sheaisidore
New Member
There was a fire in the area in 2019 so you might see where the track continues if anyone wants to look or walk down.
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Dargo River. Louisviĺle
- Thread starter boobook
- Start date
All members, Note ahmedroyc's posts all contain bad links. sneaked into the quoted text or his replies. Note how he simply repeated a valid post from 3 above and inserted the link "speed text" into his quote of mine.
Reported and busted.
peterfermtech
Well-Known Member
phs
Well-Known Member
Now there is a idea just ski your way in there
@boobook. Not sure if you've already had your adventure but I went from Mount Hotham to Mayford back in December 2020, dropped in down Avalanche gulley up at Hotham basically straight down off main car park onto the Dargo River.
We hiked out over the weekend to re-suppy. But it is very steep leading down onto the dargo river, roughly took us 8 hours to hike out/in from Dargo River to Dargo High Plains road. We used this ridge line to hike down into the Dargo River -37.038219, 147.101720, having a good GPS and following the ridge down would probably be the easiest though it's still tough terrain, still go up and down a few hills along the ridge.
I'm actually doing this trip again next week, do you know if there as an accurate GPS location for Brocket? As we found the water diversion tunnel and a lot of their rockwork, stacking rocks in these massive columns down by the Dargo River but we weren't sure if the actual township was up on Freezeout Creek.
Photos of journey if anyones interested https://www.instagram.com/p/CIq-q2fglYp/
We hiked out over the weekend to re-suppy. But it is very steep leading down onto the dargo river, roughly took us 8 hours to hike out/in from Dargo River to Dargo High Plains road. We used this ridge line to hike down into the Dargo River -37.038219, 147.101720, having a good GPS and following the ridge down would probably be the easiest though it's still tough terrain, still go up and down a few hills along the ridge.
I'm actually doing this trip again next week, do you know if there as an accurate GPS location for Brocket? As we found the water diversion tunnel and a lot of their rockwork, stacking rocks in these massive columns down by the Dargo River but we weren't sure if the actual township was up on Freezeout Creek.
Photos of journey if anyones interested https://www.instagram.com/p/CIq-q2fglYp/
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I'm away at the moment and for some reason only just saw this. I hope its still useful
Loiusville is at -37.05138, 147.14057 At the confluence of Freezout creek and the Dargo.
Brocket is at -37.03827, 147.15038 they rerouted the river for a sluce here.
There are a few batteries upstream on the Dargo and a few surveyed properties ( toward freezeout) here -37.03339, 147.14099
I hope it does / went well. Its pretty steep in there. As discussed on Earth, Coming down from Boiler Plain is a longer walk but more open and less steep than coming down from Freeout.
Loiusville is at -37.05138, 147.14057 At the confluence of Freezout creek and the Dargo.
Brocket is at -37.03827, 147.15038 they rerouted the river for a sluce here.
There are a few batteries upstream on the Dargo and a few surveyed properties ( toward freezeout) here -37.03339, 147.14099
I hope it does / went well. Its pretty steep in there. As discussed on Earth, Coming down from Boiler Plain is a longer walk but more open and less steep than coming down from Freeout.
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Here is an interesting article of some Kyakers that did it in the winter.
Dargo River Expedition - Wild Exposure
PUBLISHED WILD MAGAZINE We could only imagine what the passerby’s were thinking about us two blokes. Here we were, Dave and I, above 1600 vertical meters by the side of Mt.Hotham, Victoria, hauling two white water kayaks along the snow in winter like laymen sherpa’ with no water to be seen...
www.wildexposure.com.au
Hey @goody829 , did you manage to get into Brocket or Louisville?
I'd be interested to see how you went.
Hey @boobook , yes we did.
For Brocket we believe it use to be at this location here (-37.033335,147.141162), from the map below out of an old gold towns book. The "Right Hand Branch" is the actually Dargo river which comes down from Hotham which we were following. The "Left Hand Branch" doesn't have a name so I'll just refer to it as the Brocket Tributary.
We hiked up the Brocket Tributary from the Dargo River, it was roughly 1.5km. We found a large flat area going up the hill, we explored the area for maybe 1.5 hours before having to get back to camp that was on the Dargo river. The bush has reclaimed the site from the last fires thick scrub is growing in majority of the site which can been seen in 1st photo. With not a lot of evidence left over, the 2nd picture there's a rock stack most likely an old fireplace and a bit of tin bottom right probably a bit of the old tin roof, as maybe a log cabin use to be there. One of the guys did find an old hand saw, just the metal saw, the wood handle was long gone. Then a bit of old glass in the river coming up, other than that the scrub made it difficult to see much.
At the diversion tunnel which is downstream of the Brocket Trib on the Dargo River are large rock stacks from gold workings, 5m high in some areas, it's real impressive to see, and a water race. There's a collection of broken bottle pieces we found in the photos.
At Louisville (-37.051503,147.140615) we had a quick look around but didn't see too much, the bush was thicker here so it was a bit hard to try and pick out where the flattest area was. We were a bit pressed for time this day so couldn't stay long.
Now for access we dropped in from Hotham and hiked the Dargo river so we were already down there. But I would guess the way you could go would be parking at Blowhard Hut, then hiking this ridgeline down (-37.003540, 147.128141) to get to Brocket, should be able to get there in a day if you're reasonably fit, there'll probably be some steep terrain to navigate. I know Brocket use to be serviced via Harrietville so there could even be old horse trails through there somewhere that lead to Brocket.
If there's anything else you want to know just shoot a message
Attachments
Kings Spur is in pretty good condition, a couple of steep sections and a few ruts to avoid, and a bit rocky in areas, I don't have a lift and I got my vehicle through fine in Low 4wd. Would recommended having a winch as if it was wet could be slippery in places.
Mayford is a good camping area and you're right on the Dargo River and there is plenty of old gold workings around that area, but it would be a tough slog to hike to Brocket from there, probably 3-4 days hike to reach it. Would be easier to drop down from Dargo High Plains Road which should be able to be done in a day.