Mt Buckland Trip

This trip wasn’t officially the Snow trip, but it was an amazing three days of snow driving, we had fresh powder on the tracks, to ice and muddy trails. Some of the scenery was spectacular with every peak covered with that white stuff we go and chase. And chase we did, just kept on following it.
We met in Bendigo Friday afternoon at 5.00pm, 5 vehicles headed of for Buckland Valley, as we were on the Snow road the rain settled in fairly heavy which only meant one thing up in the High Country plenty of snow. We got to Myrtleford and fuelled up with Alpine diesel and a bite to eat at the local pizza shop. We got into Buckland Valley and pulled into AH Young’s Campground about 9.30pm and we set up camp and got the fire going bringing dry wood from home made it easy to light the fire. We sat around the fire for a little bit and we headed off to bed.

Saturday

We woke to a fairly chilly morning so I got the fire going and got the kettle boiling for a hot coffee and some breakfast. There was a few campers in there this weekend and this camp isn’t right on the Buckland river just a short walk down a walking track. We all got packed up and ready to go we had a quick briefing and seeing that I knew that the Buffalo Range area was Seasonal closed because of the bush fires in January and the road works going on up there, so I had an idea that, that area was going to be off limits.
So we took off at 9.00am heading down Buckland Valley rd we got to Scotchmans Creek track and it did have a Road Closed sign so that changed the whole trip right there, so we kept on going till we got to Mt Selwyn rd and we headed up there passing a heap of Deer hunters. As we continued along we could see Mt Selwyn ahead all covered with snow then the track was covered as well down about .800m and it was fresh powder snow no one had driven in it as yet so into Low Range 2nd gear and it was an amazing drive up until a locked gate where they were working on Mt Selwyn doing road works, then the sun came out which made for some great photos, so we turned around and headed back down the mountain to Buckland Valley rd and we turned right passing Beveridges Station then I decided to take Mt Selwyn Creek rd and see how far we could get, this track had already had vehicles on it so the track must go all the way through, so we kept going having Mt Selwyn to our right now and the track was still covered with snow and Deer hunters everywhere. Then you come to a intersection and we went right along Tea Tree track just up a bit we had smoko and a bite to eat in the snow. We kept going passing the other side of Mt Selwyn rd and it was closed but the vehicle tracks heading up that way was not good, we continued along Tea Tree just following the snow so I thought we will go onto Mount Sarah and we did, on reaching Mount Sarah above 1500m but the fog came in so the view wasn’t that good so we went down McKenzies track with plenty of snow to drive through and the trees covered in snow slapping over your windscreen and covering you in snow, then the track comes back out onto Tea Tree we turned left and I thought we will go on to Talbotville if we have to but the snow started to run out at McBrides track so we turned around and headed back to Mount Sarah for lunch, the fog was still hanging around so a quick break as it was fairly cold up there and the vehicles were a lot warmer. So we headed off Mount Sarah back along Tea Tree and down Mt Selwyn Creek rd and it was time to find a campsite so we headed back towards Beveridges Station and we found a great campsite on the river with plenty of fire wood, so we set up camp got the fire going and had a great night around the big fire.

Sunday

In the morning when we woke it was very mild not cold at all, the fire was going already been stocked by someone who was up earlier, so we sat around a bit and with breakfast finished we packed up camp, quick briefing we were on our way up to Mt Buckland. We drove through the beautiful Beveridges Station getting to the end of the station and the start of Pheasant Creek track we went through the river crossing which wasn’t very deep and started the climb up Pheasant Creek, it’s a real nice drive up with the valley to the left and then we started to drive through some fairly thick fog and I just thought the view from Mt Buckland was going to be terrible then all of a sudden we started to come out of the fog to beautiful blue skies and mountains covered with snow then at about .900m we started to get the snow on the track. The last little section of Pheasant Creek is really steep and being covered with snow made it more interesting so with the diff lock engaged up we went with one little section we had four wheels spinning but made it easy. At the top we turned right onto Gunns track and the snow become fairly thick and the drive was awesome, you come to another section on Gunns track that has a steep decline which was slippery then it has a incline that’s steeper and longer thank god vehicles had already gone up, we found out later it took one vehicle about three or four attempts to get through. At the top of Gunns track turn right up to the Helipad with a nice climb up there as well. At the top there was campers who told us they made the track up through the snow. When you are up on top of Mt Buckland it’s a 360 degrees view of the whole High Country. We told the campers who were there to leave the fire going as we stayed there for about an hour and a half just taking those views in. So it was time to leave we put the fire out and headed back down along Gunns track again and at the bottom we turned right down Paddy’s track, this track is fairly easy it’s just long and takes about two hours to travel along it finally comes down back into the valley again onto Cairn Creek track it was about 1 o’clock so I looked for a place for lunch, seeing I knew of some good campsites along here we pulled into a campsite for lunch besides the Cairn Creek with fire wood already cut for us so we decided to stay for the afternoon and we set up camp great big campsite. We got the fire going and for the afternoon we did our own thing walking along the river as there was plenty of history with the gold mining and all the man made rock walls on the other side of the river bank. It got really cold about 5 o’clock so we cooked dinner and sat around the fire for the night.

Monday

We woke to another good morning having breakfast and packing up we were off at 9.00am heading along Cairn Creek track passing more campsites along the way the track starts to head straight up and again with the valley down to the left made a great drive, after about 20 minutes we came out onto Demons Ridge track and we went left passing through a bit of snow we made it to High Point with good views to Mt Buffalo and the other way to Mt Feathertop, it was a bit windy and cold so we jumped back into vehicles and headed back along Demon Ridge track heading towards Harrietville we got to Albion track and turned right then down to West Ovens track we went left the track now becomes really easy so just through the river crossing we got out of 4wd and the nice drive into Harrietville. In Harrietville we went through town then turned right and we went to Dredge hole picnic area which was a gold dredge back in the day and now is a popular swimming hole in the summer months. We had a look around took some photos and this is where we ended the trip so we aired up and had headed for home everyone going at their own time.

Participants

Russell. 105 LandCruiser
Andrew. Triton
Frank and Reg. Nissan Patrol
David and Angela. Nissan Patrol
Nathan and Bailey. Nissan Patrol