Got back on Monday afternoon from my two day/two night hike up at Mitchell River and it was definitely one of the more challenging hikes I have done thus far for many reasons. The purpose of this trip was to not only get away for the weekend and explore another part of Victoria that I have yet to see/hike and camp, but to do some more training for my hiking trip in NZ at the end of the year. I went along with two of the three hikers who will be coming with me to NZ; the third had been in bed all week with bronchitis. Anyway, on to the trip...
We parked the car at the Angusvale camp site at the northern end of the national park. It is a huge campsite with plenty of room to camp. We chose the area closest to the toilet. It's a very basic campsite, but there is access to the Mitchell River where you can get water from, as well as access to the Mitchell River Walking Trail. The trail starts at Angusvale and runs alongside the river all the way to the Den of the Nargun which is about 18-20kms away. In most places the path only allows for single file hiking but there were occasions when we were able to walk side by side. The general nature of the path was to ascend quite and descend quite low into rain forest type conditions; often dog legging sharply as you made your way back up. For me, this made it very interesting and you were never walking the same pace or tackling the trail with the same degree of difficulty the whole way.
We started the trek at 1:10pm on Saturday afternoon and got to a campsite called Billy Goats Bend. It is located behind the Amphitheater Lookout and is a basic campsite with no access to water from the river. The views from the lookout were spectacular, even more so as the sun was beginning to go down as we arrived there at 4:50pm. We were keen to get to the next campsite along the trail - Woolshed Creek Campsite - but realised we may have been strapped for time. Regardless, we decided to push on and we quickly informed that the camp spot was at least another 2 hours away. With the sun coming down, we picked up the pace and wasted no time in trying to make our destination before it was completely dark.
Unfortunately, it got dark pretty quickly and we were forced to get our torches/headlamps out. The trail was still winding up and winding down as it had before so we had to be extra careful as we navigated our way through the dark. We came to what we THOUGHT was Woolshed Creek (every other spot we had come to was signed, this was not), but it wasn't suitable given the ground was rock hard and nailing our tents to it would have proved to be almost impossible. The map said the Den of the Nargun picnic area wasn't too far ahead so we moved on to there hoping to find a spot for the night. After much deliberation about where we should camp, we found a flat spot behind a sign not too far from the car park. By the time we had done all of this it was about 7:30pm. We set up our tents, had our dinner (btw those Strive dehy meals are amazing! I had the Lentil Dahl Curry and the Beef Massaman Curry) and were in bed by 9:30.
We woke the next morning at 8 to the sound of rushing water and the birds chirping. While we probably should have made camp at Billy Goats Bend for safety reasons, deciding to push on to the other campsite turned out to be a reasonably good decision as we had access to water from the river. We were up and gone by 9:30am and the next two hours was made up of observing the track we had walked in the dark the previous night, and how high up we were from the river. At some points there was a decent drop from the trail. Handy tip: regardless if you think are going to need a torch or not, bring one! You just never know when you might need it.
We made it back to Angusvale just after 4pm on Sunday and celebrated with a warm meal and some well earned beers we had bought on the drive up. Overall it was a great trip and one I recommend anyone should do. I do have an issue with the lack of signage around the supposed Woolshed Creek camp site, as well as its suitability as a camp site. Very few flat spots that could be used to camp on. Might shoot Parks Victoria an email about it.
Here are some pics of the weekend:
Example of the track
Crossing a small section of the river
At the top of the Amphitheatre. Loooooong way to the bottom.
Taken at the lookout.
Camp site on Saturday night.
My mate getting water from the river.
Some random cave we found. We walked past it on Saturday night prior to reaching our campsite. Not the kind of thing you want to see late at night haha
My two co-hikers
Some of the views you can expect to see.
Enjoy!
