landing in the pass, a mutiny of the “are you stopping for lunch ? ” type broke out. Ever the considerate leader (probably not) , I caved in and we propped for lunch. Whites River Hut only one tantalising kilometre downhill.

Schlink Pass (1800 m)

We reached Whites River Hut soon after 2.00 pm. No interlopers on the radar so we had the place to ourselves. Despite tomorrow’s unfriendly weather report everything here was pretty relaxed. The usual suspects weren’t badgering for an afternoon walk (unusual), the weather was warm and sunny so a lazy afternoon beckoned.

The Wash Down

We enjoyed a quick cat lick in the nearby icy snow-fed creek…. very quick, did any washing then spread clothes out to dry. The rest of the afternoon was filled with consuming cups of tea/coffee/soup; horse trading of leftover goodies, cutting wood, firing up the stove and reading whatever came to hand. Inside the hut were recycled Kosciuszko Hut Magazines and the hut log book.

Over the years the Whites River Hut log has provided us with many hours of very entertaining reading: the adventures of Bubbles the Bush Rat; the trolling of some trip leader called Robin and heaps of very well executed drawings and cartoons. Mr Klaus Hueneke should write a book about this stuff.

Friday: Whites River Hut to Guthega Power Station via Aqueduct Track and Horse Camp Hut: 10 kms.

I peeked out. Heavy roiling clouds were brewing over Gungartan and heading our way.

Early morning view from Whites River Hut

By 8.00 am we had beetled off along the Munyang Geehi road before swinging off onto the Aquaduct track which crosses the Munyang River via a weir. Nearby is an old SMA hut…locked to keep that mountain biking, sking and bushwalking riff-raff out. Especially those dastardly Mountain Bikers.

The Snowy Mountains Authority Hut: Munyang Hut.

The Aquaduct track is a gem of a walk. It winds above and parallel to the Munyang River, weaving around the hills on the 1800 metre contour. My kind of walking.

Resting on the Aquaduct Track

Mid morning we lobbed into the refurbished Horse Camp Hut for a final feed. I had been to Horse Camp before, returning from an early spring walk to Mt Jagungal with my youngest son. We got to Horse Camp just on dark. I remember how bitterly cold it was, how daggy the hut was and how our evening meal was pretty sparse, even by my standards.

Horse Camp Hut

Since then the Kosciuszko Huts Association and the Parks Service had been very busy and the hut was looking very spruce indeed. Unlike the young guy who had taken up residence in the hut. He was obviously there for the long haul or maybe the end of the world and had somehow dragged in all manner of heavy duty camping gear.

Horse Camp Hut

Horse Camp is a two room, iron clad hut set in a belt of snow gums under The Rolling Grounds. Its construction history is a bit fuzzy but was built initially in the 1930s as a shelter for stockmen working the snow lease owned by the Clarke brothers. It has the main elements of a traditional grazing era mountain hut with a bush pole frame, steeply pitched gabled roof, clad with short sheets of corrugated iron that could be packed in on horses.

At some stage over the decades it was partitioned into two rooms – a northern bunk room with a pot belly stove and the main kitchen room. A ceiling loft was added as well as a wooden floor and nifty three panel narrow windows. Several of the modifications were done by the Snowy Mountains Authority in the early 1950s. The SMA used Horse Camp as a base for their horseback survey teams working on the first Snowy Mountains Project, the Guthega Dam and associated infrastructure.

Esteemed leader: Burnsie lurking in the warmth of the kitchen of Horse Camp Hut

Leaving our young prepper friend to his preparations for the Covid19 lockdown, we drifted off. A quick descent to the Guthega Power Station to find our vehicles waiting patiently in the car park, wheels and windscreen wipers still attached, and ready to transport us back to Canberra. But not before we detoured into the Parks Visitors Centre Parc cafe in Jindabyne for a selection of their satisfyingly greasy offerings, all washed down with a decent coffee.

As always, a big thank you to my band of merry bushwalking companions: Sam, David, Joe, Richard and Brian. May we enjoy many more rambles in the back blocks of Australia’s magnificent High Country.

Journals and Articles, Throughwalks

Kiandra to Canberra on the Australian Alps Walking Track

A Late Autumn Hike from Kiandra to Canberra on the Australian Alps Walking Track

by Glenn Burns

I decided to publish my old journal of our Kiandra to Canberra hike on this website after the 2019/2020 summer fires damaged parts of the northern section of the Australian Alps Walking Track ( AAWT) . I have visited the Northern Plains many times and was fortunate to walk from Kiandra to Canberra several years ago with some friends; before the devastating fires. Much of the landscape we hiked through then was relatively intact . However in the summer of 2019/2020 this all changed. The summer fires burnt out the New South Wales trail head at Kiandra including the old Kiandra Court House, Wolgal Lodge and Matthews Cottage. The last three days of the AAWT traverses Namadgi National Park in the Australian Capital Territory. In this section the Orroral Valley and Mt Tennant were burnt. Amazingly, the old Orroral Homestead was saved.

Through the years since the early 1970s I have wandered many a kilometre over Australia’s High Country and more than once have I peered through the grimy window of a high country hut into the pre-dawn gloom… often sleet or rain or mist swirling around outside. Excellent… back to the sack for another forty winks. But then I hear my fellow hikers. Pesky eager beavers all. Busy rustling around, pulling on boots, donning warm stuff and getting ready their rain gear. Champing at the bit , ever keen to hit the trail.

Map of northern section of Aust Alpine Walking Track

Photo Gallery:

  • AAWT: Mosquito Ck Trail
  • Hainsworth Hut and Dip Ck.
  • Looking back to Kiandra before the fires of 2019/2020
  • Descending the Bullock Hill Trail to Murrumbidgee River.
  • Crossing the Gurrangorambla Range.
The AAWT From Kiandra to Canberra.

