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Oceania » Australia » Victoria » Echuca
January 12th 2007
Published: January 12th 2007
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the kelly treethe kelly treethe kelly tree

not the original tree
Blog10
On Christmas eve we travelled into Melbourne city to meet with Norman, we met at St Kilda Beach , to be more precise we met at a bar overlooking the esplanade, the sun was shining but not exactly beach weather. After a couple of drinks the wind came , and as we have learnt ,this is then followed by rain. We went back to his hotel and met , Martin Steve and Sue ? We all then went for a meal, a lovely evening.
Christmas Day we spent with Sue Alex and their family , it was organised chaos , 15 of us sat down to a full Christmas dinner, it was wonderful, and they coldest Christmas day for 150 years. If anything Christmas here is more traditional than back in England. Thank you Sue and Alex for a wonderful time.
We then met up with Norman again when the cricket finished early with England all out , cows arse big stick comes to mind.
New Years eve we had a barbeque, yes we did throw a prawn on the Barby, we struggled to stay awake but managed it, Thank you for your good wishes, we text you all , some went out some failed and so we wish you all a happy new year now.
January 2nd and we are back on the road we went first to Tolmie , we called into the pub unfortunately Dave’s first words were ‘’ Oh no they’ve got the bloody cricket on ‘’ The cry went up ‘’Yes ! We’ve got a couple of poms in ‘’ it was a good laugh, it was then discovered one of the long standing locals was of English origin , when he asked if we had heard of the area he came from. After three drinks we set off for the Ned Kelly tree ,here there is a memorial to the three policemen that were killed trying to capture Ned Kelly and his gang .( we heard in the pub that the original tree had burnt down ) From here we went to Glenrowan, this is where Ned Kelly made his last stand in 1880.
Ned Kelly is the main industry in this small town. Ned Kelly was born in 1855, into a poor Irish family. Rich squatters had all the best land and people like the Kelly’s ended up with small pieces of poor quality land. By the time he was 20 years old he had been in prison twice , once for assault and the second time for receiving stolen horses , after his release he worked as a stone mason and tree feller. It was only a matter of time before he joined the rest of his family stealing cattle and horses. In 1878 Constable Fitzpatrick came to the house to arrest Dan , Ned’s younger brother, but a fight broke out when the constable attempted to kiss 14 year old Kate Kelly, Fitzpatrick later accused Ned’s mother of hitting him on the head, and Ned of shooting him in the wrist, Mrs Kelly spent three years in Melbourne gaol but Ned and his brothers and 2 friends escaped into the bush. From here it all went downhill , three policemen were killed trying to arrest them ( at the previous mentioned Ned Kelly tree), the gang were then declared outlaws, meaning that anyone could shoot them on sight. Kelly had many supporters who helped them dodge the police for two years, during this time they robbed banks, taking hostages but harming no-one. Ned wrote to politicians claiming he had been unfairly treated, one letter was 8300 words long.
In 1880 Ned wanted to bring the police pursuit to an end, the gang herded 60 hostages into the pub at Glenrowen. The police attacked the pub . Each gang member wore a suit of armour made from parts of iron ploughs. Ned fought the police outside the pub for almost 30 minutes, bullets rebounding off the armour , the armour didn’t cover his legs , where he was finally shot falling to the ground , unable to get up due to the weight of the armour which weighed nearly 50 kilograms, it was 50 millimetres thick. Ned had been hit three times early in the battle and was weak from a loss of blood, more dead than alive he was taken to Melbourne goal ,after 2 months in the gaol hospital he was put in the old cell block for a month , he then faced a two day trial , where he was found guilty of murder, was sentenced to death and hanged at the gaol on 11th November 1880, he was 25 years old. His final words were ‘’Such is life ‘’.
In Glenrowen we once again walked in Bryson’s
hume and hovell camped herehume and hovell camped herehume and hovell camped here

who are hume and hovell?
footsteps venturing into the animatronics version of Ned Kelly’s last stand. We had the same chap greet us , he assured us it was like Disney land in there. You walk through three rooms, the first room is like an old sitting room full of cobwebs , and spiders that bob up and down on a piece of string , sat by the fire is an old man in a rocking chair, the fire bursts into life, the chair starts rocking , the hands of the clock go backwards , for 100 years , then another mannequin dressed in a black cape starts narrating the story of Kelly’s last stand. You then pass into another room this is a saloon bar, there is a mannequin peeing in a bucket, a baby crying ,a boy swinging from the trapeze on the ceiling and other things going on, Ned is stood behind the bar, but what he was saying is beyond me , then a dog cocks his leg and pees into the spittoon. We then went through another door , and we are greeted by Ned in his armour shooting at the policemen. It was so awful it was wonderful ,
Jannette and LionelJannette and LionelJannette and Lionel

