Road Closures

Moroka-Wonangatta Unit

Howitt Rd

The Licola-Mt Howitt-Mt Buller road is closed during winter after the Queen's Birthday weekend until October 31. The old gate used to be 8km south of the Howitt carpark making it possible to drive to Bryce's Gorge. The snow was graded from the road up until The Gorge and then you were on your own but it was usually straight forward for a 4WD with snow chains.

Parks Victoria have now set up a new, bright yellow boom gate a further 28km south of the old gate or about 1/2km up from where they stopped grading the snow. This makes it a 15km walk to Bryce's Gorge and 36km to Mt Howitt!!

The placement of the gate is somewhat odd in that it is half way up a hill that is one of the most difficult sections of road in winter due to the build up of snow. It is however a simple gate placement in term of preventing people from driving around it, and it's close to the edge of the national park so they probably couldn't move it any further down the mountain.

The seasonal closure of this gate is not fixed and it may be opened early if the snow conditions are poor allowing you to drive a further 6km to the Mt Lookout carpark. This still seems a little odd to me, since my experience of driving up here in winter before they moved the gate indicated that this was THE worst stretch of road in terms of snow, mud and traction problems. To open the road then part of the way past this point doesn't seem to make much sense. 

East Caledonia Track

This used to be just before the old gate on the Howitt road mentioned above. This road has now been closed 'permanently' due to flood and fire damage. Many other tracks heading west from the Howitt road have also been closed permanently with about the only exception being the seasonal closure of the Butcher Country Track.