Blogs from Bright, Victoria, Australia, Oceania - page 2

Bright to Hotham The morning was warm, but not yet uncomfortable so the ride up the Great Alpine Road through Harrietville was quite relaxing. Once past Harrietville the excitement began with a well-constructed, but very twisty, road all the way to the ridgeline. The devastation from the fires a few years ago is still the most noticeable feature of much of this section of the road. Swathes of dead trees line the roadside while a patchwork of grey and green rolls away to the horizon. The last section of the road changes to a nice series of sweeping curves along the ridge and this is possibly more dangerous that the twisty roads earlier because there is such a great temptation to look at the waves of mountains in the distance rather than watching the road. I'm ... read more

Currently in Mansfield, heading for Bright for the night. As in most cases, the hardest part of starting a trip from the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne is the first hour that it takes to get out of the suburbs. After a brief stop in Lilydale to set a route into the GPS, it was off up the Maroondah Highway for the cooler air of the Black Spur, and then a leisurely lunch break at the Tudor Lodge in Narbethong where I met up with a couple of other bikers who were out for a day trip in the hills. Lake Eildon at Bonnie Doon is non-existent - Just a grassy valley with wheel-tracks criss-crossing it from all angles. No sign of water anywhere. The temperature has been rising all afternoon and I'm hoping that the later ... read more

Only about 2 weeks to go folks and then I'm back in the UK, hope the weather is OK, I have been wearing shorts and t-shirts for most of 5 months and have no intention of doing otherwise back home! Fat chance hey! I've spent the last week travelling through Victoria, from the Great Ocean Road in the west through to Bright, where I am now, in the north east. I had a great couple of days on the coast, and the drive was pretty spectacular. Shame I didn't have a better car to really enjoy it but the scenery was great all the same. From Robe (great hostel, bit sleepy) I drove to Port Fairy - slightly odd name but a great little place all the same with an island I walked around, where I ... read more

Northern NSW Coast After Byron, we headed town to the small coastal village of Yamba - a tip from some people we met in Fiji. This time the recommendation was a good one, and it was a pleasant place to spend a day and night, and we even broke our camping curse with a dry night! Rod tried more surfing at Spooky Beach (a beginner-friendly surf spot near the more hardcore Angourie Point), but big choppy waves and strong currents made for hard work. Nice beach though. Next stop was Port Macquarie, via a lunch stop in the small inland town of Bellingen, which was really nice. Port Macquarie itself was a bit of a funny place - just one of many Australian ‘holiday towns’ on the NSW coast that seemed bland to us. We spent ... read more

I could probably sum up our time in Bright simply and quickly; we came, we saw, we stayed! Bright is in the Alpine region of Oz and features a mountainous vista; it has skiing in the winter while offering summer activities enjoyed by the whole family. It has also been hailed as one of the best areas for Paragliding! Now you see why it’s been months since we updated the web site! As we approached Bright we both felt our nerves and apprehension growing. The thoughts of getting back into chucking ourselves off mountains brought terrors of standing on launch and looking over the edge, flooding back (terrors is a little strong but sounded better). We arrived in town and went to see the local paragliding school to check out the situation with equipment and a ... read more