The road to Cooma
JLR’S Mr Heritage Michael Bishop takes the road less travelled to get from Melbourne to Cooma
Author of They Found Our Engineer, Michael Bishop takes the road less travelled to get from Melbourne to Cooma
“WHICH WAY are you going to Cooma?” Alex Massey squawked from under the bonnet of a 1949 Land Rover he was inspecting for me. His question was in relation to the Australian Land Rover anniversary event that’s been held every decade at Cooma since its inception in 1988 for the vehicle’s 40th birthday bash.
That first event was an inspiration to me at 14 years old but sadly I couldn’t attend as my parents had other plans for me. But when it came to the 50th and 60th anniversaries in 1998 and 2008 respectively, I was old enough to do what I wanted and I was in the fortunate position to own a variety of early Series I Land Rovers –all I had to do was pick one.
Despite the fact I was living in the UK for the 70th event, this year was a must-do trip, and I’m pretty sure my Land Rovers felt the same way still stuck in Australia and not moved a wheel for years.
Australia is often described as the worlds’ largest island and smallest continent – to give you an idea it’s roughly 32 times the size of the United Kingdom. I’m from Melbourne, Victoria, down in the south-east corner and a good 1300 miles dead south from where Alex grew up, yet despite that distance we both have a true Aussie country upbringing and an appetite for off-road adventures. In fact, we met as Land Rover enthusiasts after quite literally stumbling across Arthur Goddard – a senior member of the Land Rover development team, back in 2009. You may have read my book They found our engineer. Anyway, back to Alex’s question at the start of this article. I was starting in Melbourne and aiming to get to Omeo via my
uncle’s farm on the southern side of the Great Dividing Range. I would then head into the Victorian High Country area of the divide for some off-road driving, around parts of the Davies Plain Track, and finally cross the Murray River before a short drive across the base of Mt Kosciuszko to Cooma in New South Wales.
My answer certainly got Alex’s attention, as his ears seemed to physically move in my direction. The Victorian Alpine National Park is a four-wheel-drive paradise, remote and at least a 1700-mile round trip. Not many would think to attempt this run in historic vehicles, but then a Series I is a Land Rover and will hold its own in many a tricky offroad situation, so why not? Alex couldn’t say no to a drive like that, so spontaneously we decided to meet in Omeo in six months time with our 1948 models for Cooma’s 70th birthday celebrations.
Gathering the troops
I had thought about driving this route for the 60th anniversary but it didn’t seem to capture anyone’s attention at the time as an idea. The Great Dividing Range is over 2100 miles in length and splits the majority of Australia’s east coast from the inland region. Crossing the challenging areas of the divide is on the top of many a bucket list I’m sure, and true enough, we very quickly had a convoy of vehicles wanting to join Alex and I, including six Series Is, two 90s and a 130 trayback as a load carrier. We had also amassed a group of tourists, friends mostly from the UK, as the drivers for the extra vehicles.
My two Land Rovers were very much ready, a 1948 and 1953 variant – they were the same models that had attended the 60th event under their own steam. Alex would bring his 1948 model and his patina Queensland-spec 1950 model. The third 1948 was a recent find by a mate of ours, Rob. A dream barn-find vehicle with just 20,000 miles on the clock.
March came around relatively quickly and arriving back home and having my two Aussie 80-inch Landys back on the road again was like being reunited with two long-lost friends. Two friends from the UK joined me to help form the UK Land Rover tourist contingent and we started at Queenscliff on the Bellarine Peninsula to the south of Melbourne. We took the ferry across Port Philip bay to Sorrento on the Mornington Peninsula and then headed along the south coast via Cape Schanck to Western Port Bay, which sent us north via a small beach town, Somers, then to my uncles’ farm at the foot of the Baw Baw National Park.
Baw Baw to Wheel Creek Hut
The first 200 miles was a breeze. It had been a long dry summer and there were a variety of bush fires around Victoria and southern New South Wales, but fortunately as it’s such a vast area we were safe. Worst-case scenario could have been a total fire ban across the whole state and with rain greeting us the day we left the farm it put any bush fire issues to rest.
