BushwalkBushwalk
The Jagungal Wilderness area of Kosciuszko National Park has great appeal for me as a bushwalker. I love the remoteness, the lack of access by four wheel drivers, the potential for a cooler walk at higher altitudes in the warmer months, the abundant availability of water and most of all I love the high country huts. The character, the history, the interest as well as the facilities; somewhere to sit, somewhere to shelter, somewhere to cook and somewhere to enjoy a fire perhaps on a cold night. These huts become points of reference for me as I am sure they do for many other walkers; we plan our walks around them.
Kidmans Hut Joanne Bell
Kidmans Hut Walk
Joanne Bell
6 | BWA December 2017
Patrea as we ascended ridge near Mill FlatJoanne Bell
In early 2017 I was delighted to discover that a Bushwalk Australia forum member Robert Green had written a book Exploring the Jagungal Wilderness. I wasted no time in contacting Robert in Canberra and obtaining his book. The natural progression from there was of course to plan a walk. I had not done much off-track walking in the Jagungal area, but armed with the notes from Robert’s book, the relevant topographic map and a quick revision of my navigation skills I felt confident I could find my way and was ready to seek out some of the huts which I had missed on my previous “on-track” visits.
In February it so happened that I had a few days to spare, and a friend who I had promised to introduce to overnight bushwalking and an upcoming longer walk where I wanted to test out some gear. I chose Kidmans Hut as our destination and plans were made.
We set off on a Tuesday morning and drove from our home town of Walwa, in the Upper Murray region of Victoria up over the Alpine Way. We passed Thredbo and stopped at Jindabyne for a quick coffee, then drove north out of town towards Lake Eucumbene. We turned off the Eucumbene Road onto the Nimmo Road then enjoyed some mild four wheel driving along the Gungarlin Powerline Trail to the Gungarlin River camping area.
This camping area was the start of the walk, and we reached it around midday. We set off with high energy along the trail across open plains to our first stop at Daveys Hut, where a few adjustments were made to make shoes and packs more comfortable. From Daveys Hut we made our way to Teddys Creek and followed this on a four wheel drive trail for a few kilometres. Overall it was fairly easy walking and navigating to here.
From a junction of Teddys Creek with Collins Creek we then went uphill to an area called Mill Flat. It was from here that the trail became a bit more challenging to follow, although we knew that as long as we continued up the ridge we were walking on we were going in the right direction. We did end up off track a bit and I took the easy option and made full use of my GPS (which I had programmed with waypoints prior to the
Joanne at Daveys HutPatrea Cook
BWA December 2017 | 7
Patrea closing the Kidmans Hut doorJoanne Bell
walk) to put us closer to where we wanted to be. We eventually emerged out of the bush onto Little Brassy Gap saddle, from which there were views to the west to the Brassy Mountains.
It was from the saddle that the walk became more challenging. At this point there is no track left to follow and the route requires that you descend to the west, more or less following a creek valley down towards the environs of the Burrungubuggee River. It’s not a long distance and more than not there are clear views of the route ahead and even Kidmans Hut (if you know where to look!), but the going is made much slower by the knee to waist high heath, boggy ground and creek crossings. My friend Trea and I took it in turns to pick out a route around the obstacles which helped with my morale; I’m not a huge fan of not being able to see where I put my feet, especially when the ground is less than solid and there’s the potential of wriggly creatures hidden below. We tried to hug the sides of the valley, walking between the tree line and the heath but even this wasn’t as easy as I expected.
We arrived at Kidmans Hut with the last of the light, just in time to find a small flat area of ground not too far from the hut for my two person tent. We didn’t have a lot of time to enjoy the evening as the dark set in,
Kidmans HutJoanne Bell
8 | BWA December 2017
Joanne descending just out of Little Brassy Saddle towards Kidmans HutPatrea Cook
it was all about having a feed and getting into our sleeping bags before it got too cold. On the upside we were tired enough by our efforts that we both slept pretty well. I remember waking once in the night to a dingo’s particularly mournful howl; it seems I’m accustomed enough to those sounds that it didn’t occur to me to be worried by the sound, more so I had a brief moment of concern wondering what terrible event had befallen the beast as to make it sound so sad.
When planning the walk I had initially thought to make it a round trip by continuing our walk south along the Burrungubuggee River corridor to Island Bend and then back along a four wheel drive track to the campground but a quick search of the Bushwalk Australia forum revealed that the river route was particularly overgrown and thus not an attractive option. Instead I had determined that we would exit via the same route that we had used to access the hut. This meant that with the confidence created by the relative ease of retracing our route from the day before that we could take our time the next morning and enjoy our surrounds before we needed to leave. It was lovely to watch the day dawn and the light
reach across the valleys around us. We sat out in front of the hut and had a leisurely breakfast before packing up and starting back up the hill.
Despite our familiarity with the route we had to follow it didn’t really make the progress up to the saddle any quicker. The going remained tough and a small brown snake sighted disappearing into the ground where our feet were equally hidden by brush made for a few nervous moments. Once up on the saddle though we made quick time down the ridge and onto the four wheel drive track and before we knew it we were back at the campground and enjoying a very chilly but equally refreshing swim in the Gungarlin River.
My friend Trea had survived and perhaps even enjoyed her first overnight bushwalk
The plains below Daveys Hut Joanne Bell
“... I had successfully navigated my way to an off-track hut ...
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Joanne lives in a tiny Upper Murray town in Victoria, where she and her partner Chris are renovating a former trucking depot to serve as a home base between adventures. A health scare in her early thirties meant a change of lifestyle, where making dreams a reality became more important than a career or a regular income. This led to her becoming a uniformed police officer in her mid-thirties and working in Australia and the Solomon Islands then resigning after five years to travel the country in her restored VW Kombi campervan. Joanne counts amongst her lifetime achievements paddling the length of the Murray River in a sea kayak and aspires to completing many more long-distance walking tracks in Australia and overseas.
and I had successfully navigated my way to an off-track hut so I deemed our efforts a success. We stayed that night in the campground and made our way out the next morning in time to enjoy a cooked lunch at the café in the Visitors Centre in Jindabyne. Another few hours later and we had driven over the Alpine Way and crossed the Murray River back into our home state of Victoria.
On reflection, the only disappointment in this walk for me was just how much evidence I saw within the Jagungal Wilderness area of feral animal presence. There were brumby droppings, brumby tracks, rabbits, rabbit holes and droppings, more than one wild dog howling in the night (although to be fair these could be dingoes rather than their feral counterparts) and most disturbingly wild pigs had turned over more ground than not all the way down the valley from Little Brassy Gap to Kidmans Hut. Conversely, the only real evidence we saw of native wildlife apart from birds sightings were plenty of wombat droppings and holes; they certainly seem to be thriving up in the high country away from their not so natural enemies - farmers and roads.
Follow Joanne at:www.ratherbebushwalking.blogspot.comwww.facebook.com/ratherbebushwalking
The last night at Gungarlin River Camping Area Joanne Bell
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