The Bogong High Plains: Hiking Across the Playground of the Clouds
Published in The Advocate, Thursday 18th July 1929, page 36
By H. P. Breen
- Heart, if you’ve a sorrow,
- Take it to the hills!
If Will Ogilvie’s song has as much truth as verve, there should be no sad or jaded hearts in Melbourne. There are hills a-plenty almost at the city’s back door, and beyond them lies a kingdom of solace, taking in practically the whole of eastern Victoria. Fierce grandeur that awes; an intimate loveliness that charms; physical hardships that give a zest to being; air gum-scented and vibrant with harmony—“music slumbering on her instrument”; these be the offerings of the mountain lands!
In that domain are a thousand places where you may gather the treasures of an illimitable storehouse. I have trodden a number, but none perhaps which offers so complete a range as a journey from Bright to Tallangatta, via the Bogong High Plains. Take it as my companions and I did in the early spring of last year, when snow, mists, icy winds, sodden ground and occasional brief blizzards on the Plains provided all “the pain which is mortise to delight,” and prepared by their purgatorial purifying for a rapt appreciation of the beauty that lies in the sun-bathed Mitta and Snowy valleys below—then you will be rich indeed!
If you have ever climbed the whitened sides of Mt. Feathertop, you may survey, like a mariner from a rime-encrusted mast, an ocean of ranges bounded only by the horizon; a silent, immobile sea stilled in its restless heavings since the stars were young; so that every billow and trough, arrested in the instant of their fiercest surge, forever stand mutely witnessing to an upheaval more terrible than man can conceive. Beyond the fiercest crests with their snowy plumes, you may see, set in their midst, a dim isle, hazy, mysterious, beckoning—the Bogong High Plains. Of a height varying from 5000 to 6000 feet, they are veritably a land in the clouds; and—as we found—no lack of ogres and demons abroad to complete a fancy which starts with Mt. Fainter as the Beanstalk! . . . .
From Bright, it is close on twenty miles to Tawonga, via the gap which bears the latter’s name. From the gap itself you look down on a magnificent view of the Kiewa valley, vividly green, with the silver thread of the river winding northward. The grey bulk of Mt. Bogong, snow-crowned and regal, looms up on the far side; and across the south the Alpine heights stretch like a retaining wall. In the village of Tawonga we hired the guide and packhorse for our journey.
As a chilly preliminary to an assault on Fainter’s heights, you must ford the Kiewa River. A fierce day’s climbing over steep and rocky ground ends at Bogong Jack’s Hut, but not before the track, in a sudden burst of generosity winding round the western side of the spur, presents a magnificent view of Buffalo.
The story of “Bougong Jack” (what modern vandal shortened it to “Bogong”?) is picturesquely set forth in Henry Kingsley’s novel “Geoffrey Hamlyn,” and on such a night as we experienced at the hut, and knowing the tale, it would have occasioned little surprise if the door, crashing open, had revealed the legendary figure, standing all awry and angry at our intrusion! Outside, the wind on the mountain-side made play with the dry, creaking timber, and all affrighted with the ghoul-like leering of the snow-gums, came in shrieking and shuddering for shelter through the many crevices in the log walls. It plunged beneath the bunks, scurried a moment there, and then, as if still pursued, darted with icy chill between our legs, and leaping up the slab chimney, took in its train a legion of bright sparks. A fit abode for a spectre indeed!
The final stage to the top of Fainter is particularly trying, but once attained, it repays all effort. On one side lie deep ravines with peak on peak beyond; on the other unfold the High Plains, with their rolling grasslands, valleys and streams—as alluring as any of the fabled lands of our youngling days!
The weather continued unpropitious, and there followed two days of dark mists and “sago” blizzards, varied by occasional glimpses of a watery sun; days of plodding through running water and over uneven, rocky footholds; squelching in cold, soggy mud, where snow has recently lain; suddenly plunging through a drift which had melted beneath; or winding through small sheltered areas of snow-gum; thus the way led for twenty-five miles through a most unique country, of which Pretty Valley was not the least interesting portion. A month later the latter would justify its name. With the last snows melted, and the bellowing gales harnessed in the caverns of earth, the wildflowers would appear in their thousands and bask in the sun so long denied the frozen ground.
At times a clearing atmosphere favoured us with splendid views of Feathertop and Razorback, and to the north Mts. McKay, Spion Kop and Nelson [ed: Nelse], with their snow-splashed shoulders, won our homage, when we were privileged to view them.
On the eastern edge of the Plains, we camped at Kelly’s Hut, snugly hidden in the outer fringe of a forest of snow-gums. What remarkable trees are the latter! Imagery could run riot and not touch the pith of their story. Stunted, gnarled, leprous—the very ghosts of trees! What do the winds say of them? the whining, scourging winds that have sipped their heart’s blood, and left them dry and livid. Are they the souls of the damned? Was there a time in the youth of the earth, when the tall and verdant gums, basking in and looking upward to the sun, or coaxing the heavens’ dewy kisses for the parching lowlands, found evil in their midst, and drove the outlaws forth? And was it to an Inferno of snow and dessicating blasts they stood condemned? An idle fancy, but these shrunken, tortured, terrible things that might well be the abode of souls for centuries accursed. . . .
As we threaded our way through them in the descent from the Plains they seemed to stretch bony fingers as if to draw us close, and tell in curdling tones of the horrors of their night of banishment. Once free of them, rapid progress was made by way of Wild Horse Creek track down to the Omeo-Tallangatta highway, where the Big River crosses the road.
There we found brilliant sunshine, and trekking north for seventy odd miles, it kept us company through scenes rich in memories of the mining era—Glen Wills and Sunnyside; through the beauty of the valley where the Snowy Creek tumbles in sun-shot foamy richness; through luscious river flats dotted with sleek dairy cattle around Eskdale, and all the way to Tallangatta, where materialism in the shape of a railroad cried “Halt!” to Romance and “Finis!” to our walk.
But it could not take from us the spoils we had gathered, not the least of which were bodies hard and fit, and minds replete with memories of things that are good to browse upon in the days to come.