And so it was for five walkers on a late autumn, eight day traverse of the final northern section of Australian Alpine Walking Track (AAWT), stretching 105 kilometres from Kiandra on the Snowy Mountain Highway to Namadgi Park HQ on the outskirts of Canberra. The complete 659.6 kilometre AAWT crosses some of Australia’s remotest and highest alpine mountains and snowgrass plains with a weather regime that can be very hot on occasions but is more often than not cold, wet and highly unpredictable. As Alfred Wainwright, a famous English fell walker, wrote: ” There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.”

Signage on Aust Alps Walking Track

Useful Information:

NSW Dept of Lands: 1: 25000 maps : Ravine, Tantangara, Rules Point, Peppercorn, Rendezous Creek, Corin Dam, Williamsdale.

NSW Rural Fire Service Brochure: Bushfire Safety for Bushwalkers.

Chapman, J Chapman, M & Siseman J: Australian Alps Walking Track (2009)

ACT Dept of Environment: 1:20000: Namadgi Guide & Map

Day One: Saturday 11 May: Outward Bound: Kiandra to Witzes Hut: 12 kms.

Just after midday, youngest son Alex taxied our hire van to a halt outside the old Kiandra Courthouse since destroyed in the 2019/2020 summer fire season. The Old Court House was the only remaining building of the old gold mining town of Kiandra: population in 1859, 10,000; now.. zero population. A sudden population explosion as five walkers plunged out of the warm van and into a blast of cool air:  Ross , Leanda , Peter, John and last but not least, their esteemed and worthy leader, yours truly. The race was on for the few sunny spots out of the cool blustery wind. We wolfed down our Cooma take-aways, bade Alex a fond farewell, then hit the track, the Nungar Hill Trail. Our afternoon on the AAWT took us northward over rolling snowgrass plains at about 1450 metres, broken only by occasional alpine streams, which we forded with dry boots and socks intact: the Eucumbene River, Chance Creek, Kiandra Creek and just before Witzes Hut, Tantangara Creek. After Chance Creek we climbed to the crest of the Great Dividing Range, known locally as the Monaro Range. A minor blip on this undulating high plains landscape.

Start of Nungar Hill Fire Trail near Kiandra
Leaving Kiandra on the Nungar Hill Fire trail.

The seven day BOM forecast looked agreeably benign: early frosts (a mere -1° C) followed by sunny days (14° C). Perfect timing. But meteorology has a way of biting bushwalkers on the bum. In May this year maximum temperatures averaged 8.2°C while minimums hovered around a miserable 2.8°C. With a record low of minus 20°C, Kiandra is one of the coldest places on the Australian mainland. Fortunately for this leader, my walking companions, all experienced bushwalkers, were kitted out for all eventualities. But most impressive of all was that they remained unfailingly positive and obliging under some pretty trying conditions.

Australian Alps Walking Track near Pockets Hut
A cold day on High Plains of Kosciuszko.

The huge grassy plains are an ancient peneplaned surface. They are the almost level remains of a long eroded mountain range system that was later uplifted in a major tectonic movement of the earth’s crust known as the Kosciuszko Uplift thus forming the Kosciuszko Plateau. The combination of cold air and flat topography created ideal conditions for natural high plain grasslands, technically referred to as the Northern Cold Air Drainage Plains. These were highly prized for summer grazing.

View across High Plains of Kosciuszko National Park from Mt Gingera.
View across High Plains of Kosciuszko from Mt Gingera ACT.

Witzes Hut, possibly a corruption of Whites Hut, like many Kosciuszko huts is set in a picturesque shelter belt of snow gums. Built in 1882 it is a vertical slab wooden hut, single room (about 6m x 3m) with a wooden floor and open fireplace. It is just one of many huts in Kosciuszko: cultural relics from the days of summer cattle and sheep grazing on the high plains. They are invariably basic: shelters of last resort according to the NPWS signs tacked to the doors. Our late season crossing of the AAWT became hut dependant as the weather closed in. Although we had tents, it was a irresistable temptation for these warm-blooded Queenslanders to sidle into a snug dry hut at day’s end.

Witzes Hut Kosciuszko National Park
“Is there room at the inn ?” Witzes Hut on Nungar Hill Fire Trail.
Witzes Hut. Kosciuszko National Park.
Witzes Hut on Nungar Hill Fire Trail.

Day Two: Sunday 12 May: Hayburners of the High Plains:  Witzes to Hainsworth Hut: 23 kms.

At 23 kilometres, a longish day beckoned. As a graduate of the Brian Manuel School of Bushwalking I had slyly insinuated to my friends that there was “No hurry” to pack up in the mornings. For those who have not been on the receiving end of this daily regime, expect a rousting out of your downy nest well before sunrise, about 5.00am is Brian’s preferred time. Unsurprisingly, a heavy frost carpeted the grass outside. Meanwhile, inside, my scouting friends Peter and John had worked their magic with two sticks, or whatever they use these days, and had succeeded in cranking up a fire of sorts, which we kept going until the last possible moment. Hut etiquette : Always make sure to thoroughly extinguish any fire before leaving the hut.

On schedule at 7.30 we scrunched off along the Bullock Hill Trail. Ghosts in the freezing mist, frost nipping at any gloveless paws. Before long the mist dispersed, revealing a brilliant blue sky and vast frosted grassy plains. Sunny with the max creeping up to a sizzling 13°C. Even the brumbies were out picnicking in the glorious autumn sunshine.

Cold morning on Bullock Hill Trail
Frosty morning on Bullock Hill trail.

