This trip was a bit more 'ard core' than I was anticipating. We left Melbourne (my dad and I) about 10 o'clock did some burb watching through the leafy areas of the 'exclusive' North Balwyn region. We stopped at a Maccas near Benalla full of school holiday kids on the friday before the long weekend. I did see three fine looking shelby cobras in the car park though that were cool. I also tried out the so called healthy maccas wrap or roll thing but I also had a burger meal at the same time as I needed a control for my food testing.
We actually got the hiking started about 5pm in the afternoon starting out from near Harrietville and heading to the the site of the old Feathertop Hut which sit about half an hour from Federation Hut. I love hiking in Victoria because they have all these old huts in the High Country which were originally made by drovers and such driving cattle across the mountains. Nowdays though nearly all the old huts have been burnt down. The last time I went hiking in this area was in late 2002 just before these huge fires cam through and burnt everything.
The trees are still there but all their bark has been burnt off. It's a shame so many of the old snowgums got burnt as they will take decades if not centuries to grow back. The weather was warm and calm but if it was windy I reckon it would be fairly iffy walking or camping near all these dead trees waiting to fall over.
The hike became a 'night hike' because it got dark at about 8pm and we reached the camp site at about 9pm-10pm. We met a queenslander who had a small fire going. So we had a chat over the fire and put our tent up in the dark.
The next day we collected water from the natural spring nearby and hiked to the newly rebuilt Federation Hut. It's funny because although the hut was burnt down the toilets were saved.
All the huts in the High Country have visitors books so we wrote something in the book and kept heading up to make the summit of Mount Feathertop. We left our packs at the junction to the start of the Razorback spur and hiked to the three peaks on Mount Feathertop. It was at this time that the amount of people on the tracks started to pick up from daytrippers coming in on the long weekend.
After climbing Feathertop we rehoisted our packs and headed along the Razorback spur towards the Bon Accord track back to Harrietville. We saw heaps of people including some camping the night at Federation Hut. That may have been difficult because there wasn't much water in the rain tank. It was below the level of the tap so you actually had to unscrew the tap assembly to dip your water bottle in.
We reached the Bon Accord spur about 5pm so hiking again became a night time activity. I saw a wallaby on the way down. I also managed to fall over and sprain my ankle which was not good when carrying a heavy pack down hill. It was a 9km hike so my other ankle started to get saw as I used it more. We made camp by a river at the bottom about 8pm again setting our tent up in the dark. I was stuffed but Dad managed to get a fire going. We found out the next day that it was a total fire ban.
We eventually got out and went to look for accomodation in small and picturesque mountain town of Bright. It was hot and everyone was in the river which doubles as the local pool. It even has a diving board and two water slides going into it.
I was so sore that day I had to use the handrails when walking up and down stairs and the armrests when sitting down on seats. After our hiking diet of cheese and salami we really enjoyed pub grub and the beer.
All in all it was a good trip. If anyone wants to go hiking in Victoria. Please let me know
Peace out
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