Bushwalk Australia

So, anyone else reconsidering their long weekend plans due to the potentially nasty weather coming through on Tuesday?

A whole lotta rain and some serious wind. We're thinking of knocking our walk off in 3 days instead of 4 to avoid Tuesday.

Thought I'd post this both as a warning and to see what others are thinking.

https://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks ... casts/1742
http://www.bom.gov.au/vic/forecasts/mountbuller.shtml

My plans are unchanged - Melbourne. This morning I was nearly blown off my bicycle, scary. ACT and NSW are not much better - windy, total fire ban in the ACT. A few years ago I did the AAWT from the St Bernard to Howitt. Hot, sunny, and a bit tiring on The Twins. The plan was to go over Magdala, The Bluff, Eagles Peaks and then to Sheepyard Flat. The weather looked crook from my Howitt camp, and after packing up in dry conditions I went down Howitt Spur in rain. This was on the Saturday before Cup Day, several parties going up. It rained on the peaks most of that long weekend, quite cold. I wonder if we are seeing a repeat.

Cup Weekend has a habit of serving up something special. A couple of years ago we walked out early after a night of crazy winds, with the next night forecast to be -7. We stayed at Hotham Heights in comfort and woke to a very snowy view. At least two other Cup Weekends I've had snow.

Looks like we'll still do the Viking but instead of going from Upper Howqua we'll go from Howitt Plains and do it in 3 days (don't think we could do that from Howqua).

A bit windy but the change has reached Canberra and we are enjoying a little precipitation. There was a 133 kph gust recorded at Thredbo Top Station this morning - that would have knocked you off your bike.

BOM just updated their forecast for Buller. 8-20mm of rain on Monday evening-night, 15-45mm on Tuesday.

Wow, 133 km/h is significant. If it got that windy I'd find a sheltered place to stay the night, like Thredbo, Seamans Hut or the Rawson Pass toilets. Can the Eagles Nest quad operate in all weather? Suppose it's fine weather in the morning and then gets very windy in the afternoon. Would they stop the quad and let the punters walk down? I do not ride my bicycle in the alps, but I've seen people going very fast on bicycles under the quad. The film of this is scary.

It's good that the ACT is getting a bit wet. One risk with the winds is that trees will fall over the access road. However, there should be plenty of 4WDs with chain saws.

I think Drew has made a good decision. Get out Monday. Given every weekend is a long weekend for me, I choose to not go out on public holiday weekends. Got home from Albury yesterday to find some of the green house panels broken from flying debri. We were picking up stuff in the paddocks a long way from the house. The thunderstorm warning is also of a concern but if the rain comes with it then the fire situation will be eased.

I am looking at recovering an unused food drop from Keppel's hut but many of the fire damaged the trees along the vehicular route could fall down in the wet and windy weather that is forecasted and block the way for my RAV 4. Some of them would be too big to chain saw through .Thanks for alerting me to these weather conditions.

As planned we finished our walk on Monday. We were doing the Viking Circuit from Howitt Plains (original plan was from Upper Howqua but the extra 17km would have been a bit much for 3 days!) and were surprised by the crowds up there. It seems that the Viking has gone mainstream! It was concerning though how many people seemed to either have no idea about the weather forecast, or no understanding of how bad the forecast was. I think quite a few changed their plans and did it in 3 days.

I was looking at the Mt Buller rain totals as it bucketed down in Melbourne. It didn't start seriously raining until the afternoon and the totals weren't as high as Melbourne, so hopefully those who stayed out didn't fare too badly.