05/09/2026
You learn something everyday when it comes to the huts of the high country!
Do not let the name "Melbourne Walking Club" fool you. It was named for where they originated, not for where they went - and they sometimes travelled very far afield.
Take this photo, for example, which was snapped on one of the club's walks in the 1930s.
It depicts some of the walkers and their trusty packhorse taking a rest in front of the crumbling remains of an old stockman's hut at Cowombat Flat, just across the Victorian border, at the source of the Murray River in New South Wales.
The stockman's hut has clearly seen better days, with the wooden shingles of its rough roof shedding like fish scales. The chimney, however, appears sturdy and well preserved. It remained standing to become part of another story: some twenty years after this picture was taken, the stone chimney would provide shelter for folks in need.
It was August 1954 and a military plane (Douglas C-47 Skytrain) with a crew of four men was making a transport trip from Sale to Bathurst, Richmond, and Canberra before returning home.
On the final leg of the journey from Canberra to Sale, the plane lost altitude, leaving the only option to attempt a forced landing. The manoeuvre did not go to plan, killing the co-pilot and wounding the remaining three crew members.
Carrying the body of their deceased comrade, the surviving men found shelter in the ruins of an old stockman's hut nearby where they huddled in the chimney until help arrived. Fortunately, this came soon: a little over an hour after impact they were located by an RAAF search plane, which had been alerted by a distress signal sent as the plane began falling.
The three survivors were rescued, having sheltered in the same ruined hut where the Melbourne Walking Club had once stopped to rest and take a photograph.
