North East Victoria

After a challenging couple of months, it was so nice to hook up the caravan and head off - although a day later than planned and with Zac still not feeling 100%. Left home late morning on Monday and after lunch in Yea, found ourselves in the little town of Milawa, around 16 km's east of Wangaratta. Checked into the little caravan park, which was quiet and pleasant. Milawa prides itself on it's 'gourmet' status, with several wineries, cheese place, mustard maker, honey maker and other delicacies all within cooee of town.

Between Oxley and Milawa we found an old mill and a welcoming letterbox!

Tuesday morning and we went and visited Brown Brothers Winery where we sampled and bought, enjoying some time in their outdoor bean bags on a glorious spring morning.

Before leaving Milawa we also went and visited the mustard place and tried some. Didn't do the cheese place as we'd been there on a previous visit.

Our lunch stop was in the lovely little town of Yackandandah - one of the best place names going around! From there we passed through Tangambalanga, another place that rolls off the tongue once you practice it a few times!

 From there we continued our journey in a north east direction, skirting along Lake Hume and ended up in Colac Colac (pronounced Clack Clack). Checked into the wonderful caravan park - great, grassy sites, lots of trees, a creek running through... and we one of only a handful of people staying. The kids soon made friends and after setting up camp it all felt like home!

 This is the 'creek' running past us, and here's our site in the middle of the park.

 On Wednesday morning, with the sun shining brightly we went to explore some of the area. The scenery is stunning, green rolling hills, the Australian Alps, plus some nice little towns with old pubs. Stopped in Tintaldra, right on the Murray River. The old general store is run by an 80 something year old woman, who greeted us with scones and a cuppa! She showed us around the store which is like a living museum, then sat us out the back to enjoy morning tea with great views across the Murray and the hills and mountains. She suggested a couple of other places to visit, which sounded interesting.

 This is the bridge across the Murray River at Tintaldra:

 Just to add to the colours in the landscape we came across this canola field with the stunning Alps as a back drop!

 As recommended by the Tintaldra lady, we stopped at the Southern Cloud Memorial - a terrific viewing area of the Alps, including some snow capped peaks in the distance - one of which is Kosciuszko.

 The memorial was to Australia's first air disaster, when the Southern Cloud went down in the mountains in 1931 claiming 8 lives - 2 pilots and 6 passengers. Our Tintaldra friend told us the shop keeper at the time saw the crash and reported it to the authorities. Charles Kingsford Smith himself joined in the search, but nothing was found until the 1950's. A great pioneering story and a great memorial to it!

We enjoyed lunch at Paddy's River Falls and a walk to the base of the falls.

After that we meandered back to the caravan park via Corryong where we called in at the supermarket. Spent the rest of the afternoon riding bikes, playing footy and Frisbee. There's supposed to be a nasty cold front coming through tonight. Let's hope it's not too bad!

A week in Bright

We have just returned from a wonderful week in Bright, in north-east Victoria. Bright is situated in the Ovens Valley surrounded by the Victorian Alps. The Ovens River runs through the town.  Bright is a popular holiday destination at all times of the year, but at the moment the autumn colours set it apart from other areas of Victoria.

We stayed at Pine Valley Caravan Park which was a picturesque park, with lots of shady trees, many decidious and beginning to show some autumn colours.  The kids had a great time on the jumping pillow.  Although the weather was terrific, it wasn't really warm enough to try out the pool!

 

 

About 6 kms from Bright is the little town of Wandiligong.  Gold was found around the creek there and there was a settlement of Chinese miners who worked the diggings in the 1800's. We went to the more recent attraction - the maze, said to be the largest hedge maze in Australia.

 

58 Kilometres from Bright is another historical town - Beechworth.  We drove up there one morning.  Darrin then rode his bike back to Bright via the Rail Trail, the others stayed and explored Beechworth. They went to the old jail:

 

Beechworth was also established in the gold rush and much of the historic buildings date from that era.

 

 

A highlight for the kids especially was visting the honey tasting shop!  They tried a number of varities and chose some favourites to buy to bring home.