songs around the campfire
worth every penny. From here we went to Powers lookout , and paradise falls, this was very sad , it was here there were bush fires leading up to Christmas, you cannot imagine the devastation , we were talking to one of the bush firemen on the track leading to the lookout, he encouraged us to go have a look but be aware there were men in there felling some of the unstable trees. The wooden walkway had gone , but you could see right up the valley, I couldn’t take my eyes off the burnt hills either side, and think how lucky the people in the houses were , unlike the animals, many of the kangaroos were ok , but many koalas were stuck up the trees along with many possums, many had been rescued by the firemen but there paws were burnt.
From here we travelled across country from chestnut to Myrtle ford , then north to Yackandandah , this is an old well preserved gold mining town , we were camped by the creek where gold had been found in the 1800’s, in the evening we walked to the local for dinner , here Thursday night is ‘’toss the boss’’ you order a drink the barman tosses a coin you call heads or tails if you are right the drink is on the house, the man sat next to us had three free drinks we had two, good game, it went on all evening , even when we ordered drinks to go with our dinner they were tossed for, and we won. From here we went south to Mount Beauty and on to Falls creek Alpine village , it was really strange coming across a ski lift among the gum trees, part of the alpine national park. Now on the way we passed a cairn erected to Hume and Hovell. Hume and Hovell made camp here in 1824.
I knew you would ask ,who are Hume and Hovell ? and so I shall tell you.
Alexander Hamilton Hume was the first Australian born explorer ,born in 1797 the son of a superintendent of convicts . In 1824 with Hovell and six others he pioneered a route from New South Wales to Melbourne ,the party started from Hume’s residence at lake George they crossed the Murrumbidgee river Hume river, ·(this was in fact the Murray river that Sturt named four years later not knowing Hume had named it after himself )and the Mitta Mitta river. ‘’One November morning they climbed a prominent hill to see what lay ahead, ( I imagine he saw the mountains exclaimed, being Australian ‘ wow she’s a beaut ‘ and so it was called Mount Beauty , but I’m only guessing.) not a white man had set eyes on the great snow capped peeks of the alps, no-one had ever suspected that snow would be found in Australia ‘’. (there was no snow when we arrived but the views were stunning , the camp site at Mount Cope was empty , the area was desperate for tourists , but they were put off by the reports of the fires , the area we were in had escaped them we did see some walkers and a couple of fishermen sat on the banks of a beautiful lake , usually the place would be teeming as it is summer here , among the gum trees were little white and orange flowers , over the slopes in the distance hung the beautiful blue haze that turns the mountains blue ,we spotted a bird with a bright orange breast , almost florescent, the rest of him was black , we really must get a book on Australian birds, high up in the hills the sunset that night was stunning but I digress).Hume then crossed the Ovens and Goulburn rivers and reached the western arm of port Phillip near the site of Geelong ., but he thought he was at western port bay , this caused bitter arguments with Hovell. It is curious that in 1825 little was known of the work of earlier explorers such as Hume and Hovell. Today the highway that joins Sydney and Melbourne are named after him , there is also the Hume reservoir, and Hume weir, Hume also accompanied Sturt in 1828 on an expedition and was of great assistance because of his skill in dealing with aborigines. I can find nothing named after Hovell , unless the Hume and Hovell walking track near Yass counts, I cant even find his Christian name . Sorry just found his Christian names William Hilton, but that’s all I can find.
Next morning we carried on driving on dirt roads through the mountains when we eventually reached a tar road we headed north to Mitta Mitta , we camped by the Mitta Mitta river having first travelled up to Tallengatta to restock with the essentials .
Now Tallangatta has its own little bit of history, it is known as the town that moved in 1956. The country town was built in the Murray valley , on it’s long winding main street was an avenue of English plain trees their outspreading foliage meeting overhead , ensuring there was always shade , long lines of veranda’s and boardwalks made it typical of an old style bush town, it had stood there for more than 100 years, Hereford cattle would still trotted down the main street to the cattle yards , it had been home to five generations. The engineers had decided its fate by their plans of raising the storage capacity of the Hume reservoir and the town was moved to higher ground the old town was then drowned under the waters. We visited the site of the old town and with the drought the valley is dry and reveals what is left of the town, you can still make out the main street and see the footings of the buildings that once stood either side, the most intact building is an old butter making factory , it was made of corrugated iron and is remarkably still standing although a little rusty.
From here we decided to head west back up to the Murray river , we stopped at Cobram , the camp site beside the river was very busy, we found a space , were looking around when we were approached by Lionel who suggested a better spot just behind where he was set up , it was perfect, we got talking and were introduced to Jeannette his wife and friends Des and Margaret , they invited us to join them that evening for a sing song round the camp fire , Jeannette had her guitar , the company was warm the entertainment stunning , I am surprised she isn’t a national treasure .We sang not only Australian songs but she had written one herself , it was beautiful, (and if you ever record it Jeannette I would like a copy.) We were joined by Denise and her daughter Jess from the camp next door. A wonderful evening. The next morning Denise had spotted a koala in a tree near their site we went over to see. While there we were invited to join them that evening , they were cooking dinner for everyone in two large camp ovens , cooked on the open fire, Lionel and Jeannette were there also, in fact there was quite a crowd , Australian hospitality knows no bounds . Denise was also a pom , at the age of eight she had left Raynham in Essex as a ten pound pom with her parents. The meal was delicious I had curry Dave had stew, this was followed by apricot crumble and cream made by Jeannette. We had spent two of the most special evenings under the big red river gums , overlooking the Murray river , under stunning starlit skies enjoying the best of Australian hospitality. These people had been camping here over the holidays for at least the last eleven years , they were joined by family and friends , Jeannette and Lionel had entertained thirty people at one time erecting more tents to accommodate them, what a wonderful country this is. Where in England could you camp for a month at a time for nothing?
From here we travelled to Bendigo, gold had been discovered in 1851 we were now in the golden triangle of Bathurst ,Bendigo and Ballarat , we didn’t stop the town was far too big , instead we made our way west to a town called Maryborough , we only stopped there because we had read before Christmas in a paper in Queensland that they had just lost the record of the worlds largest pub crawl to a town in England, it was our turn to be smug………… unfortunately there is a town in Queensland by the same name and it was they that had just lost the record, still we would be heading north again in March so we would wait. We stayed just outside Maryborough on Paddy’s Ranges , here if you’ve a mind you can go prospecting, and so after having our dinner and the weather had cooled down we set off with our little pick and shovel , there are notices asking that any holes that are dug should be filled in afterwards , I don’t need to tell you there were holes everywhere , we didn’t dig any of our own but did have a poke around some of the existing ones, we found plenty of dirt. From here we went through Ballarat another big town , there is plenty to see here although we just passed through having to get back to Melbourne to get the van serviced, but we will return .
The van was serviced all fine but we need a new cam belt so it is booked in for Wednesday. It was too big a job to do , having only been booked in for a service.


