Huts of Long Plain - On the trail of our pastoral past

Overview

A classic 4-day / 3-night, ~50 km alpine loop through one of Kosciuszko National Park's most historically significant pastoral landscapes. Long Plain is not a single story — it is a layered cultural record spanning nearly 150 years of mountain life: from the earliest squatting runs of the 1830s through to the final grazing leases of the 1970s, all compressed into a stretch of treeless subalpine plain ringed by snowgum woodland and open sky. …

A classic 4-day / 3-night, ~50 km alpine loop through one of Kosciuszko National Park's most historically significant pastoral landscapes. Long Plain is not a single story — it is a layered cultural record spanning nearly 150 years of mountain life: from the earliest squatting runs of the 1830s through to the final grazing leases of the 1970s, all compressed into a stretch of treeless subalpine plain ringed by snowgum woodland and open sky.

Seven hut places mark the route — homesteads, working shelters and ruins — each representing a distinct chapter in the history of Australia's high country. The walk traces an unbroken arc from Old Currango Homestead, the oldest surviving building in the national park, to Bill Jones Hut, built in 1952 and among the last grazing huts ever constructed on the plain. In between lie huts hidden in the treeline, ruins that only the plain remembers, and stock routes that no longer appear on standard maps.

The terrain is demanding and the weather often uncompromising — snow is always possible. What the walk offers in return is access to a landscape and a set of stories that cannot be experienced any other way.