Brumbies aka Wild Horses aka Feral Horses

A brumby sighting is always exciting for those misguided equinophiles we were harbouring in our midst. But brumbies are feral horses, much the same status as foxes, cats, goats, deer and pigs. And as such they have no place in these fragile alpine ecosystems. In the ACT they are regularly culled, but in NSW herds of these hayburners cavort over the snowgrass plains with impunity: brunching on the juiciest alpine wildflowers, carving out innumerable tracks through the scrub and trashing alpine streams and swamps with their hooves.

The Parks service does allow horse riding in Northern Kosciuszko and provides horse camps with yards , water troughs, loading ramps, hitching rails and full camping facilities. From my observations recreational horse riders act responsibly in the alpine environment by keeping to designated management tracks and horse trails . Feral horses are a different matter entirely.

Brumby damage. Kosciuszko National Park
Pugging at a creek crossing in the High Country.

In an attempt to manage brumbies, a 2016 draft Wild Horse Management Plan recommended reducing numbers in Kosciuszko by 90% over 20 years, primarily through culling. That would have left about 600 horses in the park. Naturally the NSW parliament ignored the advice of its own scientific panel so there was no cull. Instead, the NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro hatched his own plan: The Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Bill 2018. The bill would prohibit lethal culling because of the heritage significance of brumbies. I, too, can understand the cultural imperative of maintaining a small sustainable herd of brumbies but there are still serious questions to be answered about the environmental impacts of large numbers of brumbies. The NSW Threatened Species Scientific Committee has described the damage done by brumbies as a ‘key threatening process’.

Brumbies. Kosciuszko National Park
Small herd of grazing brumbies.

Stop Press: 2020 Update on the Brumbies

” About 4000 feral horses will be removed from Kosciuszko national park in New South Wales as part of an emergency response to protect the alpine ecosystem after large areas were devastated by bushfires. ” Graham Readfearn. The Guardian . 20 Feb 2020

In February 2020 the NSW Environment Minister Matt Kern announced ” the largest removal of horses in the park’s history”. He had an agreement between ” horse lovers and National Park lovers” to remove wild horses after the unprecedented bushfire damage over the Nungar, Boggy, Kiandra and Cooleman Plains of Northern Kosciuszko.

Recent surveys estimated wild horse numbers increasing from 6000 in 2014 to 19000 in 2019. Clearly environmentally unsustainable in these burnt out landscapes. Minister Kern was reporting on the outcome of a meeting of the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Community Advisory Panel. It is to be hoped that the promised action is taken quickly to reduce horse numbers in the fragile High Plains.

Our first obstacle was the mighty Murrumbidgee. We deployed a tried and tested technique, fanning out until someone discovered a likely looking rock or gravel bar. Okay for the four males, each outfitted with long spindly shanks but a big leap of faith for the resident shorty. Then came one of our few cross-country sections, a mere eight kilometres out to the Port Phillip Trail. For this geographically tricky bit I pressed into service my navigators. Using Peter’s trusty GPS as insurance they tracked to a line of old telegraph poles, which marched across the hills ahead, leading us inexorably towards the dusty Port Phillip Trail on Long Plain. Navigators extraordinaire.

Murrumbidgee River. Kosciuszko National Park.
The climb out of the Murrumbidgee River.

More pleasing was John’s distant sighting of the alpine dingo near the Murrumbidgee River crossing. In all my walks in the high country I have had only one previous encounter with this splendid canine, a subspecies of the grey wolf. Today this solitary light coloured dingo stalked us from afar, surreptitiously tracking our movements from behind clumps of snowgrass. My dingo bible, Laurie Corbett’s The Dingo in Australia and Asia, says that the alpines are a distinctive subspecies, one of three in Australia. They feast on rabbit, wallaby, wombat with the occasional brumby foal thrown in as a special treat. They are actually quite lazy hounds, rarely travelling more than two kilometres a day and their territories are comparatively small .

By now it was it was late in the day and with ugly dark clouds brewing we wasted no time, bypassing Millers Hut and Ghost Gully Campsite to reach Hainsworth Hut, on Dip Creek.

Millers Hut. Kosciuszko National Park.
Millers Hut near the Port Phillip Trail.

Just in time for a quick refreshing dip before sunset. Not. Hainsworth Hut, built in 1952, is the archetypal high country hut: a windowless coffin of corrugated iron, two rooms and a large open fireplace at one end. But hugely welcome for these weary walkers. A long 23 kilometre day of up hill and down dale.

Hainsworth Hut. Kosciuszko National Park.
Hainsworth Hut.

Day Three: Monday 13 May: Aquabatics: Hainsworth to Pockets Hut via Bill Jones Hut: 24 kms.

7.30. We beetled off into light drifting rain, eastwards along the Mosquito Creek Trail, up and over the Gurrangorambla Range (Gurrangorambla granophyre – a hard, fine- grained granite) and then descended onto the Silurian limestones of Cooleman Plain. The Cooleman is similar in appearance to the other high plains we had traversed, but as it is underlain by limestone it displays the distinctive landforms of a karst landscape: subterranean creeks, caves, sink holes, stalactites, stalagmites, gorges and occasional brachiopod fossils. When T.A. Murray first saw Cooleman in 1839 he described it as “almost treeless with grasses growing to stirrup height.”

Gurrangorambla Range. Kosciuszko National Park
Climbing over the Gurrangorambla Range at about 1600 metres.

With the cool, wet and windy conditions persisting we ducked into to Bill Jones hut for our morning tea. The hut is standard daggy and sports a dirt floor, but it was a haven for these five bedraggled walkers. Peter set to and soon had a cheery fire underway then we stood around drinking our piping hot mugs of tea and coffee. Wonderful.

Bill Jones Hut. Kosciuszko National Park.
Bill Jones Hut on the edge of the Cooleman Plain.

