Round Mountain to Tooma Trip Review

[zac150]

I will add photos to this post in a few days.

Each year I head out on an outdoor adventure (walk) with a group of work collegues. Call it team bonding or more correctly an opportunity to get drunk togeather in a different setting where we can be a little more blokey and have a laugh either way we have a great time. It is great for "team work" in the office too.

This years adventure started on Anzac day and after an early morning vigil to the dawn service we drove to Round Mountain Car park where after a short car shuffle we started our walk to Derschkoes Hut. I am a little each way on Dersckhoes, it is an ugly duckling in a fantastic setting (albeit warm) so as always we camped in the little glade above the hut overlooking Jagungal. A compulsary game of two up where our wine ration (we carry alot of wine) was won and lost.

Dinner that night was Minestrone Soup, well worth the effort and one I will do again in the future. I dehydrated a condensed soup which looked interesting after the drying process but hey it came back well and taste amazing.

Our next day was down to Grey Mare hut where we planned an afternoon excursion to Valentine falls. The excursion was dropped as I had damaged my ankle the week before the walk and needed an afternoon off the leg knowing that the following day we were heading for Pretty Plain.

Dinner that night was devilled snags, also dehydrated. I actually got the idea for the meal from this web site and this was the first opportunity so I was pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Day 3, grey mare to Pretty Plain, hmm where to start! I always new this was going to be the hardest day of the walk and not knowing what was left of the track, especially the section down off the range to the Stromlo FT was a little concerning. We should not have worried. We followed the water line up behind the hut onto the Grey Mare range and then took a bearing to where the old fire trail used to be. In fact I am pretty sure we crossed the track at the same place I did 15 years earlier and the trail was easily visable. I guess we probably made an error here. We could see the trail rising up on the ridge in front of us and a couple of guys in the lead just took a b line for the trail on the assumption that the trail we crossed would be hard to follow. they went straight and I tried to follow the trail and either way we got into a 300m slog through some scrub whilst we climbed up onto the top of the range.

On top of the range we found the old trail and followed it for around 6km to the top of the strombo. As the trail descends to the top of Pretty Plain (or Bulls head where the old foot pad head into the hut) the trail went from very clear to non existant in seconds. At one stage we simply slid down trees as it was easier, it was not long after this I pulled out the GPS and according to it we had crossed the trail about 3 times and were actually standing on the trail, but all we could see was a wall of trees.

Anyway I managed to navigate us to the head of bulls creek and we found the old foot pad which we followed into Pretty plain hut. It is holding up amazingly well after the re build.

I would note that in respect to those who worked on the re build, please do not leave wood in the Tac Room, it is a Tac Room not a wood store and many items previously nailed to the walls were under piles of wood.

Anyway, apart from about 500m we were able to follow the trail for 90% of the walk between Greymare and Pretty Plain and I would recomend this days walk to anyone.

Day 4 was to Wheelers, another shorter days walk but after the day before it was a relief. We followed the old foot pad down the valley to Hell Hole Creek and then onto the Dargals Trail. We followed the Dargals South for about 300m before taking a bearing to Wheelers. I have walked this way to Wheelers 3 times before, once following the river, once heading straight to Wheelers from the t instersection and this way. I must say it was the easiest option . We followed a small gully down onto the plains in front of Wheelers and slowly made our way to the hut.

Day five was a quick march out to Tooma.

All in all a great walk which could be shortened by a day easily, but I would encourage people to try the walk from Greymare to Pretty plain as it offers amazing views.

[forest]

Thanks for the report. Very similar to what I walked 3 years ago with some mates. Except we did Mt Jagungal and camped on Strawberry Ridge, That is one place that was magic to camp. And we walked out to Tooma Dam straight from Pretty Plain. Brings back good memories.... and some bad from the *&%$#! section down to the top of Bulls head creek. It really is a mess for a few hundred meters. All in all though it's not that big a deal as the rest of the day is stunning walking along the top of the Grey Mare range.