25th December, 2013
It's Christmas day again, and we're ready for a new adventure ☺
The Mitta Mitta again!!!
Taylors Crossing again!!!
We headed off just before 10am Christmas morning after a lovely couple of Christmas dinners spent with the families ☺
Where were we to go this time?? GM suggested Taylors Crossing after having a quick flick through "Kayaking Victoria & Eastern Australia"..........a book that conveniently turned up in the mail 2 days ago!
There was quite a lot of traffic on the road until we turned off at Bairnsdale. The trip in was quiet and uneventful, we saw the tree stump in the middle of nowhere all decked out in it's Santa gear, so that was a wee bit exciting. We didn't even have music playing. We just chatted away and enjoyed the scenery, which never fails to take your breath away, especially when you first glimpse the Tambo Valley ☺
We fueled up in Omeo which was like a ghost town. The man at the service station was telling us how a couple of mines are about to start up, which will be huge for the towns economy. We took the Benambra road in. This knocked over an hour from last years trip. GM had called the Omeo Police the day before to make sure the crossing was ok to drive through and it seemed a wee bit deeper than last year, although the river was down a good couple of meters. Probably from all the vehicles chewing it up when they cross. There were a group of people picnicing at the day site, but other than that, we had the place to ourselves. Parks Victoria had tidied up the day site, but neglected the camp site and the grass was quite long.
We were going to camp at Kennedy's Hut as this is a good spot for launching the kayaks, and for fishing, but when we got there, the place was riddled with cicadas and the noise even drowned the sound of the engine, so we toodled on back to the crossing and set up camp in the same spot as last year.
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| Aliens!!!!!!!!!! |
We had forgotten to pack our meat!! It was happily freezing its butt off in the freezer at home :-/
Luckily we had enough leftover Christmas food to last us a couple of days until the shops in Omeo opened! We were very disorganised this time.....I figure it's coz GM is very old now ;-)
There were empty cicada shells everywhere and even the odd dead cicada....truly evil looking creatures!!! They were mainly on the other side of the river thank goodness, but the sound was constant until the sun went down.
We sat around a roaring campfire after a Christmas dinner of left over ham and salads and chocolate with popping candy. My ginger beer was evaporating at a startling speed and GM had hit the bourbon. We were the only people on the planet up here, and it was heaven. We slept well in the High Country that night!
26th December, 2013
We got up to a very quiet camp and had bacon & eggs, then a quick kayak down the river. Too many rapids for GM this year, so we dragged them back upstream and lazed around camp watching fellow campers cross the river. At around 2pm, our neighbours from last year rolled up. Pete, Maryanne, John, Rob, Asha & Will, and this year they brought Bill with them as well.....it was like a family reunion ☺ Asha and Will have grown so much since last year, and I got to check out Asha's new underwater camera that she got for Christmas....pretty cool, and pink too!!! ☺
They turned up at around the same same time as the sky turned black and the hail started coming down........
Thunderbolt and lightning, Very, very frightening me. Galileo!!!!!
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| Me taking a photo of Maryanne taking a photo of me................................or ..................Maryanne taking a photo of me taking a photo of Maryanne ☺ |
Not really, but it was pretty spectacular until we realised the rain wasn't going to ease up! We had to light the fire 3 times, and ended up calling it quits and going into Barbara to watch a movie.....a 4WD adventure DVD that came with a magazine, because we forgot to bring some DVD's as well!!!! We had an early night, with damp clothes hanging all over the place.
27th December, 2013
We were up early to a very wet and steamy morning, and had some cereal for breakfast (I cooked), then off to Omeo for some meat and pancake mix (which we forgot also) and a relaxed cuppa in town. There were quite a few bikers there...."The White Eagles", the Australian Chapter of a Polish Motorcycle Club. They were all around a hundred years old, but their colours were all brand new. I figure this is their way perhaps, of supporting biker groups with their rights at the moment.
Omeo was just as beautiful this year, but far less people and the local shop keepers are still up for a friendly chat ☺
We headed back to camp and went for a drive up a pretty rough track that crossed the Great Alpine Walking Trail. It took us to a bluff where the Gibbo (pronounced Jibbo) river crosses the Mitta Mitta. Boy was that a steep descent!!!
I honestly thought we were going to roll it when we did the turn around. My nerves were pretty frayed, so we headed back to camp for some calming whisky after collecting some more firewood.
GM went for a bit of a fish........good thing we bought plenty of meat...............while I did some washing the old fashioned way.....in the river! It was such a beautiful afternoon, so I decided to sit in the river and read the local tourist guide with a lovely cool drink, when a pair of 4WD's decided to cross the river...damn them!!! The people in the first car all smiled and said g'day, but the girl in the second one turned her face away and shook her head. Gotta wonder how much fun they'll all have with that little princess around the campfire. She doesn't know it yet, but one day she'll be a fat little old lady too, with nothing better to do than sit in the river and drink wine or whisky ;-)
I spotted something moving downstream and realised it was my basket with all of my tourist stuff and reading glasses and new 4WD map book GM had just bought....OOPS!!! I had no idea I could run so fast in water (Jesus eat your heart out!!!) I had managed to catch the books and most of the pamphlets and the basket before my bare feet struck the sharp rocks, so I waved bye byes to my Cold Power Liquid Laundry Detergent as it bobbed it's way merrily down the river, and went back to camp and hung everything out to dry. I realised later that my glasses were gone, so GM and I went for a look with little hope of finding them, especially as another 4 cars crossed the river while we were looking. We were heading back to camp when I spotted them under the water in the sandy stuff. Go figure!!! The case has gone forever, but I can live with that ☺
We spent the rest of the day and well into the night chatting and relaxing.......oh, and drinking ;-) This is what it's all about. Looking at the stars and trying to find satellites. The sky is so perfect in the middle of nowhere, and it seemed a wee bit surreal that this was the same sky we looked at on our Kimberley Adventure 4 months ago. The only difference being we were on the South East corner of the country instead of the North West and we were a lot closer to the sun here.
