As Xplora might say, procrastination is a wonderful thing.
Anyway, inspired by a comment that walking down from the XCut into the Terrible Hollow and up via Devil's staircase in driving rain would be a reasonable warm up for a Western Arthurs Traverse (unfair I think as WAT is well tracked), I thought I'd look around for older maps of the Howitt area to see what tracks have fallen into disuse, been swallowed up by blackberries.
I found a topo map 1st edition from 1977 downloadable here:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/a ... 144fdd4fa6It has surprisingly little in the way of walking tracks and doesn't even include the Queen's Spur Road (was that after '77?).
There's the 4WD track to the bottom of Picture Point Spur and the track that goes further up the Howqua north branch, as well as one that heads towards Mt Magdala, but no Helicopter Spur, nor Queen Spur (not pictured) walking tracks.
And something I've noticed on other maps is that Mt Magdala is sometimes called Mt Majorie, in this case, Mt Magdala seems to be King Billy 1. Weird.
- Howitt Topo
I also found another map of Howitt, which is pretty unclear it also has Magdala called Majorie and King Billy 1 as Magdala. (Map downloaded from:
https://vro.agriculture.vic.gov.au/dpi/ ... nce_8223_2)
On this one, there's a road running straight along the XCut (not contouring like Queens Spur road did/does).
Also, a track or walking track straight down from VG Hut to the Wonnangatta via Devil's Staircase (or at least abutting Devil's staircase) to join the old Wonanngatta 4WD/logging track that starts at Catherine Saddle.
- Howit
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