MEMBER TRIP REPORT
The road then started climbing up to the Wabonga Plateau on an increasingly rougher but still 2wd road . We stopped about 2km short of the entrance to Lake Cobbler to enjoy the view of Dandongadale Falls – Victoria ’ s largest drop falls – and were rewarded with a rainbow coming out of the falls .
We continued up to Lake Cobbler where everyone enjoyed Ruby ’ s cupcakes for morning tea ( as promised at fivesies the night before ) looking over the very picturesque lake Most of the group then made their way to the top of the West branch of the Dandongadale Falls . This was a walk along a basic track of about 250m . The main falls is a climb up then steeply down about a further 500m , but the group elected not to do that today .
We continued on along Lake Cobbler Track which was the first time for the day that required 4WD to be engaged . Phil established the exact clearance of the Navara going over a particularly steep washout .
Speculation Road took us down from the Wabonga Plateau to the King River . The upper section of this road is known as the Staircase and used to offer a significant challenge but is now a very pleasant forest drive .
We stopped at King River Hut for lunch , as some of us had done the day before on Helen ’ s trip . Unbelievably there was even more people camping here in a very busy campsite . Towards the end of lunch Mitch ’ s trip also stopped for lunch .
We continued along Speculation Road to the Circuit Road which we followed east to the Monument Track where once again 4WD was required on a steepish track . Avoiding Craig ’ s Hut , we headed to the summit of Mt Stirling with this track providing a couple of obstacles that required a few moments thought but no serious challenge . One obstacle was passing a Jeep Compass which seemed out of its depth , but it happily followed us to the summit .
A short walk to the summit of Mt Stirling provided a spectacular 360-degree view of the surrounding peaks and we could see where we had come from that morning .
We continued down Howqua Gap Trail without incident and then took the 2WD CornHill Road around to Mt Buller where most of the party made the strenuous climb to the summit to enjoy the even better view .
We aired up in the car park and headed back to Tolmie after a long ( over 200km ) but spectacular day , arriving back 5 minutes after the first sitting for dinner .
Ian Fieldhouse # 1888