My fellow aquabots and I seemed less than enthusiastic about doing the tent thing at Bluewater Holes limestone area so it was onward to Pockets Hut, a very comfortable wet weather bolt hole. Pockets is a large four-roomer weatherboard built in the 1930’s, originally hooked up with hot water and electricity. We settled in: a comforting fire, clothes drying in front of the fireplace, hot brews and long nana- naps snug in our warm sleeping bags. Life couldn’t be better.

Pockets Hut.

Day Four: Tuesday 14 May: Pockets Hut to Bluewater Holes via Black Mountain: 14 kms.

A tad cool this morning, -2°C. I had naively promised an easy day walk along 4WD trails back to the Bluewater Holes limestone area on Cave Creek. But as is often the way when associating with these deviant bushwalking types some genius suggested a cross-country “short cut”, contouring around the 1497 metre Black Mountain then dropping into Cave Creek. With a clearing sky, an easy day walk ahead, things were definitely on the up and up. Or so I thought. We quickly abandoned this contouring lurk, pushed ever uphill towards the summit by massively dense stands of alpine undergrowth. This was bush-bashing on steroids. In the good old days the handy machete would have swung into action to clear the way ahead. Luckily, John, who is an excellent navigator, as well as scrub-basher, and the ‘genius’ who got us into this predicament, found the rocky summit and then led us down the long northern ridge to land precisely where we needed to be in Cave Creek.

After lunch we poked our way downstream, criss-crossing Cave Creek, checking out Clarke Gorge, Barbers Cave, the Bluewater Hole and Coolaman Cave, a cursory survey at best. Cave Creek is worthy of several days of exploration but with the sky clouding over (think: it’s going to dump snow now) and the wind rising we hoofed off on the Bluewater Holes Trail toward Pockets. But not before considerable geographical angst as the four males bickered about the location of the trail head. Attn all male leaders: when in doubt always listen carefully to the female of the species who actually bother to read the maps on the Parks information boards.

Blue Waterholes on Cave Creek. Kosciuszko National Park.
Blue Waterholes limestone area: Cave Creek.

Day Five: Wednesday 15 May: An Antipodean Christmas: Pockets to Oldfields Hut: 7 kms.

I peeked out. A white mantle of snow covered all. Sleet floated down from a sullen sky. We could freeze our butts off in this stuff but the wild weather gave an exciting edge to the walk. Today’s maximum temperature barely made 3°C.

Pockets Hut. Kosciuszko National Park.
A cold morning at Pockets Hut.

The walk across the snowy plains towards Murray Gap Trail was just magic, snow carpetting the vast Tantangara Plain.  After a Snowy Mountains Hydro valve house (the Goodradigbee Aqueduct) the AAWT climbs over a forested ridge before descending to fetch up at on the river flats of the Goodradigbee River. Tucked away in a stand of gnarled black sallees is Oldfields Hut.

Tantangara Plain. Kosciuszko National Park.
Tantangara Plain enroute to Oldfields Hut.

Oldfields, with slab walls and a long verandah, was constructed in 1925 and is said to have excellent views to Bimberi Peak (1913 m) and Mt Murray (1845 m) on the ACT/NSW border. Not today; mist and dumps of sleet obscured any views to the east. Our immediate priority as always was to scrounge up a supply of firewood. Then John and Co cut the wood into useable billets. The golden rule of the huts is to always replace any timber burnt and leave a supply of dry kindling. Which we did in spades.

Oldfields Hut. Kosciuszko National Park.
Oldfields Hut.

Day Six: Thursday 16 May: Border Hoppers: Oldfields Hut to Sawpit Ck camp: 18.7 kms.

Today we would bid farewell to the high grasslands of Kosciuszko and traverse into the forested ranges of the Bimberi Wilderness and Namadgi National Park for our final three days. We rugged up for the perverse conditions; at Oldfields my pack thermometer read 0°C while maximum temperatures barely held at 2°C all day. Westerly winds gusted to 70 km/h. The morning’s walk would climb 245 metres into Murrays Gap and at 1600 metres we copped the full force of the bad weather coming from the west. Sleet blanketed the mountain slopes and the wind drove rain and sleet horizontally onto our backs.

But soon we descended, over the Cotter Fault line and into the Cotter River System. The weather backed off and a watery sun finally leaked a few rays through a clearing sky. Apart from cool windy conditions the wet weather was behind us. Relieved at this change of fortunes our little party trotted on, jaunty like: past Cotter Hut (locked to keep those dodgy bushwalkers at bay), and past our turn-off to the Cotter Gap track. The site of another male navigational misadventure and bailed out again by Leanda who had taken the time to peruse a rat-eared A4 map tacked to a post. For the rest of the day we climbed steadily 350 metres up to Cotter Gap and then descended steeply to our cramped bush campsite on Sawpit Creek. No more days of lurking in comfortable bush huts for this lot. Beyond Cotter Gap a significant change in vegetation occurs; gone are the alpine species, replaced by a drier Eucalypt forest growing on the granites of the vast Murrumbidgee Batholith.

Day Seven: Friday 17 May: One small step for Man: Sawpit Ck to Honeysuckle Ck: 15.6 kms.

With Ross now in full flight mode it was a quick hop down into the grasslands of the narrow Orroral Valley and its herds of Eastern Grey Kangaroos. We sprawled out in the grass, absorbing the warmth of the sun on our tummies for the first time in several days. Sheer bliss. Further down the Orroral Valley is the Orroral Homestead and shearing shed built in the 1860s. It has three rooms, chimney at each end and a full length verandah on the front. As tempting as this sounded to us, overnight stays by bushwalkers are strictly verboten.

Orroral Valley and Orroral Homestead. ACT.
Orroral Valley and Orroral Homestead

Onward and upward to the well appointed Honeysuckle Creek camping ground, with the small matter of a 420 metre ascent onto the Orroral Ridge at 1350 metres to get there. Honeysuckle is, like the Orroral Valley, the site of a former space tracking station. A series of excellent info boards informed us that it operated from 1966 to 1981 and was a vital part of communications for the Apollo moon missions, Skylab, Voyager and Pioneer deep space probes. This included The Apollo 11 mission and Neil Armstrong’s signature, “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Day Eight: Saturday 18 May: Homeward Bound: Honeysuckle to Namadgi Park HQ: 15.4 kms.