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27th January 2007

I'm alive !!!!
Hello Mum and Dad - Laura and I are well. Laura only has three months of college remaining and she's getting top grades in all her assignments (such a smartass) My new job is going fantastic. I get on well with everyone and am really enjoy climbing all over the Chinooks and fixing them. They are quite easy to work on and I've not had to spit or kick the helicopter once !!! Chrismas was lovely in Holland - ate chips, saw familly and just generally relaxed whilst Lauras familly ran round catering to my every need and whim. Very exciting on B'mth beach, apparently the council heard that chloe had trouble burying her gran in the sand !!! so they have invested millions and had an international team of workers, machines and boats working around the clock for weeks, moving thousands of tonns of sand along the seafront !! It looks so strange to see the pier with mostly sand under the length of it, and at the weekend the crowds of men just stearing at all the diggers and pipes, whilst there wives and girlfriends tried to drag them away (including my beloved) Laura and I have been to a few gigs resently and love being able to walk home and be tucked up in bed before most people have realised there won't be another encore ! This year for my birthday we hope to go up to Edinborugh with Kieron and stay in his brothers penthouse over looking the city, as that weekend they have some strange fire festival, street party thing !!! I wouldn't of thought that Fire and Street party make good bed fellows -but after enough Buckfast and deep fried cream eggs it probably seems the next logical thing to do. And what better way to impress the tourist than the medium fire !!!? We really miss you both, it seems so strange not to speak to you and cant wait to see you again. Take good care of each other, give each other a hug from laura and little old me - your favorite golden child XXX

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