Glenaladale Weir Walk

An amazing ‘ancient’ stone monument. Without visiting ancient Egypt or similar you will never see anything like this anywhere in Australia, so the trip is definitely worth the effort. Glenaladale Weir (on the Mitchell-Wonnagatta River, Gippsland Vic) was constructed c 1891-2 and destroyed by floods within only about a year. Some history is available on Trove here. There are three ways to visit it: by canoe (read my description here), by (4WD) vehicle to the true left bank and (best of all), by foot to the true right bank. It makes a wonderful overnight walking trip.

The route (roughly) follows the lower (mostly lost) section of the Mitchell River Walking Track which is still shown on the relevant Vicmap (Tabberabbera South). Various people have ‘marked’ some of it with tape but the tapes are somewhat discontinuous and do not lead directly to the Weir) as the Track skirts the river about 300 metres inside the bush line.

I admit that I had not realised that Parks Vic had not kept up (any) maintenance of the lower section of the Mitchell River Walking Track ie below the Den of Nargun, so we expected to be able to follow the track to within a couple of hundred metres of the weir and then find our way down to it through the bush (relatively easily). We had once walked in (downstream) from Tabberabbera to Jorgensens Flat (on the upper section of the Mitchell River Track) for an overnight camp, so we expected that all of the ‘Track’ followed an old pack track or similar (as that does) so that it would be relatively easy to spot. It is not.

When we set out from the car park at the Final Fling Rapid on Findlay & Alexanders Rd we expected that the walk would take maybe an hour and a half. It took us more like five and a half hours going in and four hours coming out. (18,500 steps in and 14,500 steps out on my pedometer – so probably something like 11 km in and 8.7 km out). On the map it looks like being 4-5 km at most! Of course we are in our seventies…

The first 1.5 km follows a quite beautiful (MVO) road along the Mitchell overlooked by huge sandstone cliffs to the West pock-marked with innumerable caves. Then comes a clear section through private land .5 km), a .5 km uphill bush section, then a traverse to the North-East across a paddock to the tree-line. There are (now) tapes at the tree line indicating the beginning of the route. There is no Track.

Tapes at the tree line where the bush-bashing proper begins.

The tapes continue (intermittently) now to the Weir but some pretty good bush navigation skills may be needed to find your way. Often too the bush is pretty thick. You will probably be able to follow the tapes through to the second ridge (where they become discontinuous) but if you find them again there (uphill I suspect) then they will (now) continue all the way to the weir.

At the top of the climb up from the Weir.

At the junction of the climb and the ‘Track’ proper. This is the only open section which looks anything like a track at all.

You can (now) climb down a pretty steep game trail on the ridge where the gully just below the weir meets the river. This gets you to within twenty metres of the weir. I have (roughly) marked the route from the ‘Track’ to this drop-off but I did not begin taping it (on the way out) until after we had climbed up from the river, so please take some tape with you. Until then I had no idea that there was a taped route at all.

On the way in we missed the beginning of the bush section of the ‘Track’ at the edge of the paddock on the ridge so we began our descent uphill from the ‘Track’ and hoped to intersect it at some point, but we (almost) never did, though once we spied some tapes on about the second creek crossing upstream. The GPS on my phone indicated that again and again we had crossed the line of the ‘Track’ without seeing it.

There are three gullies to cross going in (four if you are too high at the beginning – as we were). We decided to head down to the river after crossing the second (flowing lower down) gully on the mapped route (where there were three pieces of tape which appeared to lead nowhere). We hoped that the ‘flats’ along the river would provide better going so we tried them. Instead they were horrendous! Avoid them. Why it took us much longer to walk in than to walk out.

I would (now) advise that you attempt to follow (roughly) the mapped route of the ‘Track’. If you find a line of tapes follow them (and add to them). When you near the junction of the gully below the Weir you should be following a line of tapes and you should find my (pink) tapes heading down the the ridge at that junction. If you can mark the game trail heading down that ridge it will make it so much easier for others to follow. It is a very worthwhile trip and you are likely to have it to yourself. There is a truly beautiful serene campsite on the West bank overshadowed by the immense ruins.

Carry water for the whole trip as once you leave the river there is very little until you get to the Weir.

It really is worth the walk though. Just stunning.

The two JRs managed to ‘smuggle’ themselves along too. Hard walking for poor old Spot.