Avon Wilderness Trip - (Australia Day weekend) 24th January - 29th January 2025

Avon Wilderness Trip

The Avon Wilderness High Country is a picturesque region located in Victoria within the Great Dividing Range. This area has it’s own natural beauty, with lush forest and bush, scenic mountain views and a area so vast that there isn’t many 4wd tracks through the Avon Wilderness Park. The only tracks are Mount Margaret, Avon track and Old Moroka track which was used to bring the cattle up to the High Plains. And these tracks go around the entire outer edge of the Park.

Some of the best Lookouts is The Sentinels and Gable End which now can able to be accessed from bushwalking from Millers Hut and Lake Tail Karng.

We had 10 vehicles for this trip, heading up to Rumpffs Flat campground on Middle Ridge track out from Licola. Some vehicles headed across on Thursday and Friday afternoon.

Saturday

Waking up Saturday morning to a very foggy morning, we packed up camp and headed of towards Licola down Middle Ridge road and straight into Licola, some had to fuel up and some couldn’t go past their Venison pies. As it was Australia Day weekend the town was pretty packed. We headed off about 10.00am, over the bridge and along Tamboritha road for 12km. We pulled over and aired down the tyres to around 20-24 psi.

We turned up Mt Margaret track which is Steep in sections and very rocky, 1^st gear Low Range and the Rear diff lock We climbed it fairly easy. Mt Margaret track goes for about 50kms down to Ben Crauchan, it’s a great track to drive with its Steep inclines and declines. It was getting around 2.30pm and I knew that I wasn’t going to make Avon camp-site so we went left down Hickey Creek track, down to Ben Crauchan Creek. When you get to the bottom there is a small camp-site and a river you have to drive up for 50m. The camp-site was to small so we managed to camp on the River bed,(great little spot). We had the river running through camp and we all set up the swags. Cut some wood for the fire then some went down river and found a swimming hole and stayed there for a while. After dinner we lit the fire, sat around for the night before getting into bed for a good night sleep.

Sunday

This morning it was a beautiful not a breath of wind morning, we had breakfast, I had another swim packed up camp and we headed off at 9.00am. We headed up Dolodrook track for 6kms and this bought us out at the base of Ben Crauchan Scenic Reserve, turning left on Avon track we are now driving along the bottom of Avon Wilderness Park. This track is great to drive with it’s Very Steep sections which take a bit to negotiate, river crossings and amazing views looking up the valley of the Park. We got to an area that has 8 river crossings and great camping, there is one river crossing that you drive up for 200m. We drove through to the end and pulled up for a break on the River bed. There is a Warning for this area, if it rain’s get out of the area quickly as it can flood. After a break we headed back out and continued along Avon track, through river crossings and Steep climbs.

Turning left on Mt Angus track then the track changes to Old Moroka road which you can put it back to 2wd as it’s a easy track to drive. At the next intersection right takes you to Moroka Hut and we went left along Moroka Ridge track passing Mt Wellington track which takes you to Millers Hut. This Moroka Ridge track was dry, but in the winter months or after rain can be very boggy track to drive. We then come out on Moroka road and headed towards Arbuckle Junction, here we went straight through and onto Tamboritha road for 5kms and turned right into Thomastown camp-site. The others found a camp-site while I went along Kelly Lane to have a look at McMichaels Hut and Kelly’s Hut. Which here I found Dave who joined our trip. We went back to Thomastown, cut some fire wood and set up camp. We lit the fire and had dinner, I had the dirty steak, throwing my steak into the fire and cooking it on the hot coal’s. Allan cooked up a Blackberry damper which was delicious, only damper I’ve seen turn black in colour. Wasn’t a late night, sat around talking before hitting the swags.

Monday

We were all up very early as we planned on looking at the Huts. So we packed up and headed up Kelly Lane and looked at McMicheals and Kelly’s Huts, after a few photos we headed back towards Thomastown and onto Tamboritha road, we drove down 5kms to the start of Dingo Hill track. This is where Deb, Alek and Rachel left us to head for home.

We headed down Dingo Hill track, great track to drive with it’s Very Very Steep decline and 8 switchbacks that you have to drive so carefully as you could go straight of the edges. When you get to the bottom after 5kms you have quite a few river crossings, we had a break down the bottom in one of many campsites. After our break, drove up a bit more then left up Butcher Country Link track, now this track is Steep, straight out of the Caledonia Valley. 1^st gear Low Range Rear diff lock in and just take your time, one section has several rock steps you really have to negotiate, I climbed it easily then I was waiting for Geoff and he was having trouble, so I walked back down built the track up with rocks. As he took off again I noticed that he’s front wheels were not moving, (he broke the front diff again), so I pulled the Winch out and the Winch didn’t work so we had to get Peter’s Winch pull it past Geoff’s vehicle and Winch off a double line pull. This took 1 and a half hours just to get him over the rocks, then being in 2wd now I had to hook up a Snatch strap to pull him up the top. We reached the top and had lunch around 2.00pm. After lunch we had a decision to make on how far we go for the rest of the afternoon. I had to keep Snatching Geoff up some of the steeper hills then on our way back down I’d take the Snatch strap off. Making it to the bottom of Macalister River track ,it was fairly flat following the river, the temperature was getting up there around 35⁰, so I saw a beautiful piece of the river, really wide and a nice little camp-site. So we opted to stay here for the night as we all needed a swim. We set up camp and headed straight into the water, “it was heaven on a stick”. ‘

In some part the water was really deep, we stayed in here for the rest of the afternoon. As we were cooking dinner the lighting and thunder started to come across us and it rained, all heading to our awnings we could only watch the thunderstorms coming through as well as the fire that we previously lit.

We knew that we were going to have a early start so we could get Geoff out up the other side, so we headed to bed for an early one.

Tuesday

In the morning up very early, it had been lightly raining all night, so we packed up camp and headed off at 8.00am. Along Macalister River track and then up Black Soil Gully track. The first section was steep and I Snatched Geoff up and there was one section straight down and very slippery so instead of Geoff running into the rear of me we disconnected the Snatch strap. After that the ground was like sandy and the rain actually helped us, not making the track slippery but heaps of traction. Geoff was able to drive up all by himself, “so having to give it a little more accelerator in some spots “.

We made it out to Bull Plain road by 9.00am and we were relieved to get out. We headed down to Middle Ridge road towards Licola, took the Link road across to Jamieson/Licola road and headed up over Mt Skene, after Mt Skene and the weather we had, we had 3 trees that fallen across the road, we had to cut up and remove. We pulled up at the intersection of Mt Sunday road, aired up said our goodbyes to everyone and headed home through Jamieson and Mansfield.