 

Beechworth is also well known for its bakery, so a visit to Beechworth had to include a visit for lunch:

 

The historic post office in the centre of Beechworth:

 

After lunch, the kids had a blast on the granite rock slide in one of the parks in town.  Its a natural boulder that has been worn smooth over many years of backsides sliding down it!

 

Meantime, the bike ride back to Bright was meant to be around 73 km's... but actually turned out to be closer to 85 km's!  The first 17 km's were pretty easy as it was pretty much down hill, through farmland.  Then it was a pretty flat run through the Ovens Valley - except for a short climb through Taylor's Pass.

 

 

Darrin starting off from Beechworth:

 

 

Some of the scenery was stunning, with mountains, autumn colours, vineyards, towns, old farm buildings and machinery, rivers and creeks...

 

Darrin felt a sense of achievement having completed this ride - but if he'd known it was going to be 85 km's all up he might have reconsidered doing it!

 

The next day, Zac and Jeanette did a shorter ride, from Wandiligong back to Bright, including a stint along a rough track beside Morses Creek.

 

 

The old, former general store in Wandiligong:

 

While Zac and Jeanette did their bike ride, Ethan, Gemma and Darrin went into Bright and found an ice creamery...

 

Sunday morning saw us driving up to the top of Mt Buffalo - a spectacular mountain of granite outcrops.  We drove all the way to 'The Horn', its highest peak at 1723 metres. (around 200 metres short of Victoria's highest peak, Mt Bogong and over 500 metres shorter than Australia's highest peak, Mt Kosciuskco. At The Horn, we went on a 1.6 km walk up to the very top, which literally had us on a large rock, with a 360 degree view over the Alps and valleys below.  It was an amazing sight, even though it was a little hazy due to a fair degree of controlled back burning around the state.

 

After a picnic lunch we walked up and past 'The Cathedral' and on to 'The Hump' for more terrific views.  All up, we walked nearly 4 km's - all of it up or down hill.  The kids did very well.

 

Atop Mt Buffalo is Lake Catani which is a popular camping area.  We just popped in to have a look on our way back down the mountain. Ethan and Zac felt adventurous as they went out on this log which hung over the lake! Neither fell in, just as well as a mountain top lake is probably quite cold.

 

The Mt Buffalo chalet was originally built in 1910 and sits just a couple of hundred metres back from the edge of a rocky cliff. Unfortunately it was closed down a few years back and its future is unknown. While taking this photo, there was thunder from an approaching storm, making the whole scene reminiscent of a Scooby Doo TV epsiode!  I could imagine Scooby and his human friends driving up to The Chalet on a dark and stormy evening only to find it is 'haunted' by what turns out to be the vindictive gardner!

 

After all that walking and climbing, and reminiscing about Scooby Doo episodes, the next day was a more relaxing one in the caravan park. This included riding parks around the park and chilling out a bit.

 

 

We also went on an 'autumn leave' hunt, finding a row of terrifically coloured trees outside the local golf course...

 

Riding around the caravan park was a very popular past-time for us all - especially Ethan who grew in confidence each day, after his training wheels were taken off shortly before this holiday. 

 

One more walk was tackled - up Huggins Hill to the lookout over Bright.  It was again hazy due to burning off.

 

Our final afternoon we went to Harrietville, 20 km's further up the valley just before the road climbs up to the ski resort of Mt Hotham.  There's a nice little picnic area and playground by the river at Harrietville, although a flash flood had damaged the area a couple of weeks ago, washing silt and top soil off fire ravaged Mt Hotham.  Fires ripped though the mountain over summer this year. 

 

On our previous visit, just over 5 years ago, Ethan had his photo, aged 8 months old alongside this old log at Harrietville.  We re-enacted that scene today!

 

There was a swing that went out over the river that the kids all enjoyed scaring themselves on.

 

Jeanette has a particular soft spot for Harrietville, as her Great Great Grandfather built this church in the 1860's, as well as part of the original school.  Perhaps the kids don't appreciate or comprehend this historical connection yet, buy we made sure we got some photos of them by their Great Great Great Grandfather's handiwork!

 

Back in Bright, there was time for one more bike ride around the caravan park.  Then it was time to pack up and head home - around a 4 hour drive.