Trip report - Easter '09 in the Victorian High Country

[Patriot]

Yeah,

Looks like mud and snow have come early this year. Woo Hoo!

James

[Knackers]

BWG will be loving this weather.

Cheers
Knackers

[Nickj]

Bump!!
Looks like some people are heading up to the High Country over Christmas/New Year. Here's my trip we did at Easter this year.

Nick

[BryanL]

Hi Nick, I was conducting some pre-trip High Country research for a weekend in May when I stumbled across your Easter 2009 report. Great report with terrific photos too! Well done. What grabbed my attention was your description of when you set up camp and around 5pm two vehicles came down the track, a Range Rover and a GQ. They were heading to Bright, some 4 hours away. According to my movements at the time, that could only have been me (in the GQ) and my mate from NSW in the Rangie! Yep, we were heading back to Bright and had taken a wrong track at some point and dropped in for directions. Thanks for your expression of concern for our welfare as we accended up into that thunderstorm! It was impressive, especially the lightining in the dark and I have similiar photos of the tracks you covered on the day. Both vehicles had full recovery gear and both drivers had extensive 4WD experience as I have covered the steep tracks of the High Country a few times plus the Simpson Desert among others. That day was meant to be a day 4WDing out of Bright, but ended up being a 12 hour day, due to some map reading issues. Hence the picnic rug and empty wine bottle. (That was his, not mine!) Got back to Bright around 9pm after a challenging and exhilerating drive through the storm under driving lights. Small world isn't it? Cheers.

[Nickj]

Hey Bryan

Glad you made it back to Bright and here to hear our concerns and see our photos! As you know, you were a concern to us, from what we saw, it was a couple of couples who had got lost in the High Country in their 4bys. We were just trying to help out, it is certainly not the place or time for getting lost. There are some great Rooftops Maps available for the area too.
Did you cop any photos of the storm?? In hindsight, we should have driven up to the top to watch it from the main road.

Anyway, welcome to the forum. You will find many stories and information here along with many great people to go driving with.

Nick

[BryanL]

Hi Nick,

Thanks for the welcome to the site. It was rather late in the day to be getting lost, hence we were under a bit of pressure to get back to Bright before our other 10 friends thought of sending out a search and rescue mission! We didn't manage to get any photos of the storm as such as we were on a mission and then the storm broke above us with driving rain and visibility of around 2 metres! But it's in the memory banks. Since then, I now have a HEMA Navigator with Rooftop maps loaded with turn by turn directions! But I haven't mastered it as yet. Planning a weekend boys trip to Lake Cobbler in May, basing ourselves there for 2 nights and conducting day trip explorations around the region. Wondering if you might hang around there in case I need directions around 5pm in the evening with 8 other vehicles in convoy! Cheers, Bryan

[Nickj]

Lake Cobbler is a nice place. We didn't stay there, but it would be a good base. I heard The Staircase has now been graded. That's a real shame as it was a good short climb. If you have a while up there, a trip up to Mt Speculation is great. The track up there is not too eventful but the view from the top is. It's about a 20min walk up to the top from the car park, it wont dissappoint you.

Nick

[oznog05]

Hi Nick,

Next time you head out that way and numbers permitting, send me a PM.