Monday 9th May 2005
An early start this morning, out of bed about 6:am and preparations
started for a long day. All set and every need catered for and on board,
we turned Miss Bossy B, on and departed the caravan park at about 07:30am.
Our first destination was to Omeo which is about 120 km from Lakes
Entrance on what we thought would be a fairly straight forward road
that would be the start of the Alpine country..... WRONG! Once we turned
on to the Great Alpine Road (about 30 km from Lakes Entrance, we found
ourselves in a range of mountains and the next 60km were winding around
and up and down the sides of these ranges. The mountains provided some
amazing views over valleys into even more mountains covered with tall
trees. On the last 25 km to Omeo we passed through a number of small
villages & farming land with cattle and sheep grazing on the slopes
of rolling hills. This 120 km of the journey took us just over two hours
to complete.
Omeo is a 'cute' little town that was established way back in the 1840's
when gold was discovered in the area. The main street has been built
on a bit of a slope and it is near the base of the Alpine Mountain Ranges.
Once we left Omeo we started climbing up into the mountains again and
as we made it to the top of the first peak we stopped at a lookout for
a morning tea break. From this lookout we could see over a wide valley
to several layers of ranges as far as Mt Kosciosko in New South Wales.
We continued along the road around the sides of mountains around the
sharpest and most bends we have ever encountered (and that includes
Tasmania) and climbed even higher into the clouds until we went through
Dinner Plain and arrived in Mount Hotham Ski Resort. When we stopped
at a roadside bay in this resort and climbed out of the Patrol to take
a photograph or two we found the temperature had dropped dramatically
and there was a fairly strong cold wind blowing as well. It was a lot
warmer back in the Patrol when we started off again.
From here the Great Alpine Road took us through more of the same beautiful
country as it wound slowly down over the next 30 km until we came out
at Harrietville. This is a small town situated in a valley full of cows,
sheep.
Our journey then continued along this valley with less severe bends
for the next 25 km until we drove through an avenue of beautiful multi
coloured deciduas trees into the town of Bright. This town is in it's
absolute glory in the autumn, with colour everywhere. We stopped in
the main centre of the town whilst 'One of Us' visited the shops and
the 'Other One' took a few photographs. We then found a lovely little
park on the river that runs through the town and we stopped there for
lunch and a few more photographs.
When we left Bright we headed North over the mountains to the small
town of Mount Beauty, situated in another valley at the base of the
mountains. After driving through the town we set off toward Bogong and
on to Falls Creek which is another ski resort high up in the mountains.
From Falls Creek we started out of the resort to return to Omeo via
a scenic road marked on our map, however it did not tell us that this
road was not a lot better than a dirt track up through the 'High Country'.
After a little confusion, Miss Bossy B. told us we were on the right
track so we continued on our way with 'One of Us' getting rather nervous
and expressing her concern when she couldn't see any signs that said
we were on our way to Omeo, whilst the 'Other One' put his faith in
Miss Bossy B. The High Country was very fascinating and was just as
it is shown in the movies, with low stumpy trees, plenty of grass and
rocky outcrops. Just as 'One of Us' had finished expressing even more
concern about not being on the right track and that there were no signs
to Omeo, we rounded a corner and there it was - Omeo 50 km the sign
said - and the look on the face of 'One of Us' made the 'Other One'
laugh until tears ran. From this point it was still a fair drive along
this very winding and steep track before we made it to the Omeo Highway
and wound our way back to Omeo town site.
We stopped in Omeo this time and took some photographs before heading
back toward Lakes Entrance the way we had come, yet this time those
winding roads we first encountered didn't seem very bad at all compared
to what we went through over the alps.
Lights were well and truly needed along this section of the road and
we eventually arrived back at the caravan park at about 6:25pm after
traveling in excess of 514 km over a period of 11 hours. There is no
way we can show all we saw on this website and so many of the greatest
views were in locations we could not stop on the road to take photographs.
It was a great day and a fabulous drive, well worth every twist in the
road and will go down as another highlight of our journey.