Hume and Hovell Track in Lego
The Hume and Hovell Track has been recreated in lego!
After walking the full 426km track in 2024, Matthew Dadswell went on to rebuild the journey that he and his son James took. Matthew has been kind enough to share this with our followers - This is his story:
Photo credit goes to Matthew Dadswell.
Context
LEGO is a popular hobby among people of all ages. There are many LEGO shows held around the world where Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOLs) come together to talk about their hobby and display their creations – known as MOCs which is short for “my own creations”. Often these displays are open to the public. The largest show held in Australia every January is in Melbourne and is called Brickvention. Brickvention Australia. It has been running for almost 20 years. It is held in the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton over a weekend with tens of thousands of people coming to see the LEGO. Other major shows are held in Sydney (BrickBuilt - May), Canberra (Canberra Brick Show - November), Brisbane (BBX - Sept) and Adelaide (Brixpo - July)
The Hume and Hovell Track LEGO models I built were constructed to a format that encourages collaborative building in the LEGO Community. The format is ‘Minifigures on Parade’ (MOPS) Introducing Minifigures On Parade: a modular minifigure diorama format | The Rambling Brick
In this format, people are invited to build ‘LEGO modules’ that can be 8x16 LEGO studs or 16x16 LEGO studs in size that tell a story. The other requirement is that they have a ‘path’ running through the middle that provides the continuity element between each module – this means many people can make and bring modules to a LEGO Show and connect them all up to make one long continuous path. I have attached a photo of these set up at the Canberra Brick Show last October. Five of my Hume and Hovell modules are in the back right hand side.
I thought this provided the ideal format for me to showcase James and my Hume and Hovell track adventure and have some fun recreating iconic aspects of the track in LEGO.
The builds.
I chose to make six 16 x 16 stud Minifigure on Parade modules depicting iconic aspects of the Hume and Hovell Track that James and I walked over 18 days in August and September 2024. These were displayed most recently at Brickvention on 18-19 January 2025. Five modules were previously displayed last year at the Canberra Brick Show and fittingly for the first time at the Albury LEGO Show (Albury Brickmuster in October 2024). The modules join to create a single journey. Only the first and last modules are in order, the rest can be swapped around.
Module 1 – Cooma Cottage
This is my favourite module to build from a LEGO perspective. It depicts James and me at Cooma Cottage, Yass, where we started the walk. The 16x16 stud format meant I couldn’t build the full cottage but have tried to capture familiar elements including the façade of Cooma Cottage, the reddish/tan gravel and the now dead tree that purportedly Hume and Hovell camped under at the beginning of their expedition. There is the iconic H&H totem pole (printed sticker). Also, I added a frying pan which was the subject of the infamous splitting of the expedition. I have also created ‘Sigfigs’ - which are parts of LEGO Minifigures that I have brought together to look like James and I. I’m the one with the grey hair 😉. In some photos our hands change colour depending on whether we had walking gloves on or not. James wore black gloves, and I wore grey gloves.
Module 2 – Road walking
Several sections of the H&H involve walking beside roads. Particularly from Cooma Cottage to The Captain Campground and in the last stages into Albury. But for us there was also a lot of road walking near Tumut as we bypassed the Northern Kosciuszko closure. This module shows us walking in single file (for safety) alongside a bitumen road and passing one of many letter boxes. The H&H totem is in the bottom right. The bypass around Tumut was mostly in my thoughts when making this module.
Module 3 – Pine Plantations
Pine plantations are another common feature of the Hume and Hovell Track. This module shows us walking through a pine plantation, with pine trees in neat rows (and a few wildlings growing) and sandy tan gravel road. Mundaroo State Forest was mostly in my thoughts when building this module.
Module 4 - Farmland
I wanted to capture the time spent on the Hume and Hovell walking through paddocks and climbing over stiles. I could build many modules depicting different types of stiles but here I just went for a very simple one (mainly due to the availability of LEGO elements). It was calving season when we did our walk so I included a couple of calves. Unlike their protective mothers, calves were very unpredictable and would often stand their ground and block our path. Accidently when I was displaying this module the minifigure of James fell over and several people happily commented that it looks like James is laughing as a calf was licking him. Sadly, this didn’t happen during our walk, but I kept it like this because it is funny. Other elements are the black round tiles (cow pats), a rabbit as we saw a few in the paddocks and the plastic totem pole in a familiar position lying down on the ground after being trampled by cows.
Module 5 – Native Forest
Here I sought to depict us walking through native forest. This often involved crossing a river and - barely visible is a Hume and Hovell classic - a very well made steel bridge. When we did the walk, snowfalls in the previous weeks had bent eucalypt and wattle saplings over the track in the Coffee Pot – so you can see a couple of trees (including a yellow blossoming wattle) semi-blocking our path. The Coffee Pot and descent from Woomargama National Park were in my thoughts when building this.
Module 6 – Hovell Tree
This module depicts arrival at the Hovell Tree in Albury. The printed inscription (sticker I made) is the main giveaway. The River Murray is just visible in the background. I took a fair bit of creative licence with the landscaping around the tree and path (should be cobble stones not timber) – but showing the Murray River was the important element. In future I might exchange our poles for the cans of fizzy drink my partner had bought for us in celebration when we finished our walk.
Where do you stop? So many other scenes I could create – The Boat on Lake Burrinjuck, Mt Wee Jasper, Pompey’s Pillar, Micalong Swamp boardwalk, View to the Australian Alps, Eastern Hill, more bridges, more stiles.
Overall, these builds have been well received for their ability to tell a story – and from my perspective the more people that get to know about the Hume and Hovell Track the better. Most likely these will next be displayed at BrickBuilt at the Howie Complex at Sydney Showgrounds on Saturday 31st May and Sunday 1 June 2025. Brickbuilt Sydney – A LEGO® Fan Event presented by SydLUG – Brickbuilt Sydney – A LEGO® Fan Event presented by SydLUG.
When I am not hiking, I am building LEGO – more of my LEGO creations can be seen on Instagram at: @bricksurvivor
You can view photos from the thru hike on Instagram at: @hikercbr
Thank you Matthew for sharing your story!