Autumn on the Buffalo River

Autumn on the Buffalo River

Original Oil Painting 40cm x 30cm on Canvas Board by John Bradley

The Buffalo River which is a perennial river of the northeast Murray catchment of the Murray Darling basin is located in the Alpine region of Victoria. It flows from the eastern slopes of the Buffalo Range in the Australian Alps, joining with the Ovens River West of Myrtleford. Formed by the east and west branches of the river, the head waters of the Buffalo River rise in the Barry Mountains below Mount Selwyn and the Razor at an elevation exceeding 1300 metres above sea level. The east and west branches of the river reach their confluence within the mount Buffalo National Park, where the watercourse becomes the Buffalo River.  Bright is the tourist centre of the Ovens Valley and are 350 metres above sea level and close to the Victorian sky mountains of Mt. Buffalo, Mt Hotham and the Bogong High Plains, named after the Bogong moth which migrates there each year.

This region of Victoria has been one of my favourite annual pilgrimages during the autumn season particularly, visiting places such as Bright, Myrtleford Beechworth and other areas within the Ovens Valley. Both the Ovens and Buffalo rivers support a lot of deciduous autumn toned foliage and are a very popular destination for tourists during autumn. The painting is viewed towards Mount Buffalo with one of the many small farms in the middle distance.  The Buffalo River runs northwards from alpine areas between Mounts Despair and Selwyn and enters the Ovens River a few kilometres west of Myrtleford. It occupies an agriculturally rich valley about 2 km wide.

Farm selections were taken up along the Buffalo River in the early 1870s and a school was opened in 1875. Some farmers took irrigation water from a river tributary, Nug Nug Creek, which runs off the Buffalo plateau. The farm community maintained a population of around 200 people for most of 1900-60. In 1965 a dam was built on the Buffalo River for augmentation of water supply for Wangaratta and for farm irrigations in the Ovens Valley.