This walk was organised and led by Max S as a private Tuesday walk:

Next Tuesday is from the Old Boboyan Car park to the small falls on Bogong Creek. The return will be over Yankee Hat ridge into an arm of Middle Creek and then back to cars across the Gudgenby flats. Approx 16 km and 600 metres – mostly off track with about 1/3 easy walking. Expect regrowth and other impediments from time to time. Likely to be category hard Weather is forecast to be Fine, partly cloudy. Min 9 Max 24 Start 7.30 Kambah shops. Could be about 8.00 hrs walking plus 2 hours driving As usual 4 are required to be a sanctioned FBI walk.

Just the 2 of us. Very pleasant to be driven to the Yankee Hat car park.

Walk

We signed in on the walking register and wandered at a comfortably quick pace down the Old Boboyan Road. The wind had already picked up - it was lovely and cooling. Usual huge views to the Yankee Hats and Mt Gudgenby. Right turn down a fire trail which took us down to the edge of the swamp and curled around to cross at the causeway. Grasslands and faint vehicle track took us to the fence line and into the light timber at the S end of the swamp.

We stayed on the N side of Bogong Creek and very pleasant walking it was too (last trip up here on 5 Apr 08 we used the S bank, but one never knows until both are tried). A couple of side gullies to cross (just once we swapped sides of the creek) and found a very pleasant glade for morning tea around 10.15am. Great views up to Mt Gudgenbty (see pic 1) and 'The Fortress' (see Facebook).

From here it was under 1km to the falls, but we kept down near the creek, not knowing what to expect and not wanting to miss them. This slowed our rapid progress. At last there was a hint of high rock through the scrub, then the increased noise of the water and, finally, the Bogong Creek Falls (see pic 2). A lovely site! We sidled easily up to the top and paused for a while. The water was clear and cool and beautiful to drink. 7.6km and 2hrs 45mins to get here.

I'd assumed we'd motor home from here, up the Yankee Hat ridge and through the saddle SE of SH1526. You'd think I'd know Max better after all our walks. The plan unfolded that we'd continue on up Bogong Creek and, even recovering from his cold, I reckon he wanted to make Bogong Gap. But things rapidly went downhill from here, even though we were going uphill. We immediately hit a hillside of fallen saplings (the giant pick-up-sticks game) and, after struggling through them for around 30mins at 1km/hr, knew we'd not make any further significant objective. So we headed NE up to the Yankee Hat ridge, still struggling through the fallen Mountain Ash, and crossed the ridge to the NW of SH1526. Glimpses of the Gudgenby grasslands looked tantalisingly close and fooled me into believing that we'd soon be down. Same as on 28 Aug 06 and we soon found ourselves heading down a roughly similar route.

Lunch was, in fact, a further 2.4km away and 440m down. We stumbled across the fence and huge boulder (see pic 3) on the S arm of Middle Creek that I'd lunched at on 30 Mar 05.

All that remained was to wander out into the open mouth of Middle Creek and trudge back across the grasslands, using the 'Smiley/Baby Face' on the side of the Hospital Hill ridge as a bit of an aiming guide.

We paused at an interesting site back along the Boboyan Road and called in to the Namadgi Visitors Centre for me to pick up a camping permit for 9-10 Jan 09.

Nice walk Max. Excellent main destination (thanks also to Mary H for the GR) and we'll know which side of Bogong Creek not to continue up if we ever want to go this way to Bogong Gap.

Distance: 15.9km  Climb: 550m.  Time: 8.20am - 3pm (call it 6.75hrs), with 40mins of stops.
Grading: L/R; H(12)

KMZ file for Google Earth/Maps: Bogong Creek Falls