High Country Track

The snow gums close in around your rig at 5,900 feet, their ghostly white trunks standing sentinel over Victoria’s highest 4WD track. The High Country Track cuts 87 miles through the heart of the Victorian Alps between Omeo and Mansfield, threading cattle stations, mining remnants, and some of the most remote country left in southeastern Australia. This is where the mountain cattlemen ran their herds for over a century before Parks Victoria locked it down—and their ghost still haunts every creek crossing and ridge line you’ll navigate over two hard days.

Your high-clearance 4WD will earn its keep on this moderate but unforgiving route. The track surface shifts from graded gravel to rocky creek beds to alpine bog without warning, and those water crossings aren’t just puddles—they’re legitimate stream fords that can catch the unprepared. The 140-kilometer route gains nearly 6,000 feet through country that shifts from river valleys thick with wattles to exposed alpine plains where the wind never stops. October through April is your window—snow closes this country for half the year, and even in summer you can wake up to frost at elevation. Cell service vanishes the moment you leave Omeo, and fuel stops don’t exist until Mansfield on the far end.

The track passes through Dargo High Plains and skirts the edge of the Alpine National Park, where dispersed camping is allowed but requires self-sufficiency that most weekend warriors can’t muster. You’ll cross paths with the old Razorback Road and thread between Mount Hotham’s ski runs and the Bogong High Plains, country that looks more like Scotland than Australia. The mining scars from the 1800s gold rush still pock the landscape—some of the shafts are still open, so keep your wits about you when you’re setting up camp.

This isn’t a trail you knock out in a day trip from Melbourne. The High Country Track demands two full days minimum, three if you want to actually absorb what you’re driving through instead of just surviving it. What you get is access to the most remote alpine country in Victoria, camping spots that haven’t changed since the cattlemen used them, and the kind of isolation that reminds you why you bought that 4WD in the first place. Just don’t expect your phone to work or AAA to find you if things go sideways up here.