The farm is set alongside tens of thousands of miles of state forest. I learnt off-road driving in this area and I used to regularly come across people who had got completely lost due to the sheer massive expanse of the bush. The sprinkle of rain led to the decision to have a bit of fun and drive a track out towards an old gold town, Walhalla. It is a ‘X’ extreme grade track and not for the novice. It took us nearly two hours to do three miles in wet sticky clay on some insane descents! Once through we motored onto Omeo for an evening at the beautiful Art Deco Golden Age Hotel to meet up with Rob. It was certainly different to the previous night
cooking a BBQ on a campfire, being mindful of our slithery and eight-legged friends.
Rob had come down from Goulburn where he had discovered his 1948 model, just north of Canberra. He then took the Alpine Way, a high trucking pass over the Great Divide to Omeo. Alex and most of the tourists were heading their way down the east coast from Brisbane past Sydney to Cooma to drop off some modern Land Rovers at the event that were towing his Series Is.
The next day began perfectly – the two convoys stumbling across each other in the middle of nowhere. We quickly got ourselves some supplies and the local store had the tourists on the back foot with the old school analogue fuel pumps and other antiquities that have mostly escaped modern life. We were now in the regional heartland of southern Australia. From here we would head into the bush towards Mt Kosciuszko, Australia’s highest peak at just over 7300 ft, and the heart of the Snowy Mountains. The Man from Snowy
River by Australian bush poet Banjo Paterson tells the story of a horseback pursuit to recapture the colt of a prizewinning racehorse that is living in this very region.
The area is also famous for Australia’s largest civil engineering project, the Snowy Mountains scheme, which is a hydroelectricity and irrigation complex, and it was Land Rovers that became the backbone of the fleet. In fact, by 1958 The Snowy maintained around 300 of them – representing the largest single make of vehicle on its nearly 1000-strong vehicle fleet.
Back to this story… As we started to head up Mt Hope Road to the turn-off to Davies Plain Track, it becomes apparent that the locals were right. The track was shut due to erosion. Fortunately Rob had a mapping app and had already planned an alternative route via the lower Tom Groggin track that
“It took us two hours to do three miles in sticky clay on insane descents”
would take us on a loop and allow us to come into the top of Davies Plain Track from the north. We covered a good 50 miles off-road that day and made it to Wheeler Creek Hut, where we set up camp for the night and enjoyed a longawaited barbie.
The sound of the bush is hypnotic in the morning, which had Alex and myself make a decision. As handy as the app was, it is only as good as some of the data of this area that goes back decades if not centuries, which in turn had caused some irregularities with it. We were going to use a good old-fashioned map instead. The challenge was set – to cross the Murray, which is where we needed to be heading, we had to climb Mt Pinnibar, which is nearing 6000 ft. The map showed the climb graded as a ‘D’ or dangerous and the topography was telling us it was very steep for at least three miles and an equal descent on the other side for about five miles.
The climb to Mt Pinnibar and onto Cooma
The sun had reappeared and the light was perfect. Alex and I had a quick scout about in the 1953 to set the lie of the land and position of the sun then we were off. We found the start of Shady Creek that headed to the Mt Pinnibar summit. Once through the Upper Track, you really start the climb – it’s grading was justified. Due to the track’s length and sharp angle it had regular and often large manmade gutters to help in the event of erosion in high rainfall, which made the tracks feel like a roller coaster at times. Once we had cleared this section we had the awesome experience of driving through the tree line almost 4500 ft up.
After a short break at the summit, the next stop was the Murray River crossing in a valley way below. The decent was long and slightly precarious but still very enjoyable. Once down, the mighty Murray crossing point was found at the top of Davies Plain Track and we all stopped to soak in the view and capture it on camera. I often recall when wading early vehicles Arthur Goddard regaling us with tales of testing HUE in the ford at Packington in 1948. “If you go over 9 mph whilst wading the bow wave breaks over the front axle, hits the engine pulley, then splashes on the fan and you get a wet engine,” he said. Alex and I made it through fine, but we had a couple of slightly damp engines to dry off that afternoon.
The night’s camp was on the edge of Kosciuszko National Park that led perfectly into the next day with just a final short run to Cooma. Many photos of our drive had already hit social media creating a real buzz through Cooma and instant recognition. “We should have done something like that,” exclaimed fellow attendees, which made us even more proud of what our vehicles had achieved, and the event was well worth any trepidation we had.
Fingers crossed we have a 75th event in Cooma in 2023 as I can’t wait another 10 years to do it all again!