After an all-night rolling stoush with an encampment of feral Rover Scouts we set off in another heavy frost (- 0.3°C) on our final leg of the AAWT via Booroomba Rocks. This granite outcrop at 1372 metres afforded us speccy views across the plains to Canberra. Several hot air balloons hung in the still air above the city. But the AAWT wasn’t quite finished with us yet. Just before lunch Ross whipped us up the 240 metres to our lunch spot near Mt Tennent (1384 m), about an hour from the trail exit. You can imagine that I was pretty taken-aback when I pulled my tent fly out for a drying in the sun, and discovered that after five hours in my pack it was still heavily encrusted with layers of ice.

Thus ended one of Australia’s best long distance walks: over high ranges, extensive snowgrass plains, swampy meadows and sinuous alpine streams. For my money the Kiandra to Canberra section was an unforgettable bushwalking experience. Brilliant high plains scenery, historic huts, caves, gorges, dingoes, brumbies and first-rate walking companions. Who could ask for more? And who among us will ever forget the wild and woolly weather?

Huts destroyed in the 2019/2020 summer fires

Sawyers Hut, Wolgol Lodge, Kiandra Court House, Pattersons Hut, Matthews Cottage, Round Mountain Hut, Linesmans No3 Fifteen Mile Spur (1950), Linesman No 3 Fifteen Mile Spur (1980),Vickerys Hut, Delaneys Hut, Happys Hut, Brooks Hut ( badly burnt), Bradley and O’Briens, Four Mile and Demandering.

Journals and Articles, Throughwalks

Northern Sundown National Park.

By Glenn Burns

 With the Easter long weekend closing in, I wasn’t surprised when my bushwalking friend Brian appeared at the front door clutching one of his well-used topo maps and muttering about “getting away from the crowds over Easter.” Here’s a thing about Brian. He’s a map-man of the old school. There’s nothing much he likes better than to spread out a map, trace a finger along ridge and river and, hey presto a walk is born. Strangely though, I have rarely seen him brandishing a compass and never a GPS.

Photo Gallery

  • Mt Lofty
  • Severn River
  • Cascades
  • Skirting a large waterhole on the Severn River, Sundown NP

As more and more wilderness areas fall to incursions of the Great Walk track builders, ‘tell-all’ guidebooks and those viral GPS track logs, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a throughwalk that still has some tantalising unknowns. But I can always rely on Brian to trawl through his map cupboard and come up with something decent; in this case an “exploratory” into northern Sundown National Park, south-west of Stanthorpe. Some say that the name Sundown is said to come from the idea that its valleys are so deep that it’s always ‘Sundown’. Others claim that the name is in keeping with the tradition of using astronomical place names in the area, but I couldn’t find much evidence for this interpretation, apart from references to Comet Creek, Comet Mine, and Arcturus Mine.

Map of Northern Sundown National Park. Qld.
Map of Nth Sundown NP

Sundown offers a terrain of deeply incised creeks, gorges, waterfalls and steep stony ridges rising to over 1000 metres on the Roberts Range. As well, it has an interesting cultural heritage of aboriginal occupation, pastoralism and later on, mining. Brian had nutted out a 54 kilometre walk that had some navigational problems and, not unexpectedly, there was the obligatory physical challenge. It would also give us some respite from camping near raucous Easter 4WDers and was remote enough to be off the radar for most of the latter-day bushwalking fraternity.

Reedy Waterhole Campsite. Sundown National Park.
4WD campsite at the Reedy Waterhole

Although only thirty kilometres from the well known Girraween National Park as the crow flies, the 12910 hectare Sundown National Park has little in common with the benign rounded tor landscapes of the Stanthorpe Granites. Early settlers described Sundown’s rugged and rocky terrain as “traprock”, geologically incorrect, but a good descriptor all the same. Traprock is a term originally applied to basalt landscapes in the UK, while Sundown’s lithology is predominately sedimentary which has been partially altered by heat and pressure to form metasediments. What it does share with Girraween is its propensity for cold weather. This is Queensland’s coldest district; eight months have temperatures below o°C, with -10.6C° the lowest. Fortunately the average minimum for April is a comfortable 9.5C°.

The Severn River, named after the Severn River in England, has incised deeply into the traprock and its course is lined with numerous deep permanent waterholes, many bordered by vertical red clifflines. No danger of going thirsty here even though the park lies predominately on the western side of The Great Dividing Range. In fact, at the end of the wettest Queensland summer in 40 years the park ranger reported to Brian that the Severn was still in moderate spate and we could expect piles of flood debris.

Severn River. Sundown National Park.
One of many river crossings on the Severn River.
Friday : Sundown Homestead site to Severn River via Mt Lofty: 10 kms.

My fellow walkers assembled at the old Sundown Homestead site soon after 1.00 pm, in warm humid conditions.

Old Sundown Homestead. Sundown National Park. Qld.
Old Sundown Homestead.

Our party was eight in total: Brian (leader), Malcolm and Jenny, Bernard (an uber-fit septuagenarian), Russell (aka Starkie) Leanda, and my fellow ailurophile, Richard. Our immediate task was to sweat up the 260m, three kilometre climb to Mt Lofty, a long whaleback feature topping out at 1067 metres. Mt Lofty is said to have been named thus as it was the highest point on the road leading to the Sundown Mine, hence it was “Lofty”. Naturally the Law of Diminishing Returns always applies and our efforts ended in an obscure and thickly vegetated summit. View factor: pretty average, though a vast improvement on Brian’s infamous Kerries whiteout . But this didn’t stop Brian bagging it as one of his 1000 metre peaks, celebrating its capture with a wee dram of someone’s hootch.

