Muzbry's Corner - Avon Wilderness Area

I spent last weekend with life member Muzbry (I do like mixing with royalty:-)) on the Avon River, up in the Avon Wilderness Area. To say it was hot was a huge understatement! At least there were no bushfires in the area, and the local DSE and CFA guys were having a much needed break.

The Avon River in this area was the lowest I’d seen it in the eight years I’ve lived in Victoria. I’d taken my trout fishing outfit, however there wasn’t enough water to float a lure let alone sustain fish that need cold water. Even the occasional deep water hole had weed blooms growing in them.

We headed over Huggett’s Crossing and up the Mt Angus Tk. Quite a few families were camped at Huggetts, mainly in the river! Vehicles, gazebos, chairs and tables – the whole works in the river. A very interesting collection of plastic floatation devices were also being used by the kids. A far cry from the car tube of my childhood.

All of the tracks beyond Huggetts showed the damage caused by the freak windstorm late last year. Member Muzzarich warned us that there may be a shortage of firewood. There was good firewood everywhere - like everywhere! The only difficulty was that the tracks were often partially obstructed by fallen timber at the entry point to river crossings. This was somewhat character building as the vehicles sometimes slowly slid down the churned up slope toward a fallen tree! We could petition the State government to buy DSE personnel with bigger chain saws.

After a few deviations we made it through to Muzbry’s Corner to camp for the night, about 20k upstream from Huggetts. It was bloody hot until about 9.00pm, when the thunderstorm dumped on us. Then it because bloody hot and bloody humid. We spent the remainder of the night listening to the sound of distant, and not so distant, timber crashing down.

All in all a beautiful part of the world, although winter will be interesting – when the river rises again and cuts off many of the track diversions it will be interesting to see how we travellers respond, and whether the DSE will attempt to clear up the sections that are closed at the moment.

Happy travels!