Rubicon State Forest Trip Report

Rubicon State Forest an area most of us have not traveled before over near Marysville. Having it’s own Power Station – Rubicon Dam which also included a tramway which was in operation until the 1990’s when all terrain vehicles took over the work of the tram cars.

Three impressive trestle bridges form part of the tramway at Lubra creek, Beech creek and at the Fifteen Thousand foot Siphon. A fourth trestle bridge is located at Royston Power Station. While still in operation, public access is not permitted. Unfortunately, due to early track closure before the Queens birthday long weekend we were not able to access these areas at all.

Most of us traveled over from Bendigo on the Friday afternoon getting a great campsite at Kendalls Campground. At Kendalls there are many campsites and fire pits, and it does get very busy especially on long weekends. Andrew and Chris had the fire going when we arrived late in the afternoon.

Saturday 8th June

Saturday morning another 3 members joined us turning up about 8.30am also traveling from Bendigo. We had a Briefing on what will be happening on the weekend then we started the trip heading off at 9.00am with 11 vehicles.

We headed out of Kendalls Campground turning left onto Royston Rd pulling up at the Power Station and could not go any further. We kept on heading up Royston rd passing The Boys camping area and Tin Hut, as we passed Rubicon River rd it was closed as well so we could not get down to see the Trestle Bridges.

As we got around the back of Lake Mountain at 1200m, we got a bit of snow which was great to see so early in the trip. Still in 2wd we turned left onto Federation rd, which just winds around to Peters track where we aired down.

It was a fairly easy track which comes to 15 Mile track where we found 15 Mile Hut off to the left, not signposted. We had a break here for a while before heading off again up 15 Mile track, which is just a 2wd track, getting to Dray track.

We had lunch at the top with a good view of Lake Mountain. Heading up Dray track we got into 4wd then turning down Old Reefton track and into low range, going down it was a bit overgrown and after passing some Deer hunters we got to Big River. Crossing the bridge over Big river we turned left onto the Eildon-Big River rd for about 6 ks, and left up Boundary track.

Straight into low range, it’s straight up and fairly steep but a really nice drive with a few switch backs – in the wet it could be interesting. At one section on the track there was a section that had 3 ways up: Easy, Medium and Hard; most tried the hard way but it was just too slippery so we took the Medium track and some opted to do the easy one.

After spending about 45mins on this section we headed off again getting on to Corn Hill track, which is a nice track and takes you up to Corn Hill at about 1326m. We had a little snow but not much, we kept traveling on Corn Hill track all the way up to Mt Matlock at about 1377m, with a huge phone tower. A lot of the snow had melted but it was very nice, and one of the members had brought a pink snow board, so the big kids played in the snow for a while.

We then headed down Woods Point rd and into Woods Point, getting into town at about 3.00pm. We stopped at the pub for a quick drink and buying a bottle of their “Tear Arse Port” we headed for a camp spot, driving along the Jamieson-Woods Point rd into Scotts Reserve.

We got a spot to fit 11 vehicles fairly easily, while everyone set up some of us went and collected fire wood for the night, the fire did actually take a while to light as the wood was a little damp, so after a few fire lighters and patience we got it going, and settled into a big night drinking our Tear Arse Port until the early hours.

Sunday 9th June

The morning we could not get the fire going at all so it was a quick pack up and we were on the move at 9.00am, heading out of camp along the Jamieson-Woods Point rd.

At Frenchmans Gap we aired down a little more, all of us going down to 20psi, we then turned right onto Old Coach rd which is nice and easy at the start, then the track turns into Webber Spur track and heads straight down with really good views out front. It is a very scenic drive, they have taken out the really steep section so now you wind down around some switch backs down to the river.

At the bottom we crossed the Goulburn river, which was fairly shallow, and out the other side. The exit has been fixed up making it very easy. This is where the track changes to Champion Spur track, and the climb out is steep and a real fun drive. The track was well graded, the climb goes for about 5ks, and on reaching the top we had a quick break.

We headed off again, on reaching heights of 1200m, we encountered snow and a lot more of it. We got to drive through a fair bit of snow until we reached Mt Selma rd, turning left we headed for Mt Selma which wasn’t a very long drive then a right up to the top of Mt Selma.

There wasn’t much snow on top of Mt Selma, because so many vehicles had been up. We watched some vehicles drive down the other side, down some rock steps and another try to climb the hill but had to winch. We headed back down and went along Mt Selma rd driving through snow and turned left onto South rd.

As the snow disappeared we got back into 2wd and enjoyed an easy drive across to the Mt Skene area. We had lunch at the end of South rd in a little area covered in snow.

We headed off again after about 45mins and back along South rd, back along Mt Selma rd to a section off the track, and we did an interesting hill climb, then turned around and headed back down where we lined up all the vehicles for a photo.

We were heading for Woods Point so we were still on Mt Selma rd, it changes to Walhalla rd then a right turn down Johnstone Hill track. This was an easy drive down and passing the Old Hut at Gooleys creek we found a spot at Comet Flat Campsite on the river. We set up camp and lit the fire and spent a while around the fire when it started to rain about 9.00pm so we headed for cover and then off to bed.

Monday 10th June

It had rained all night so we awoke, packed up camp and headed off out of Comet Flat, through 3 river crossings and into Woods Point. We turned a hard left onto the Marysville-Woods Point rd driving through Matlock then onto Marysville.

It rained the whole way so there was no 4wd’ing for the day, we got into Marysville at 11.30am and we noticed the pub was open for meals so we went in for a meal before heading home.

-Russell