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Hanging Rock
An expensive picnic Well, having got completely drenched in Halls Gap, we head South East to the Yarra Valley and a little town called Healesville. Our original plan had been to stop at Hanging Rock and have our lunch - yes a picnic & no we know we're not that original. Firstly, we'd gone a bit wrong with our time / distance estimates & had already stopped for lunch a couple of hours before we got to Hanging Rock and secondly we refused to pay the extortionate amount that Parks Victoria wanted to charge us for merely parking our car for 30 mins or so while we scrambled up to the rock, took a few photos and scrambed back down again. We just tootled a few K's up the road & managed to get some great shots anyway. When we arrived in Healesville, to our horror the only campsite in town was run by our friends BIG4, but they redeemed themselves fully with the Badger Creek Park - set in woodlands, it was everything the Halls Gap one wasn't & the best bit was that they allowed campfires. As we didn't arrive until it was just about dark, the evening consisted of putting
up the tent, cooking dinner, quick (??) phone calls home & early bed. We've got this camping lark sussed now (well we've certainly had enough practice) so the tent was up in no time & in true camping style, we started to prepare our Sunday roast - I kid you not. A couple of games of cribbage later (probably accompanied by a few glasses of wine) and it's time for bed.
Most of the first day was spent trying to find an internet cafe - perfect business opportunity for anyone interested in setting up in the Yarra Valley - the library was the only place in town & they're shut on a Monday - if Healesville has entered the 21st century, there was very little evidence of it. Mr Thomas was called upon again for Tuesday's entertainment, and for once he came up trumps with the Tree Fern Gully walk, although we stupidly took his advice as to where to stop for lunch - big mistake as the view 1/2 hour further was stunning. We headed up the valley to a tiny town called Marysville, walked up said Tree Fern Gully to Steavenson Falls & then on to a
hill overlooking the town with superb views of the area - 12Kms later we arrived back at the car, knackered but happy - perhaps Mr T isn't so bad after all?
Our new best friends the BIG4 crew had given us a discount voucher for the nearby Healesville Sanctuary and, although Matt wasn't over keen, I managed to persuade him that we should go - we hadn't seen any wildlife since leaving Halls Gap except the most bizarre looking blue turkey type things which wandered around the campsite - we later discovered they're called Purple Swamp Hens, and an elusive possum which was absolutely fascinated by Matt pee'ing against a tree on the first night, but didn't appear again. We were only planning on spending an hour or so at the Sanctuary (I think this was to keep me quiet), but ended up there nearly 5 hours. The animals all had massive enclosures and looked really well cared for. We managed to catch a few of the 'meet the keeper' sessions and saw a brief display of the birds of prey. Whilst the koalas looked every bit as cute as i'd hoped, my favourites were the platypuses & we
were the only ones in the platypussary at the time - it's actually rare that they appear at all during the day so we felt quite privileged; getting kissed by a wallaby was also pretty cool. Matty seemed to be quite taken by the Tasmanian Devil babies - there were about 5 of them all curled up together in big heap of snoozy fluff.
Although it was dry the whole time we were in the Yarra Valley, we'd both got a bit sick of camping, so we decided that at our next destination we would treat ourselves to a bit of luxury, so from the Sanctuary it was off North to Beechworth on the Victoria / New South Wales border and the comfort of the Rail Trail guest house. This place was huge & as we were being given a guided tour by the owner, Matt asked whether we'd be sharing it with anyone - "Oh no, it's all yours" was the reply - 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms (including a spa bath) seemed a little excessive, but the log burning stove & massive fully equipped kitchen were just screaming out to be used. My favourite pyromaniac was in his
element and we spent a very cozy first night in front of the fire, sipping wine, conserving energy for our 10Km trek the next day and constructing some eyeballs from the wax on the cheese crust to leave in the cupboard for the next visitors. Boys! Wall to wall blue skies greeted us the next morning; having had howling gales & endless rain in Halls Gap, and mostly grey skies in Healesville, we were amazed to find that the sun actually does shine in Victoria! Our destination today was Woolshed Falls, right in the heart of 'Gold' country - tried a bit of panning, but to no avail, still had a great day.
Beechworth is in the lower foothills of the Australian Alps and is famous as being the place where Ned Kelly was first tried and for a massive gold strike in about 1850-something. Most of the town has a National Trust preservation order on it so it's still more or less as it would've looked 150 years ago - very quaint, but with everything you could need. We were enjoying it so much here we decided to stay an extra day or so. We couldn't stay on
at the Rail Trail as it had been booked up for months in advance - the Aussies have a bank holiday in early June to celebrate the Queen's birthday - how unfair is that?? Anyway we managed to find a campsite close by which had space & allowed fires, a much needed feature of any site when the overnight temperature is getting close to 5 C or less. We had tried spending the evening in the local hotel (aussie for pub) but the live music we'd gone to listen to couldn't be heard over the local youf' so being the grumpy old gits that we are, we headed back for a good old burn up.
As Mr Thomas had redeemed himself somewhat we decided to follow another one of his 'best walks in Victoria' and after driving up untold hairpin bends round the side of Mount Buffalo for what seemed like forever, we found that the trail he was trying to send us down was closed (& had been for the last 5 years - some updating is required methinks). Still, ever resourceful, we pieced together our own tour of the Buffalo National Park - wow, what a place
& the views were just amazing, though I'm starting to question whether I'm ever going to be warm again - some b@#$%^d told me it was hot in Australia, and I was dumb enough to believe him - there was snow & thick ice on the ground! We could see the snow on top of Mount Hotham (heart of Aussie skiing) and could even make out Kosciusko (highest point in Australia) in the distance. Never having suffered from vertigo before, I was somewhat suprised by how dizzy I felt looking down a ravine - OK it was a straight drop of about 150m down a granite rock face, but still I held on tight to the handrail and was mighty glad to be back on terra firma rather than on a dodgy looking metal platform hanging out over the drop. Well, as the saying goes, what goes up, must come down & so we started the long long drive back down to Beechworth - sheer drops aren't much fun from the passenger seat as Matt found out on the way down; hairpin bends with no crash barriers aren't that much fun either, but Dilbert did eventually get us back down
safely.
Having eventually defrosted under a hot shower another night was spent in front of a roaring fire, before finally leaving Beechworth behind. We stocked up at the local deli on yummy local produce we'd sampled whilst staying there - our grand plan was to head for the South coast of Victoria near to the NSW border & then pootle back up to Sydney over the next week or so. Watch this space to find out what actually happened.......
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