Backwards and Forwards but the story goes on

Back to the future

Well, we are home. Arrived Monday evening after stopping in Oberon (RSL) for a quick and early dinner and a break from the road/weather. Driving from Goulburn to Blackheath the back way in fading daylight is a bit hairy at the best of times, in unsettled weather and with trailer, more so. Without fail there will be vehicles coming toward you, at speed, and using your side of the road – around bends of course. This time most of the speedsters were of the motorcycle trail riding variety, not riding, but also returning from their weekends away, often with bike trailers and lending an extra scare to this startled rabbit. It's bad enough when a ute or large tray top monster comes toward you. Anyway, the nearer to home we progressed the thicker the fog, no change here from when left, and by the time we reached our street with Howard driving this time, he was down to a crawl (I mean that). Mind you we have fog lights on our car and still could barely make out where we were going, but make it we did and swiftly unpacked the car, cleared things away, turned on the heating and assumed our usual relaxing positions including a glass of relaxant which we had already decided was becoming too much of a habit on this trip, but now it's Thursday and we still have a bottle in the fridge.

Back to the story.....................

From The Big Walk, the next day we took the Big Drive. After a late start, we drove into Bright, another of the very pretty mountains towns. Did some shopping to supplement our lunch box and then continued through the Kiewa Valley – lush green from all the rains – back up over mountains, through the little town of Mt. Beauty and towards Falls Creek, another 30k of winding road. Past the ski centre, a hotbed of building projects included and onto the Bogong High Plains where we first stopped to take a short walk to Wallace's Hut, built in 1869 and miraculously passed by fires. A little further up the road and a visit to Cope's Hut, purpose built as a hikers' hut with 12 (I think) wooden slab bunks and used for many years as an Outward Bound destination. Cope Hut was also spared by the fires. Not far from this hut, Howard showed me the wonderful grassy camp site at which he and the club had pitched their tents on more than one of their famous Christmas/New Year walks. The views from here were sweeping and grand. We returned to Mt. Beauty for lunch – bought this time, a rarity for us then the drive back to Harrietville where we finished the day with a river walk near the caravan park (coming across some suspicious rusted drums and sludge pools near old fallen sheds – not a good look so close to the beautifully clear Ovens River). Nearly home, we spotted a couple of white cheeked (or yellow?), white tailed cockatoos at close range. A good end to the day.

TUESDAY 19 April – Packed up and took off for Myrtleford by 9:00am, arrived around 11:00am and were able to set up only to find that our power supply had failed again – there's something fishy going on in our trailer's innards! We set up a household extension lead (illegal) and managed to connect the fridge and just enough lighting, as our 12v lights couldn't be used, to do all we needed. Turning off the electricity while we went out, we set off for Mt. Buffalo National Park. Another long and winding road we arrived at Bents Lookout (with many other car loads of visitors) for spectacular views over the gorge. Had a quick lunch in the fresh breeze then took the Monolith Walk. Another impressive chunk of rock finely balanced on top of a boulder. Our aim was to climb right up but the stairway was in disrepair and closed for the “chunk” part. Next we drove out to the highest part of Mt. Buffalo, called the Horn, with a 2.5k round trip climb to the top for 360 views of the area. Hot and sweaty on the inside, but near frozen on the out, we reached the lookout and marvelled at the entire view, the piles of granite rubble scattered about and as far away as Mts. Hotham, Feathertop and Bogan even in the fading afternoon light with dark clouds shrouding us. Last trip down here we didn't make it to the top, as a snowstorm got in the way. It didn't take too long to scramble back down to the car for a well earned cuppa – in the car, too cold now for sitting outside, however, we continue to see people in tee-shirts (?).

A lazy morning again and then off to our favourite country town of Beechworth. This place is a living museum and even when overrun with holiday tourists, a pleasure to visit. Our favourite shop here (so far) sells African artwork and we supplemented our statuary and trinkets for our loungeroom. We drove out to do the gorge tourist drive but the interesting part of the road was closed so parked the car, set out on foot and turned it into another walk. There is creek here, called Stony Creek, falling over a long series of cascades carved entirely over granite and looks amazing. We followed it down for a short distance before retracing our steps and heading into the town park, on Lake Sambell, another beauty (though their toilets were a mess) and had our lunch before we got sprinkled on. We returned to Myrtleford via Yackandandah, another scenic drive.

Rain had put a damper on the packing process in the morning, with a carpet of wet leaves over the trailer tent to brush off before being able to pack it away wet for the drive to Jindabyne. We drove to Corryong, another little country town, near where my older brother lives and met him there for lunch. He also took us to meet his friend Natalie, a real live-wire, sparkling personality who has a beading/jewellery/handbags/rocks, stuff and alternative healing shop there – website to look at: (www.nataliepurden.com) and were lucky to get out in one piece. Natalie's jewellery pieces are lovely and Howard took away a couple of her ornamental rocks! Lunch with Bert was delicious in a cafe called Legends, and we caught up with his life and activities. Helmut (Bert) makes semi-precious stone necklaces which he sells at local shows and on order, not a lucrative business but it is an interest. He also takes photos locally and makes postcards from them. So after that we left for the gruelling three hour drive over the mountains (where have I written that before?), via Khancoban to Jindabyne – a road that is most usually closed during the snow season, which felt very close by! We've done this drive before and although gruelling is enjoyable. Reached Jindabyne around 5:00pm and settled in to our cabin for the next four nights hoping for clear weather tomorrow so that we could open the trailer and dry the tent. Went shopping and found that the supermarket was overrun by people acting as if they were buying up for the winter. Good Friday would be the only day some shops would be closed including the supermarket. We found what we wanted and high-tailed it back to the cabin.

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