Australian Alps Walking Track - Old Buenba Hut Site to Limestone Creek

Day: 18
Date: Saturday, 04 May 2019
Start:  Old Buenba Hut Site
Finish:  Limestone Creek
Daily Kilometres:  26.8
Total AAWT Kilometres:  384.6
Weather:  Cool to cold, overcast, with a few showers
Accommodation:  Tent
Nutrition:
  Breakfast:  Muesli
  Lunch:  Trail Mix
  Dinner:  Rehydrated Meal
Aches:  None in particular
Highlight:  Misery Trail, which was an old disused 4WD track along the summit of a snow-gum covered ridge, was a beautiful and well-earned walk to follow a long and arduous ascent.  It was a peaceful little plateau, another "lost world" with glimpses to nearby forested mountains through the white gnarly trees.
Lowlight:  Brumby poop.  It seemed that all day we were walking round it, over it, or through it.  I understand the romance associated with these wild horses that roam the mountains here, but they have no predators and have clearly changed the landscape in significant ways.  Apart from the poop, there are brumby tracks everywhere through the forests and water sources and marshy areas have been trampled.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:

It rained just before we got up, but stopped by the time we were ready to pack up, although again we had a very wet tent flysheet to stow in my pack.  According to the guidebook and my memory, we had many sections of "poorly defined" trail to follow today, and I was somewhat anxious that poor navigation would cost us plenty of time.  However, as it turned out, the trail was better marked and easier to follow than I recalled.

From the Buenba valley, we climbed gently through forest to the Buckwong Track a pleasant firetrail with easy walking and we made good time until our breakfast stop which included a futile attempt to dry the tent fly.  From there, the trail followed the Buckwong Creek upstream through a series of grassy, and a little boggy, flats that were clearly popular with the brumbies.  Then came a seemingly never-ending climb on rough trail up to Davies Plain Ridge, with the very welcome Misery Trail (see above) which marked the high point of the day.

From there the AAWT descended into the Limestone Creek valley via more beautiful single-track trail and one steep slippery descent, fording along the way Dead Horse Creek where we both got our feet a bit wetter than intended.  Limestone Creek itself was also a challenging ford, before we collected some water and walked a few hundred metres further on to find a relatively dry place to camp.  Some rain arrived as we started cooking, and our meals were consumed in the cosy tent.  The weather has been a bit strange all day, with periods of quite intense cold and the occasional shower.  Hopefully we'll see some blue sky tomorrow.