View from Mt Lofty. Sundown National Park. Qld.
View from Mt Lofty. 1067 metres.

Then came the descent to the Severn River; a long, roller-coasting two kilometre fire trail that rode up and down over a series of hillocks, ever decreasing in height down to the river at 600m. In fading light a meandering 4WD track carted us off towards our picturesque overnight campsite at Lowe’s Waterhole: an open grassy clearing complete with its own melancholic collection of decrepit yards, a tottering corrugated iron shack and ancient barbed wire fencing. Lowe’s Waterhole was named for a local selector but it is also called Koinas Tanks, which doesn’t always appear on maps. Koina was a Stanthorpe plumber.

Corrugated iron shed at Lowes Waterhole.

These were relicts of bygone times when Sundown was a pastoral run. It was part of the much larger Mingoola, Nundubbermere and Ballandean Stations, all surviving as parish names on our topographic map, as well as Nundubbermere Falls and Mingoola Trig. These three holdings were subdivided into smaller leasehold blocks in the late 1800’s and some of the newly created Sundown Run was cleared for fine wool production; hence our grassy campsite glade.

Back in the 1840’s these holdings were at the far flung reaches of the Empire; conditions for the shepherds could be spartan, violent and unpredictable. On nearby Pikedale Station when Chinese shepherds struck for higher wages, the manager was one Mr H. B. Fitz… said to be called Murdering Fitz. Fitz punched the spokesman and killed him with one blow. Fitz surrendered to a magistrate but as there were no white witnesses he was soon released. He is also said to have fed poisoned flour to the Chinese when their annual payments were due.

Meanwhile back in the 21st century our seven tents soon scattered through a lightly forested grove of cypress pines. We were perched on a low bluff overlooking the Severn where it plunged through a rocky choke; occasional camp noises drifted over the roar of the water from the 4WD camp on the northern bank. Secure in our isolation we settled in around the campfire. Above, the clear sky showed the Milky Way to perfection and such was the clarity that I could easily pick out the dark patches of the Coal Sacks and the misty smudges of the Magellanic Clouds.

Campsite at Lowes Waterhole.
Campsite at Lowes Waterhole.
Saturday : Lowe’s Waterhole to Campsite 2: 11 kms.

Today we would track the river westerly past the junction to Nundubbermere Falls and then on a long six kilometre run to the south, stopping somewhere, as yet undetermined, but just short of Reedy Waterhole where quadzillions of 4WDers would be lurking; a veritable village of camper trailers and safari tents even though access to Reedy and Burrows Waterholes is little better than a glorified goat track. But locals call it the “Sundown Road”.

Perhaps our modern adventurers gliding along in their all-terrain wagons could spare a thought for Sydney Skertchly, a government geologist who visited Sundown in 1897. He wrote:

“ …we had horrible weather, fog, and rain, and though we stayed a day after we had eaten our last bit of food… we were obliged to return to Ballandean, as the rain showed no sign of abating. My horse drowned himself in a waterhole and one of our men had to be sent back ill…yet I never enjoyed myself more. I shall long remember our last night. Four of us had dined of less than half-a-loaf of bread and we sat around the camp fire sipping second-hand tea, while a stockman recited Gordon’s poems as a substitute for supper.”

As for our little band of wanderers, our river outing, although not as extreme, would turn out to be a tad damp, for, as the Ranger had predicted, the river was flowing strongly over a succession of rock bars, chokes and rapids. Nary a sandy beach in sight.

Speaking of survival, several shots from a .22 rifle rang out from the far bank; I glanced around at my companions; business as usual, not a whisker twitched. Men of Steel. Across the river our weekend warriors probably thought they could bag one of the wild deer that roam the park, but failing that, there are plenty of other ferals to choose from: goats, pigs, foxes, rabbits, hares and moggies. Good riddens many would say, although one of our fellow walkers had to be weaned off a lingering attachment to “cute little deers”. Still I didn’t have heart to mention that the Parks Service conducts regular culls of deer and such like; a recent tally being 190 deer, 580 goats, 8 pigs and 5 foxes.

8.00 am found us skirting along the bluffs that paralleled the river, just upstream of the Nundubbermere Creek Junction. But with steep ridgelines and cliffs dipping into the river ahead it was pretty obvious that we would need to cross; a pattern of travel that was repeated with monotonous regularity of most of the day. Distance elapsed: a fraction under one kilometre from camp. This was shaping up to be one excruciatingly slow walk.

But slow is good. A chance to potter along, immersed in the ever changing riverscape: long stretches of pool and riffle, interspersed with short runs of rock and rapids; the riverine forests of she-oak, river red gums, tea-tree and bottle brush; skinks basking; and pied cormorants perched on logs, wings outstretched.

Looking downstream from Lowes Waterhole. Sundown Natioal Park. Qld.
Looking downstream from near Lowes Waterhole.

Back on the Severn, we continued picking our way along the bluff scanning for a likely crossing point; a nice dry rocky bar would do me just fine. Brian, who gets impatient with this sort of “fraffing around,” finally blew a gasket, pulled over and announced: “We’re crossing here.” Here, was a line of rapids shooting over a waterfall; a particularly boisterous section of the river if I may say so. Bernard and I, wily old veterans of Brian’s many anti-fraffing campaigns, held back while our safe egress across to the other bank was secured. Safe being a relative term, but apparently a too-short length of climbing tape, no anchor points, slimy rocks, unwieldy packs, racing water and three burly blokes made it ok. And it was.

