The Cormanus Chronicles

[Cormanus]

Day 30: 10 November 2016
Melbourne to Mt Beauty (483 kms)

[url=https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NMu4okbQsNO1C4VMLitpe-U0amg&usp=sharing]Day 30: Link to map

The ship arrived at its usual ungodly hour and I was quickly below to get on the bike and ashore. There were no dramas and I was soon at my niece’s house to collect the gear I’d abandoned when Mrs Cormanus joined me. My niece and I had breakfast at a local café; she went off to work; I repacked my gear and went on my way.

Leaving Melbourne, I headed north-east through the suburbs and soon arrived at Healsville. I went there because it was in the direction I wanted to go and because I keep reading references to it on the Australian motorcycle forum I watch.

North east from Healsville, there’s a lovely ride through bushland. It was particularly pleasant on a day becoming warmer.

The road north-east from Healsville

The road was pretty enough, but not inspirational, but, hey, you can’t always have that when you’re touring, can you? Indeed, touring is often enduring the roads that get you to the corners you want to turn.

The route took me past a place called Bonnie Doon, famous for a scene in the quirky Australian comedy The Castle.





The road north of Bonnie Doon

I stopped for an unmemorable lunch at a place called Whitfield. I didn’t think there was too much to see, really: a café, a signpost and a pub. However, after lunch I rode on and found a slightly more substantial town.

In so far as I had a plan it was to ride to Bright and then maybe over the Bogong High Plains Road to spend the night at Anglers Rest on the Omeo Highway. So I pushed on northwards to Oxley where I turned to head slightly south east towards Myrtleford. It really was a glorious day for a ride with clear blue skies and a pleasant temperature. It was an agreeable respite from much of the cold I’d ridden in since leaving Sydney on Day 6.

At Myrtleford I realised that the quicker of the alternative routes to Mt Beauty (where the Bogong High Plains Road starts) would not take me to Bright. Just after leaving town, I turned left and had a lovely ride east along Happy Valley Road which turned into Running Creek Road and led to the Kiewa Valley Highway. Looking at the map, I suspect it may be less inspiring than the Tawonga Gap Road. Next time.



Between Myrtleford and Mt Beauty. You can see the road winding into the hills.


Pretty hills and road between Myrtleford and Mt Beauty.

It was around 3 pm when I filled up at Tawonga and set out for Falls Creek, the Bogong High Plains and Anglers Rest and I had a good two hours ride in front of me.

Approaching Mt Beauty. I’m not totally sure of the name of the mountain slightly to the left of centre, but it had patches of snow on it

Falls Creek is a ski resort and there was nothing at all happening there when I arrived. I suspect because there wasn’t really any snow. It was a great ride to get there round corner after corner of mountain road. The line markings soon changed colour from white to yellow to indicate where the snow line is.







Arriving at Falls Creek

I cruised through Falls Creek and quickly came to a sign telling me that the rest of the road was closed. So I got off in the very chilly alpine air, took a photo, turned around and headed back.




Somewhere down the hill I pulled over to take a photo. A white Subaru station wagon went past me going at a good lick. I pretty much caught him by the bottom of the hill, but he clearly knew the road extremely well and I had to work hard for it.

I felt like I’d earned my glass of beer and dinner at the Settlers Tavern.
Day 31: 11 November 2016
Mt Beauty to Jindabyne (447 kms)


[url=https://drive.google.com/open?id=1gWDKVNXWTpcRpUpJWW2JogeSMX0&usp=sharing]Day 30: Link to Map

It was a glorious morning in Mt Beauty. I loaded the bike and headed north to the Murray Valley Highway (B400) and then west to Corryong, where I refuelled, and Khancoban, where I went for a look.





Heading north towards the Murray Valley Highway on a glorious morning


The sign ahead points to the Omeo Valley Highway and so I had completed some sort of a circle since being here on Day 8


Murray Valley Highway views. First glimpse of the Snowies in the top right


I’m not going that high!


Photo opportunity at Khancoban

I think I went to Khancoban because I thought it was Australia’s highest town. It isn’t. That honour falls to Cabramurra which I was to ride past in blissful ignorance later that day. Anyway, it was pretty on the outskirts of Khancoban, so I stopped to take a photo before retracing my steps for about 5 kilometres and turning right onto Swampy Plains Creek Road which Pterodactyl had suggested I ride.

It was a great new find for the trip. I rode through bush, high plains with beautiful but dead gum trees, past dams and lakes, through cuttings, around plenty of corners, up hills, down the other side until finally I came to the Snowy Mountains Highway (B72).









These last three are of Tooma Dam







Snow gums

Many Australian eucalypts thrive on being burned occasionally. Indeed they need it to regenerate. There was clear evidence of fire along much of this road. One is greeted with the sight of blackened eucalypts still producing new growth. There are also a great many of the dead snow gums that can be seen in the above picture. Apparently they will regenerate, but from below the ground, so eventually, presumably, this beautiful dead growth will disappear and be replaced by new trees.

Just past noon I came to the Tumut Pond Reservoir. It’s a beautiful setting: isolated, quiet and buried deep in a valley. The dam walls are amazing, but the dam itself looks awful as there is relatively little water in it. I learned later that it is actually a holding dam. When the spot price of electricity is high, the authority generates power from a dam higher in the system. The water flows into the Tumut Pond. Then, at a time when the spot price of electricity is low, the company buys the cheaper power and pumps the water back up again so they can do it all again.

Winding down the hill to the Tumut Pond Reservoir







The road runs along the top of the dam wall


Looking down the dam wall


Looking back at the reservoir from the other side


I still can't work out why this sign has a point on the right hand side. As far as I can figure, I was on the Great Dividing Range at this point and I was at about 1,500 metres too!

I had a late lunch at Adaminiby.

I should digress here to talk briefly about Australia’s obsession with big things. Bill Bryson commented on them in his book about Australia. There’s even an [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia's_big_things]article about it in Wikipedia. ‘Big Things’ are enormous statues or sculptures of relatively ordinary things and are used to celebrate the connection of the thing with the place they are located. There’s the big lobster, the big sheep, the big pineapple, the big banana, the big motorbike, the big this, the big that. The most recent example of this curious phenomenon I’ve read about is in Tamworth New South Wales (which already boasts the Big Guitar) which recently unveiled the Big Big Mac to mark the connection of this agricultural area to the so-called food churned out by Macdonalds.

The Big Big Mac. Why? I ask you?

Adaminiby, a pretty enough town, but a place barely big enough to sustain one let alone two horses, boasts the big trout. I sat across the road and admired it while I ate my sandwich and drank my coffee.


About an hour later, as I headed towards Jindabyne, I had this great view of the Snowy Mountains.


I was staying with friends at their property just south of Jindabyne, but decided to take a quick detour up the Alpine Way out of Jindabyne. It was good road and worth the ride, although I didn’t get quite as far as I wanted before I needed to turn back.

Lake Jindabyne


On the Alpine Way. The sign says it’s the highest land for sale in Australia. It looked appealing this day.

I stopped in Jindabyne to acquire some wine to take to my hosts and then found my way south along the Barry Way to 8 kms of dirt at the end of which was my friends’ magnificent home and property.