Category: Travel

Horse treks in the Victorian High Country: retracing stock routes

Alpine National Park in north-eastern Victoria was once the stomping ground of Australia’s High Country cattlemen. The Plains and the surrounding peaks – including Mt Feathertop and Mt Hotham – all belong to the Victorian Alps, part of the Great Dividing Range. From the mid-1850s until a decade ago, stockmen would drive their cattle through the lush pastures and onto the surrounding mountains and muster them down again in autumn before the first major snowfalls. Since 2005, when the last of the state government’s High Plains grazing leases expired, all that remains are the cattlemen’s huts and scattered remnants of stockyards. In a celebration of this heritage, one pioneering family leads packhorse trips into the High Plains.