In the river bed far ahead I could make out a solitary female figure of ample frame draped decorously over a boulder; this could only be the generously proportioned Mma Precious Ramotswe, proprietor of the Number One Detective Agency. On closer inspection we revised this to merely a lady scoutmaster who had just released a gaggle of teenage girls, now straggling off into the wild. Grossly under prepared as it turned out, but it is difficult to be overly critical when the girls were out there having a go.

We caught up with the girls soon enough having retrieved one of their cast-offs… Dad’s favourite hike tent. These kids deserved better than to be let loose with ill-fitting day packs trailing an assortment of tents, tarps and those back-breaking blue sleeping mats, known by my sons as“portable concrete”.

Here is the conundrum for all youth leaders. That fine balance between risk aversion and engendering a sense of competence and adventure. The girls had no PLB and were relying on a UHF radio which was, as they soon discovered, pretty much useless in this rugged hilly terrain. But, still, we impressed to see them out there on a fairly challenging walk and, as it turned out, succeeding.

Back on the river we worked our way downstream clocking up a fraction over one kilometre an hour. With numerous crossings and water occasionally lapping at the sporrans of the resident short-arses we quickly got over trying to keep boots and socks dry and took to the water, just like the wood ducks we kept flushing up ahead of us. As for our three Kiwi tramping companions, all this river walking brought on a nostalgia for things they thought they had left behind in The Land of the Long Black Cloud: wet boots, soppy socks and grossed-up wrinkly feet. Late in the afternoon, much later than expected, we called it a day and set up our tents at campsite 2, a dank grove on the western bank located between Red Rock Waterhole and Rudders Waterhole, having travelled a paltry 11 kilometres for the day.

Pack lowering. Severn River.
Frequent pack lowering.
Sunday : Campsite 2 to Pump Waterhole 1.5 kms.

As the sky lightened I woke to a muted thumping outside my tent. Two chocolate eggs in terminal meltdown were stacked neatly outside my tent flap. Richard claimed that it was just Starkie pretending to be the Easter Bunny, but you and I know better. Fortified by a breakfast of porridge and two chocolate eggs sluiced down with lukewarm coffee, I took off on the short hop to Pump Waterhole, our campsite for the next two nights. Our first task was to find a largish, flat, grassy area.

Malcolm and Brian gamely tackled yet another river crossing, foxed up a campsite on the other bank and came back with sly grins and glowing reports of our new home. But truth will out; a poxy campsite at best… if I were feeling generous in my praise, which I wasn’t. This previously grassy river flat that had been flood-scoured leaving trails of rounded river boulders and debris piles of uprooted she-oaks. Tent sites were in short supply and so pitching our tents required some serious high order spatial sequencing. Docking first was Bernard’s Barnum and Bailey big-top sporting a quarter hectare footprint; next came Malcolm and Jenny’s canary yellow stately pleasure dome and finally the swarm of one-maners came to rest, wherever. In the cool of late afternoon and when seen in the lengthening shadows, our quiet little campsite grew on me, but more of that later. I believe the name Pump Waterhole may have derived from its use as a source of water for mining or for watering stock. There are precedents for this as the Beehive Mine, for example, used a steam pump to lift water 152 metres from a dam on Red Rock Creek.

Severn River. Sundown National Park. Qld.
More river crossings.

After a brief respite, Brian had determined that there would be no skiving off on his watch and directed this slack and idle crew to venture forth and use their R&R time in something productive; like, say, a three or four kilometre walk to the Rats Castle via Reedy Waterhole Campsite. Reedy was pretty much as expected: a good place to avoid over Easter. Nearby is the much larger Burrows Waterhole campsite which was named after Fredrick James Burrows, a WW1 veteran who suicided in 1934 and his grave is said to be on the northern side of the river, but I didn’t tell Brian that. He is overly fond of chasing down stuff like that.

And so it was onward to the Rats… or should have been, except for the dumb-cluck navigators. Both Brian and I had been to the Rats before but now we were approaching from a different direction. Our walk this time went awry when the combined efforts of Richard’s GPS, my map and compass skills and Brian’s usually intuitive bump of locality all conspired to direct us down a shady beckoning track and place us on the wrong ridgeline.

View from Rats Castle. Severn River. Sundown National Park. Qld.
View from Rats Castle looking upstream

Rats Castle was tantalizingly close, a mere kilometre as the crow flies but could have been on the Moon as it was now 1.00 pm our final turn-around time. So we propped where we were, savoured our lunch in a cool woodland of white cypress pines perched high above the Severn River valley. Rats is an interesting geological feature and major landmark on the Severn. It is a ridge of hard fine-grained granite which has intruded into the surrounding metasediments of the Texas Beds, weakened during a major fracturing in the Severn River Fracture Zone. Technically it is a dyke, a vertical intrusion. Early shepherds called it Rats Castle because when it was first seen it was home to small rock wallabies, then commonly called rats. Retracing footsteps we came to the cleared paddock we had walked through several hours previously but this time stopped to enjoy panoramic views across to Mt Lofty but more importantly Red Rock Falls, tomorrow’s objective. We could even see the ridgeline that we would follow up in the morning.

Sundown National Park. Qld.
Heading back to campsite at Pump waterhole

On our return to Pump Waterhole, things were on the up and up. A Sea World style slippery-dip swim, copious supplies of firewood, a now shaded campsite and a good feed and all was well in the circus. For me at least, but not for a forlorn clutch of teenage girls, weary and sunburnt, who limped through in the fading light; one in tears. Uncle Brian took pity, showed them where they were on the map; reassured them that they were getting close to civilisation and their pick-up point and gently packed them off downstream. As I watched their little dejected backs disappear over the promontory of rock near our tents it suddenly occurred to me that I was looking at a Rats Castle look-a-like. Closer inspection revealed it was indeed a granitic dyke intruded through the local traprock. Under our noses the whole time; how could that be? I, too, could have wept.

