Victorian High Country

About 15km from our campsite on the Upper Murray River is the Victorian town of Corryong.  The legend of The Man From Snowy River relates to some of the men from this area.  AB (Banjo) Patterson immortalised  these men and their horsemanship in his poem.  One of these men, Jack Riley, is buried in Corryong and there's a statue outside the information centre.

Khancoban is at the southern end of the Snowy Mountains.  One day we drove to Thredbo Alpine Village for lunch - just because we could.  The 2 hour drive along The Alpine Way was very picturesque.  It's been about 30 years since we've driven this road and it's as beautiful now as it was in the 1970s/1980s.  We decided to tour the Murray 1 Power Station.  There's an excellent information centre and we enjoyed watching the DVD about the Snowy Mountains Scheme, a true nation building scheme to bring hydro-electricity to eastern Australia.  The scheme began in 1949 and was completed in 1974; 25 years of post-WWII development which shaped Australia and employed many post-war European immigrants.

We travelled further south into more of the Victorian High Country to camp at the Hinnomunjie Bridge Camping Ground.  The old wooden trestle bridge is one of only 3 original bridges in Victoria and the axe marks can be seen on the hand-hewn logs.

Back to Omeo and we did the tourist thing, visiting the "Judicial Precinct Museum".  The Court House and Jail are just two of the old buildings in the precinct. 

The Cuckoo Clock Shop is full of European clock and Christmas Decorations, it's a good thing they weren't all set to chime or cuckoo on the hour.  On Australia Day, January 26, we joined in with the local celebrations in the park. 

There were many gold mines in the Omeo area and some of these have been preserved with walking trails and interpretation boards.  We walked around the Oriental Claims area.  There's also the Pioneer Claims area which we saw from the lookout.  Alluvial gold was mined here and huge amounts of dirt were dug and washed to obtain the gold.  There is still evidence of the stonework channels which were built to divert the water flows.

We managed to catch some fish in the Mitta Mitta River while we were camped here.  A couple of trout and a nice big silver perch provided us with some fresh fish dinners.