sunshine wrote:Having walked this section as part of our Northbound traverse of the whole AAWT starting late November 2017, I would have to say that the area mentioned (Big River Rd to the border) was some of the best walking in Victoria. There were certainly other areas with far worse tree fall which were both harder to traverse as well as harder to locate the "track". In fact, much of this area appeared to have been cleared relatively recently and we were pleasantly surprised that the sections where Chapman says the track is poorly defined had all been re-marked and the way was obvious.
The clearing crew appeared to have had a lot of fun around the Stony Creek area with a marked "totem pole" (you'll know it when you see it) being the highlight.
If forced to focus on the section between Big River Rd and the border, the following two areas were the "worst" for us:
1. The descent in to Morass Ck (Chapman 4th Ed, Map 5-2, p132 Ref: 616280 - 620275). I'm not sure exactly why but I found this 700m to be the worst walking of the whole track. Every bush was growing over the track from the right as the track descended sharply. I tried to push the branches away from my face but seemed to be constantly twisting my shoulder as each step was progressively lower. By way of comparison though, Mrs Sunshine, who is shorter than I am, did not find this section to be a problem at all!
2. At the bottom of the descent from Johnnies Top, after crossing Corner Creek (Chapman Map 6-2, p140, Ref: 781379) the track ends abruptly in head high tea tree. We then tried to escape by following brumby trails - which never seemed to lead in the right direction! FWIW, we also came across a track marker, in this area (best guess around 788377) which pointed across Buenba Creek to the N side. We chose to follow the marker as the previous section had obviously been well marked recently and following the markers had not let us down. We may have missed a marker telling us to return to the S side of the creek but we opted to anyway, a little further on. The lack of markers here was not an issue as the topography was fairly obvious.
Good luck with getting some of the clearing done and a big thank you to those who have been involved in the past.
I agree with pretty much everything sunshine says, I also went through in late 2017 and found this section to be the best maintained of the Victorian sections (excluding the high plains). I was very pleasantly surprised.
Morass Creek was a little aggravating which I put down to the steeply sloping ground and a bit of encroaching scrub, the route also seems to meander around a bit before starting the final decent to the creek, it's only a fairly short stretch though.
As sunshine mentions the bottom of the descent from Johnnies Top could do with a few track markers to get you through the damp tussock a little easier. I went up and over Johnnies Top in one day thinking that I'd camp when I reached the creek, arriving in pouring rain to find things very damp when I was expecting open grassy meadows like the photo in Chapman's book, I wasn't happy meandering my way up the valley on brumby pads in search of dry ground
I'm away at the moment when I get home I'll have a look at my notes and see if there are any other spots, but the Omeo guys deserve a pat on the back from what I remember.
If I can fit it in around work I'd be happy to volunteer for a couple of days. PM me.
Cheers