Monday : Pump Waterhole to Red Rock Falls: 7 kms.

An uphill sort of day; but the weather was kind, cool with light winds. Just as well for we faced a slow grind out of the Severn River Valley by way of a succession of high points: 731m, 828m, 995m, 1027m and finally reaching the high tops at 1032m, an altitude gain of 700 metres. No nav stuff-ups allowed; Richard and I were on the yellow card. But we weren’t taking any chances with today’s route and this time had fed a truck load of waypoints into the GPS just in case the old map and compass led us astray, again. Morning tea was on an open bald, reminiscent of the Bunya Mountains, but just an old cleared grazing paddock, but with superb views across to Mt Lofty and Red Rock Falls.

Roberts Range. Sundown National Park. Qld.
View back to the tops of Roberts Range

 Our morning’s walk would traverse the Sundown Resources Reserve, a reminder of Sundown’s mining past. The mineral deposits formed where the Ruby Creek Granites contacted the overlying traprock (Texas Beds) or are found in fractures above the granite intrusion. Here there are occurrences of molybdenite, tungsten, copper, arsenic and tin, in fact the first deposit of tin in Australia was found on the Nundubbermere Run in 1854.

The Sundown Tin Mine opened in 1893 and operated until 1923 when it closed only to re-open in 1953 until 1956. It was by far the biggest lode producer in the area but other mines were Carpenters Gully, The Orient, and Beehive. Copper sulphides were worked at The Sundown Copper Mine and nearby Comet Mine. Arsenic was extracted in the early 1900s at Beecroft, Sundown Copper and The Orient mines.

Beecroft Mine. Sundown Resources Reserve. Qld.
Beecroft Mine

 Arsenic was an important constituent in prickly pear poison, cattle dips and a hardener for the lead in bullets. Unfortunately arsenic oxide treatment has contaminated Little Sundown Creek and I have read that walkers are advised not to drink the water in Little Sundown below the mines. Fortunately small lodes, lack of water and poor access makes any further exploitation of the reserve unlikely.

After a climb of 700m over 5.5 kilometres we reached the high range country and were about to re-enter the national park. The Queensland-New South Wales border was a mere 1.5 kilometres to our south and with the lunch worms gnawing we steered to a small shady dam. Replete we shuffled off to set up camp on Red Rock Creek, one kilometre upstream from Red Rock Falls. We had left the drier woodlands and vine scrubs far behind and our small tent city now snuggled under a tall Eucalypt Forest of yellow box, brown box and Tenterfield woolybutt . The climatic conditions at 1000 metres being cooler and moister, are conducive to the growth of this taller forest.

Red Rock Falls are etched into the Ruby Creek Granites and drop vertically a massive 150 metres. Scary. But not to Bernard who teetered, camera in hand, along the rim banging off shot after shot. I decided it was better not to watch his impending demise.

Above Red Rock Falls. Sundown National Park. Qld.
The lip of Red Rock Falls

But look I did, elsewhere… scanning the precipitous clifflines for tell-tale white stains that would signal the presence of Peregine Falcons as promised in the Parks brochure. None, neither seen nor heard. So I turned my attention to the views down Red Rock Gorge to its junction with the Severn; in fact it meets the Severn very close to our campsite of Saturday night. In the far distance, at ten kilometres to our north west was Jibbinbar Mountain (975m), our sister outcrop of Ruby Creek Granite and also the site of a government arsenic plant in the 1920s. Ruby Creek, the location for the origin descriptor of the granite that bears its name is found on the New England Tableland, close to Gibraltar Range National Park.

Red Rock Falls. Sundown National Park. Qld.
Looking down on Red Rock Falls

After more goofing around, we took our leave and clambered up to the tourist lookout above, and did touristy things…. more photos, admired the views anew and read the park info board about Sundown’s mining past and then it was off for our final night out on the track and hopefully a decent feed consisting of more than half-a-loaf of bread and second hand tea.

Tuesday : Red Rock Creek Campsite to Sundown Homestead site: 5 kms:

An easy morning’s downhill canter took us into the old Sundown site, sooner than we thought. By 10.00 am it was all over but the shouting… at Richard’s rascally Land Rover Defender if it refused to start. But it did and within the hour we dismounted at the Stanthorpe Bakery for some substantial victuals:a pie or two, spinach and fetta rolls, vanilla slices, cream buns and such like, all washed down with mugs of delicious hot coffee. Eat your heart out Mr Sydney Skertchly.

Journals and Articles, Throughwalks

Hiking the High Plains of Northern Kosciuszko

by Glenn Burns

Northern Kosciuszko is a subdued 1400 metre landscape of rolling sub-alpine grasslands separated by low snow gum clad hills and ranges rising to a maximum of about 1600 metres. This vast upland has a different feel to the rugged landscapes of southern Kosciuszko where 2000 metre whaleback mountains and ridges predominate. With its open vistas, network of mountain huts and more benign weather, northern Kosciuszko offers its own easier but distinctive walking opportunities.

A Hike in Australia’s High Country†

 Can I tempt you with a leisurely 50 kilometre, 6 day walk in the high country of northern Kosciuszko National Park? Nothing too taxing.  Imagine stepping out along grassy 4WD tracks as they wind up through snow gum woodlands to low alpine passes then gently descend to vast open plains of swaying tussock grasses. Maybe camping overnight near historic mountain huts? Throw in showy alpine wildflowers, perhaps a sighting of an elusive wombat, limestone caves, brilliantly coloured Flame Robins, or maybe the eerie nocturnal call of a Boobook as you lie snug in a warm sleeping bag.  With these promises in mind, on a balmy November evening, seven walkers left Ghost Gully Campground on Long Plain to enjoy six days of hiking across the high plains of northern Kosciuszko. Continue reading Hiking the High Plains of Northern Kosciuszko →