High Country
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Victorian High Country - The Complete Guide Australia’s dry, flat wilderness dwarfs its alpine areas - but the Victorian High Country is a gem comprising thousands of challenging 4WD kilometres against a rugged, scenic backdrop second-to-none
On the world stage, Australia’s mountains are nothing short of anorexic. They’re an AA-cup standing next to Pamela Anderson’s latest implants at the supermarket checkout. However magnificent the view from Mt Kosciuszko’s two-and-a-bit kilometres above sea level summit, and it is pretty darn inspiring, it’s worth remembering that Everest is four times higher. You can drive to Mt Kosciuszko; a 4WD’s engine would stop working (not enough air) long before it got to Everest’s height, even if there were a road. You could still be forgiven for forgetting that Australia is a wide, brown land when you’re standing on the summit of Mt Stirling, or negotiating the tricky pinch to the top of the Blue Rag Range track.
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The High Country is a ‘must-see’ destination. In fact, you’ll have to go back and see it several times if you want to do the region justice - and if you’ve already tackled a fair number of classic outback tracks, the High Country will be an experience right out of left-field. It’s nothing like the outback. Here’s another plus for the High Country: much of the outback is off-limits in summer, when summertime temperatures make visitation unpleasant, if not also downright hazardous. Likewise, the Top End gets the wet season’s annual pull-through come summer - it basically shuts down from a commercial point of view, and the roads are essentially submerged.
In summer, visiting the outback boils down to the following options: stay home or die. Summertime is also when the High Country (if you’ll pardon the pun) peaks. Seasonal track closures from May or June through to October or November apply to the High Country - at least to the parts of it not normally accessible via bitumen and driving Mum’s Camry. However, December through May is when the High Country blooms, making it a pearler of an off-season destination for those normally focused on visiting central or northern Oz. And while getting to the outback can be an odyssey in itself, getting to the High Country is doable for the weekend if you hail from Victoria, and is eminently feasible for a long weekend ex-Sydney. Factor in a quick escape Friday night, single night or two under canvas and a bit of a slog back to home base Sunday arvo and you won’t go far wrong. In between, you can look forward to between 100-200km of the country’s finest alpine 4WD touring.
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