28th December, 2013
We woke early to an overcast sky, and by the time I cooked our pancakes.....forgot to pack the cream ( Christmas sure is a big distraction when you're trying to plan an adventure) the sky had cleared and the sun had come out with a vengeance!
We decided to head off over the Great Dividing Range to Tallangatta, but firstly a kayak. We had planned that I would go for an adventure with the fella's from the next camp. GM chickened out and opted to pack up instead.
There were 5 sets of grade 2 rapids (those little bumpy bits of water over rocks) and I managed to dump myself on the 4th set ☺ Poor Rob lost it on the first 3, but managed nicely after that. The water was sensational and cooled me down beautifully. It was a stinking hot morning....about 30 degrees at 8.30. No fear of bush fire though as the ground was so damp and everything so green.....looks like there's been a fair bit of rain recently, but a couple of hot days and dry wind and it will be a scary place to be with so much thick bush and undergrowth.
We were approaching Kennedy's Hut and there in the tangle of branches was my laundry detergent. Pete and Bill detoured and rescued it for me, the champions!!! I was sure it would be in the middle of the Dartmouth Dam by then!!
The trek downstream is about 4km's and it was just beautiful. It only took us an hour, but was quite exhilarating and so quiet. If you stopped paddling, the only sounds were the birds and cicadas and a faint sound of the wind in the tree tops about 1km up the hills.
GM and Maryanne picked us up at the pick up point, then back to camp where we said goodbye and swapped contact details.....maybe we'll see them next year!!!
After some rather good advice from Bill, we drove straight over the top of the Ranges....highest point 1370m above sea level, breathtaking views, down into the Nariel Valley (one of the most beautiful places I've been) and through to Colac Colac (pronounced Clack Clack).....which really tickled me for some reason. We called in at Telulah's Takeaway in Corryong for some pretty ordinary fish and chips, then a couple more km's down the road to Towong, over the bridge and into NSW to a great little camping spot just on the border. Eileen Mitchell, the author of the Silver Brumby series spent her life here and the old homestead she lived in overlooks the valley.
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| The Mighty Murray ☺ |
We set up basic camp under some amazing old enormous Plain Trees
and went for a dip in the Mighty Murray! It's a total fire ban day here and 38oC, which didn't seem to bother anyone much as the camp fires were still being lit. There was one enormous gust of wind around 6pm and then calm.....maybe before the storm..... Oh, and Rowley from the camp next to us has a couple of dogs "Red" & "Black", much to GM's disgrace, but I think I've made a new friend ☺
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| Red |
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| Just a big smoocher ☺ |
We had a lovely lazy night and then up and out early where we headed back the way we came. We stopped in at Corryong and went and visited Jack Riley's Grave....I always thought Jim Craig was the man from Snowy River...........but no, apparently not!
29th December, 2013
On the advice from the man in the tourist information centre, we headed back over the Murray....our mission was to have a paddle in the kayaks along the Murray, and lunch at the Jingellic Pub. We stopped to take pics of the views,
and then followed a windy dirt road which took us into Jingellic. We arrived there about 11 and went to the pub for a beer.
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| Cheers! |
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| View from the beer garden. |
The alcohol numbed the pain and killed the poison ;-)
We had a counter meal outside overlooking the camp grounds and the river, then went back to camp and sat around drinking with our neighbours John & Sue, & John & Royal. I spent the night throwing the ball for Millie the foxy, who turned up the next morning expecting me to play some more. Sorry Millie, time to go!!!
We headed across the river and back to Victoria and up the road to Tallangatta where GM showed me the pub his uncle used to own, then off to Wangaratta where we stocked up on our very important supplies for New Years. Champagne!!!! oh and some meat and beer for GM.
Wangaratta was mental. There's nowhere to park with a trailer and you couldn't move for all the people. We got out of there as fast as we could and took the Hume Highway down to Benalla. We passed an awful accident. It was a car we had actually passed on our way from Talangatta and had rolled. Probably fatigue related as the highway was straight road with very little traffic. I sure hope they're ok!! It shook us both up a bit, but the rest of the journey to Lake Eildon was uneventful. Benalla is beautiful, and I wish we'd done our shopping there instead of Wangaratta. We passed through a place called Yarck....another one that caused great hilarity and arrived at Eildon where we parked Barbara and the kayaks up and got picked up in a speed boat for our New Years Celebrations with the Frasers and Co. on the houseboat.
1st January, 2014
Time to go home as I had to work the next day.......wahhhhhh I don't want to go home!!!!! We had a bit of a fright coming out of the Marina, Barbara had come undone from the car, but thankfully the chains are strong and she hung on tight until we hitched her back up again. It was a wet morning with a sullen overcast sky that got worse and worse and wetter and wetter the closer to home we got.....an uneventful trip, but through the beautiful Black Spur and Yarra Junction, Poweltown and Nayook, then Neerim South and Home to lots of washing. The next adventure is Australia Day weekend, and who knows where our travels will take us this time.
The End
More pics................
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| No need to starve in these hills ;-) There's plenty to go around for everyone!!!! |
