What a beautiful morning. No sign of smoke and not a cloud in the sky. After a breakfast of champions (huge bowl of porridge and half a litre of tea!), I set off following the numbered poles across the plains.
It was evident the smoke had settled into the valleys over night. Amazing the difference a bit of wind makes, and how quickly too.
The high country is oh so beautiful. Vast sweeping expanses with a huge variety of plants and flowers. Unlike The Rolling Ground in NSW, this walk across the high country followed a very narrow little path, sometimes not wide enough to put your feet next to each other. It was well sign posted and well maintained. Numbered poles followed the track all the way to Mt Hotham from Mt Bogong.
At one point I met a guy resting against a pole, looking particularly comfortable and relaxed. He’d just climbed up the spur from Dibbons Hut, the path I was soon to head down. I also passed a family of six doing the walk from Hotham to Falls Creek. The parents looked particularly exhausted and it wasn’t even lunchtime!
The spur down to Dibbons Hut was so pretty.
Dibbons Hut site looking out over the flats was the perfect spot for lunch.
After lunch it was time to climb up out of Cobungra Gap. It was steep, but certainly not as steep as some of the other climbs I’ve done – everything is relevant. The path was well built and well maintained. Clearly a lot of care had gone into it.
The trail met Mt Hotham ski field right up near the top of the chairlifts. It followed the edge of the patrolled area around to a car park where Jub was waiting.
Because the next 9kms was mostly going to be along The Great Alpine Road which is great for getting up some speed but not particularly pleasant to walk along, I decided to keep going and get some of it done today rather than doing it all tomorrow. Thick smoke had crept back across the area in the past hour of walking and by the time I was at Hotham, visibility was low. The start of the 9kms followed a management trail to the summit of Mt Hotham. Up there l chatted with a guy in a glass walled monitoring station whose job is to look out for fires. He estimated the visibility was about 1km and we both agreed that severely hampered his ability to do his job.
That section was the last lovely part of the walk before l joined the bitumen to get through as many kms as I could. Turned out, I got through all of them and tomorrow’s starting point is where the track leaves The Great Alpine Road. It was such a shame the smoke had blown back through the area. The views from along the road would have been stunning.
Kerry's Hikes 