Australian_Geographic_2015_07-08.

July–August 2015 107

H

AD THERE not been mist swirl-

ing all around as we charged

up The Long Spur, we would

have glimpsed the twisting Mitta Mitta

River through gaps between the papery

snow gums. Instead, with the vapour

obscuring all but the 20m ahead of us,

we pushed past bulging bushes of

alpine pepper and plum pine so tall

they clawed at my cheeks as I hunched

over my horse’s neck and held on.

There are several steep tracks

leading up Mt Bogong. We were riding

The Long Spur – a sheer, winding path

up the mountain’s southern flank

• having left our camp at Big River
  that morning. We’d spent the previous
  day near the town of Glen Valley at
  Mittagundi’s annual bush dance and
  festival; this working farm runs an
  outdoor education program and its
  New Year celebrations offered a chance
  for the horses to catch their breath.
  That reprieve seemed far away,
  however, as we struggled upwards along
  the overgrown – often indiscernible –
  track. The Bairds are the only opera-
  tors with a licence to take horses over
  Bogong, and, apart from the handful of
  pack trips they lead up there each year,
  Long Spur is little used.

It wasn’t until we stopped in a

pretty clearing, where tiny moths

fluttered about our heads and sprigs of

pink trigger-plant flowers pushed up

from the ground, that we discovered a

packhorse was missing. After stum-

bling up a steep, rocky section of track

she’d become stuck and had to be

freed by Lin, who then removed the

packs from the discomfited horse and

loaded them onto another.

The packing of a horse is consid-

ered serious bushcraft, one from

which some mountain cattlemen

working for surveyors and tourists up

until the 1940s made a living. Gear

needs to be evenly balanced and

positioned so as to avoid sores on the

animal’s back and ribs, and the

practice is the cornerstone of any

successful expedition. Tim Cope, the

AG Society’s 2006 Adventurer of

the Year, trained with the Bairds

before he ventured on his three-year

journey from Mongolia to Hungary in

2004 (AG 89), as have many others.

As we traversed Rocking Stone

Saddle on our final day, there was no

sign of the weather that had plagued us

up the mountain. The azure sky was

clear and the sun so bright that we

squinted against its glare. Our uninter-

rupted view of the rolling High Plains,

cloaked in their blue-grey eucalypt

haze, was dazzling; from this height we

could see as far as the Main Range

of Mt Kosciuszko to the north-east and

Mt Buller and beyond to the south.

Before we made the final push down

Eskdale Spur, a 1000m descent over

just 4km, we stopped by the Saddle’s

namesake. The emu egg-sized rock sits

within a larger chunk of stone, and is

thought to have formed during

glaciation within the last ice age.

“In a big, blowy wind, it rattles,” Lin

said. “That’s how you know it’s cold.

Well, you probably know before that.”

And by all accounts, in their heyday,

the mountain cattlemen needed no

rocking stone to tell them so. AG

DESTINATIONS

FIND more horse trek images online at:

http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/issue127

AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC THANKS Tourism

North East for their assistance with this story.

Pack school. The Bairds often coach novice

horsemen, such as Joel McCarthy, pictured here at

Rocking Stone Saddle. He plans to ride the Bicen-

tennial National Trail to raise money for Beyondblue.

圀漀爀氀搀䴀愀最猀⸀渀攀琀圀漀爀氀搀䴀愀最猀⸀渀攀琀

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