Grieving for losses: Fire in the Lobs Hole Ravine area

Lobs Hole is in the NSW High Country near Kiandra, but the Lobs Hole Ravine Track, which circled Yarrangobilly, was closed earlier last year as the Snowy Mountains 2 Project is working in this area. In January this year this area was also impacted by the Dunns Road Fire, which destroyed equipment on the Snowy 2 site. So I have two reasons for mourning the loss of access to this lovely drive.

We were greeted with overcast skies as we departed to travel the now familiar Tooma Road to Kiandra. Today, however, the mood was different as heavily overcast skies threatened rain and no sunlight filtered through the trees, making for a brooding forest which left me feeling insignificant and the waters of the dams grey and uninviting. The High Country was, however, as beautiful as ever and brightened by wildflowers (with a predominance of shades of yellow and highlights of purple, pink and white – including the tiny white blossoms of the Snow Gums). This countryside is made for extreme weather, so looks its best when things are less benign.

Half way along the road to Kiandra, we turned down the Lobs Hole Ravine Road (our mission for today). I was able to follow this track in Craig Lewis and Cathy Savage’s 4WD book – but it did not mention the new looking Wallaces Creek Lookout, which was our first stopping point. This gave us views up a deep valley right up to a distant Yarrangobilly and down over rocky tree and wildflower covered slopes immediately below us (and a lizard basking on a small boulder).

We continued onwards, descending on a track that was formerly a major route to the Kiandra Gold fields. But, as Lobs Hole was more sheltered, it became a desired town in which to spend winter and grew accordingly, with copper mining adding to its allure.

The track hugged the side of a mountain with steep forested sides dropping to the deep floor of the valley far beneath us and John kept a wary eye on the sky, noting that the road had a fairly rocky base. Then the views opened up more, giving us the sensation of driving over the edge as we rounded blind tight corners with nothing but a row a fragile looking brown summer grasses lining the edge (and there were small washaways to navigate too) – a bit of an Adrenalin rush! But I comforted myself by the belief that the presence of power lines ensured that this track would be maintained to a certain degree.

At the bottom of the valley a maze of tracks wove around the site of the old mine and town, however little was now left but Poplar Trees, some mesh covered mine holes and various campsites edging a swiftly flowing Yarrangobilly River. As we began to feel the odd light spit of rain, we did not linger here to explore properly.

Further along some crumbling rammed earth walls were all that remained of the Washington Hotel – and soon after this we were confronted with the crossing of the river (just upstream from a washed away bridge). John initially waded it’s cool waters and, finding that it never came higher than just below his knees, declared that it would be OK to cross – so over we went (very easily as it happened).

A little way past here we stopped to ask some campers about the state of the road ahead and about half an hour later we had chatted about travel and admired the views, and we found out about what a great camping spot this was.

Now, feeling much more relaxed, we went winding our way up under the power lines with distant views of where the river entered Talbingo Reservoir on a track that was better this side of Lobs Ravine than it had been on the way down. After crossing past where another track led to the backwaters of the reservoir, we climbed higher, with views of its waters way below us, until we left it to travel deeper into the mountains. But we were still high up and still following the power lines (whilst marvelling at the engineering feat it would have taken to construct them).

Then we parted company from the power lines and travelled downwards to cross a gully and switch back along its other side to re-join the lines (as they had been able to march straight across the opening into the gully) – and this occurred a few more times.

Eventually we emerged out of this area and stopped at the Jounama Heritage Walk car park to have lunch and then walk 100 metres to the site of  Old Jounama Homestead (which was burnt down in 1935), but now had multiplying fruit trees, a Poplar and a large shady deciduous tree under-carpeted with yellow wildflowers. But we did find nearby, the remains of a sheep dip.

Shortly thereafter we emerged onto the Snowy Mountains Highway and turned towards Yarrangobilly Village (which turned out to be one house and a camping area on the edge of the Yarrangobilly River) and then continued across Long Plain (back in alpine high country and where wild horse warning signs regularly appeared).

As we crossed this long and undulating high plain, I could not understand why people would have taken the long and tortuous route through Lobs Ravine when this was now easy travelling – but perhaps it would be vastly different in winter!

We stopped at Three Mile Dam at Kiandra to stretch our legs and found lots of people camped here too amongst the Snow Gums.

Our journey back to the caravan was a lovely repeat of the Tooma Road; the sun and blue skies had now returned (but, as yet, not the high temperatures) and we enjoyed driving this road in reverse (apart from passing the amazing amount of on-coming traffic).

Remember: You can either take what has been dealt to you and allow it to make you a better person, or you allow it to tear you down. Josh Shipp