Walk This Way

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I have not done much long-distance, multi-day hiking, apart from a couple in the Himalayas and some in South America when I was travelling. Now that they have the time, a few of my recently retired friends have been quicker on the uptake than me and have been doing some great long treks. So just after Christmas, after I walked a section of the 13-day Grampians Peak Trail, I thought I ought to stop thinking about treks, get my act together and actually try to do one. The next question was which one. The only long treks in Australia I knew of were the Overland Trail in Tasmania and the Australian Alps Walking Track (AAWT) from Victoria to the ACT. As I live in Melbourne, I thought the AAWT might be the most convenient and after a bit of research I worked out what I thought would be a good plan.

The whole AAWT at 650km is clearly too long for my initial foray into Australian bushwalking, but it did look as if I could do a section of it. I was keen to hike in some of the mountain areas not readily accessed on day walks, so reckoned I could walk from a road crossing on Mt Skene up to where the AAWT meets the Great Alpine Road about 10km west from Hotham. As I needed to be in Bright on Sat 17^th Feb, working back I calculated that I could start on Sunday 11^th. The route had the benefit of the start point having reasonable road access from Melbourne and being close to Bright at the end, but There would be nothing much in between, so I would need to be self-sufficient for the 6 days. I asked around, but with no great surprise, did not find anyone I knew keen who wanted to join me.

The week before the weather forecast looked pretty good with just a 70 percent chance of showers on Tuesday, so I finalised my provisions and booked into the Railway Hotel in Heyfield for Sat night. That meant I could plan to start near Rumpff Saddle before noon and make it to a good camp spot at Low Saddle.

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