Heading Home

Time to pack up and begin the journey home. We've had some great weather in Corryong except for one day, but this morning made up for it with continual rain as we packed up. Kept the kids dry, but we got quite wet!

The drive towards Wodonga of around 100 km's was wet, with some quite heavy rain at one point while descending a steep, winding hill... so it was slow going!

Once past Wodonga it was only another 30 km's to Chiltern where we planned to have a night. It's nice just travelling short distances and taking our time. Chiltern is one of those places we've heard of, seen the sign for it on the Hume Fwy, but never ventured off to have a look. What a nice little town it is. The caravan park is called Lake Anderson Caravan Park, right next to a small lake and only a couple of minutes walk from the historic town centre. Once set up, the sun again shone and we had lunch.  After lunch we walked around town, admiring the well preserved streetscapes, checking out some antique shops and junk shops (personally, I can't tell the difference!) and got some afternoon tea at the bakery (one of the best coffee scrolls I've ever had!)

Gemma at one of the many 2nd hand shops

After our walk around, Zac and I went for a bike ride around Lake Anderson twice - it's not very big. We met these interesting sculpture people on the way...

Our campsite in Chiltern

Later in the day, I returned into town for some more photos once the cars and people had all gone, then caught a nice sunset over Lake Anderson.

Wednesday we head to Mansfield for a night, then head home on Thursday.

Final day in Corryong

Our plan for the final day in Corryong was to keep it simple, hang around the caravan park mostly and just make it up as we went! Darrin went for a bike ride into town and back (only 10kms, so pretty easy going). The others met him in town at the big ship park where the kids had all sorts of fun sailing the seven seas, pirating and looting as they went. To quote Gemma to one of the boys 'You drive and I'll attack!'

 

Returned to the caravan park for lunch and the rest of the day. We pretty much have the place to ourselves now, a few others left today. During the afternoon we pretty much decided we want to come back again same time next year! It's a great place!

 

Zac and several of his 'twins' went bike riding, as did the rest of us...

 

 

Ethan and Gemma found lots of little frogs of different colours in the creek.

 

And 4 out of 5 of us paddled in the water, with all agreeing that it was FREEZING!

 

Enjoyed a campfire on our final evening, sat around it to eat dinner, finished it off with the obligatory marshmallows toasted...

 

Burrowa-Pine Mountain National Park

Another glorious day beckoned, so we went out in search of some more stunning scenery. This is such a beautiful corner of the state! Not far from where we are staying is Burrowa-Pine Mountain National Park. That's where we started the day. Our first stop was at Bluff Falls. The viewing platform is at the base of the falls, just 250 metres from the car park, so it was easy to access. The spray from the falls hit us on the viewing platform!

 

There was a couple of other walks, we chose the short 'stroll' to Campbells Lookout which was meant to be 700 metres away. It took a very long time, it involved scaling up rocks, avoiding steep drop offs, mossy and damp areas as well as this ladder...

 



But it was a terrific walk, which took us high above the falls and along the creek, complete with dozens of other small cascades. It felt a lot further than 700 metres, and we're still not sure if we made it all the way to Campbells Lookout!

 

Enjoyed a last look at Bluff Falls on the way back to the car park, where we had a picnic lunch.

 

We continued driving through the National Park. The road was a gravel one, in good condition. The Pine Mountain part of the park is actually a large monolith, supposedly more than twice the size of Uluru. It's pretty much covered in trees, so it looks more like a regular mountain than a monolith. We drove through the small town of Walwa and then followed the Murray River back towards Tintaldra. There were a couple of fantastic places for camping along the river. This is one of those spots - with Pine Mountain (the Monolith) a back drop to the great river... 

 

Half way between Tintaldra and Toowong... (and yes we had all the jokes about Toowongs don't make a right!) we took the turn off for Mt Mittamatite. A sign proclaimed it to be a 'dry weather road'. It was literally a goat track, initially through lush green farmland, with several cattle grates and cattle wandering all over the place - as was a solitary black snake we nearly ran over. Then the goat track turned into more of a regular dirt road, although quite rocky. All up it was 16 km's up to Embery's Lookout.  But it was well worth it. The view looking down over Corryong township, the lush fields and across to the Alps and the now familiar snow caps. We hung around and clambered on the massive boulders for quite some time. As has been the case with most places up here, we had it all to ourselves!

 

On the way back to Corryong, we stopped to admire this view of the Murray River and the Alps as a backdrop.

Corryong and beyond

Well, we survived the windy night, which continued throughout the day. It rained a little, but not a huge amount. Spent Thursday morning hanging around the caravan, then ventured into Corryong after lunch. Visited the Man From Snowy River museum. Jack Riley is credited as the inspiration for Banjo Patterson's famous poem. Jack is buried in Corryong and the museum bears his name. The museum has very little to do with him though, but does have a wide collection of other bits and bobs.

This statue of Jack Riley is at the Corryong Visitor Info Centre. He is buried in the Corryong cemetery, having died in 1914. His tomb credits him to be 'The Man From Snowy River'. It was cold and windy at the cemetery so we made a hasty retreat for the warmth of the caravan. As evening drew close, the wind died down. This is the creek running past the caravan park late in the day.

 

Following yesterday's not so nice weather, today was a beauty. Blue skies, no wind. So we headed into NSW, through Khancoban which was purpose built for Snowy Hyrdro workers, and into Kosciuszko National Park. The Alpine Way was closed due to a rock slide, but we were able to get as far as Scammel's Lookout which gave us magnificent views of the Western side of the highest of Australia's Alps, covered in snow. Kosciuszko itself was not visible, hidden behind Abbots Peak apparently.

 

This truly was a magnificent view!

 

On the way back to Khancoban we stopped at the Murray 1 Hydro Power Station, part of the engineering marvel that makes up the Snowy Mountain Scheme, built in the late 60's and early 70's. It was interesting learning some of the history and how it all came about. Work Place safety has come along way in those 40 years, judging by some of what we saw. It's hard to imagine the greenies would ever allow such a project these days as well. Even though this is 'clean power generation'. The water that turns the turbines at Murray 1 powers 3 separate power stations, before being released for irrigation - sure beats burning brown coal!

 

 

Back at the caravan park, we did many laps of the park - one lap is a 600 metre circuit!

 

Saturday saw us at the Corryong 7th Annual Vintage Machine Rally. We saw a tractor pull competition, old cars, old trucks and heaps of stationary steam motors in action. Co-incidentally, while watching the tractor pull, Ethan lost a tooth. He'd been on about it for days. Perhaps the thought of a tractor pulling it out was the final straw!

 

Here's a 'Hubcap Portrait'!

Back at the caravan park, we watched the grand final out under the awning, even though it was quite cool and breezy. The kids enjoyed making rock towers and other creations down at the creek. This is Zac's version of Fred Flintstone's house...

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!