Day 19: Omeo Highway to Big River Saddle and Mt Hope Road to Buenba Flats – 18.4kms, 6 hours, 30k steps, 753m ascent, 1 through hiker, 0 snakes

Jubble had a great solution to the big Big River crossing problem. He suggested I hike 10kms further along the track to a place he could drive to (Big River Saddle), then we go back and do the 5km I missed between Mt Hope Road and Buenba Flats and then work out what next while it rains tomorrow. So that’s what we did. First,  Jubble drove the hiker couple I spoke to last night,  Sue and Collin, back to the track, which saved them a 10km highway hike.

On the way to my starting point, we met Scott, Jake, and Seb, who’d just finished the climb from Gill Creek to Omeo Highway. It was great to catch up again, and I learned that they had always planned on taking the alternate route via Mt Bogong instead of down to the big Big River crossing. It made me realise that’s maybe what I should do too instead of waiting to get across the main Big River crossing. This was validated further when I met a Belgian hike who had attempted the Big River crossing 24 hours after big rain. It was waist deep, and he was holding the chain,  but he couldn’t step forward, the current was too strong. So he had to back track up the 800m and take the alternate route. That really helped me get comfortable with my choice of missing that big Big River crossing.

The track started out gently climbing on a vehicle track. I was on the lookout for snakes after Scott, Jake, and Seb had just seen a tiger and a copperhead on their climb up to Omeo Highway. in the big grassy sections, I was totally sure there were snakes hiding in every tussock!  It was pretty steep and pretty easy to lose the track. It’s much easier to keep your eyes on a faint footpad heading downhill than up in my experience.  There were a ton of fallen trees and lots of bushes growing over the path,  so even if you could see the path, you had to push your legs through the plants to walk on it.  It was slow going.

The hut at Mt Wills was not the cutest I’ve seen,  but in a great location, and I’m sure the guys will be happy there tonight when the rain hits.  From the hut, a vehicle track descended several kms before the track joined another foot path through the bush. I love the distance you can cover quickly on vehicle tracks,  especially when you’ve take much longer to get to a point than you expected!

The foot track down was very easy to follow and very steep at points. Much easier than the path up had been. At some point near the bottom, I saw the Jubbie Mobile and started calling out “Jub Jub” until I heard a faint “Gorge” reply.  Jubbie had been waiting for me at a lovely camp spot. He even had a kip in our rooftop tent while waiting. After a quick hello, I continued to the vehicle track to the point at which the track headed off up a steep spur track. That will be for another day.

After a quick 3pm lunch,  we drove back to Mt Hope Road so I could complete the missing piece of my AAWT jigsaw. Jubble is so kind and generous – he was willing to drive back 2.5 hours of winding roads to let me finish a bit of the track I had previously missed!  We arrived at 5:30pm and agreed I had to hotfoot to Buenba Flats as quickly as I could. I covered the 4.8km bush track in one hour exactly – what a legend!

We drove to Omeo, had dinner at the pub (hello vegan curry), and stayed the night at the pub because everywhere else was full. Funny that we stayed in the Morass Creek room – after having gone into the real Morass Creek yesterday up to my undies, this Morass Creek was nicer to go into!