I must say, I like driving along backroads, away from the main traffiic. The pace is usually a lot more leisurely, there is also less traffic, if any, so there is more to be seen as a driver. Myrtleford has a nice and quiet campground where I got a lovely and shady spot in the shade of some big trees. Yes, a powered site and glad to have it as its hot and humid (mid 30s) so my aircon goes on to keep me nice and cool into the evening when the temperature drops a bit. While I am there, with no water restrictions, I give my Motorhome a good wash, surprising how nice she looks once all that dust is removed.
In the morning I want to check out the town of Mount Beauty. To get there I need to take highway 534, just south of Myrtleford, that connects up with the Kiewa Valley Highway. From there I drive south again, but discover that Mount Beauty is a town that is geared to winter sports, so this time of year it has little to offer. About 85km north of the town is Lake Hume that I want to see, even though I am told that the water level is very low for lack of rain. To get there I will need to drive back part of the way I came in, but then turn off onto a backroad that follows the main road in parrallel fashion.
When I get to Tallangatta I decide to follow around the lake and then into Albury, which is just across the border, back in NSW. I encounter friendly and helpful people at Albury, do a little grocery shopping and then spend the night at the local caravan park.
Its New Years Eve, apart from watching "the Glenn Miller Story" on TV, there is nothing elso to do. I go to bed well before midnight to sleep into the New Year 2010. It has also been raining all night so the campground is good and wet in the morning.
From Albury I follow the Freeway south to Wangaratta where I get off to follow one of the backroads to Whitfield, nice straight roads without traffis on this first day of 2010. It is cloudy but not raining the mountains ahead are covered in clouds, their tops invisible.
Views from around Lake Eildon
To get to Lake Eildon I need to cross the montain range again to the town of Mansfield. The higher the road takes me, the more I begin to enter the clouds I saw earlier. There is virtually no other traffic but visibility is reduced in places to less than 20 meters but I need to driveslowly anyway as the road is made up of hairpin bends, winding, winding, winding, first uphill, then back down again. Driving in the clouds also means that there is constant rain as well. Once I get to the lower levels the view opens up again and when I drive along what is meant to be the lake, all I see are black skeletons of trees that stand on dry land, the water level so low, looking more like a river or creek instead of a lake. This area is very much in need of rain.
By the time I drive into Mansfield there are patches of blue sky again.
The view out my rear window at the campsite.
From Mansfield I follow yet another backroad south to Jamieson a lovely small town with a roadside rest area where I put down for the rest of the day. More about the Jamieson Valley... Its a lovely quiet spot by the Goulbourne River, only two other campers there with their tents. We share an hour by the camp fire and I turn in for the night around 10pm. I wake again around midnight with the sound of rain and hail hammering on my roof and that continues for the rest of the night. Just what this country needs!!
The morning after the big rain
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