Blog # 11 Wangaratta to Myrtleford including Wandiligong

 Blog 11

Wednesday May 8. Time to move on from Wangaratta to Myrtleford along the Murray to Mountains Rail Trail, which was our old stomping ground and a trail we had ridden many times in the past when we lived in Myrtleford. But first, a couple of comments on the last blog. Bloggie Dave tells me that Redbacks have been found in Belgium - seems like we’re getting even for the rabbits and foxes. And Bloggie Robin sent me a photo of a large (think 2m) snake he photographed last month next to that snake warning sign in the blog. 

It’s only about 45 km from Wangaratta to Myrtleford on the rail trail and it’s a sealed bitumen trail all the way so progress was pretty rapid, arriving in Myrtleford mid-afternoon. Here we turned off along the riverside walking track, which has now been designated as the Mosaic Trail. This has an interesting history. About five years ago, small mosaics started to appear along this walking trail but nobody claimed responsibility or knew who was installing them until a mosaic appeared signed by the ‘Crackpots’. Still no one knew their identities. Well, except for Rotarians who knew one was the wife of one of our Rotarians. The mosaics became a popular tourist attraction and our grandchildren were absolutely delighted to walk the trail and try to find all 35 of the tiny mosaics representing animals, birds, reptiles, fish and fairies, all tucked into nooks and crannies of trees, tree roots and rocks along the track. Eventually, they were outed, the council endorsed their work and they became bolder and bigger. Now there are mosaics all over the town with large ones in the Piazza supported by arts grants. 

The Crackpots immortalised by the Shire council

As we progressed from Wangaratta to Myrtleford evidence of the old tobacco farming became apparent with tobacco kilns on all the farms. The industry was closed down nearly 20 years ago by the government (said to be unable to control the illegal ‘chop chop’ tobacco, which evaded tax) but the tobacco drying kilns are still evident on all the farms. Eventually, we arrived at our hosts for the night, former neighbours, Alan and Alma, who have a property where they keep horses and used to breed magnificent Clydesdales.

I went out with Alan to feed the ‘poddy’ calves, the orphan calves, which they take from the adjacent farm and raise by hand. He has two calves and feeds them a special milk powder designed only for cattle. Strangely, if you get cows milk powder designed for humans, the calves don’t thrive on it. In fact, they die. This was discovered in NZ when there was an aberration of subsidies and milk powder for human consumption was cheaper than agricultural powder, so farmers, being canny folks, bought their powder at the local supermarket…till their calves died. He also gives some supplementary feed, which look rather like muesli and, while the calves were drinking the milk, Alan’s Labradors were busy eating this totally unappetising dried muesli. Labradors will eat anything. 
The Rotary meeting in the evening allowed us to meet up with all our old friends plus many invited members of the Lions club, so it was a big gathering.

On Thursday we cycled the remainder of the rail trail towards Bright and enjoyed the autumn colours for which Bright is justly famous (try booking a room in Bright in autumn). A few kilometres out of Myrtleford we passed the (unofficial) sign ‘Snake Gully’ on a section of the track bordered by a froggy swamp where a tiger snake used to regularly stretch itself across the entire width of the trail and stop the bike traffic. The trail then meanders past the Happy Valley pub and the adjacent kennels housing a team of malamutes used to pull sledges on the ski fields in the winter.

Our hosts for the evening Patrick and Elaine actually lived in the nearby village of Wandiligong, tucked into a valley behind Bright and famous for its apple orchards. It would be a delightful place to live, were it not for the threat of bushfires. The valley is steep sided, surrounded by bush and there is only one exit road. To reach the village we cycled past the Mystic Park MTB park, where we noticed that they were setting up for a major event. Bright is immensely popular and hosts a succession of festivals on almost a weekly basis to the extent that the town has been inundated with Airbnbs and local residents complain that they no longer have any neighbours. 

Our hosts took us to the meeting where we had an irritating tussle with the IT. In the previous five weeks our PowerPoint presentation on the memory stick had worked on all the computers but all the support information which we brought from home was scrambled. Now, in Bright, we could read our support information but couldn’t make the PowerPoint work. It took over half an hour, much cursing and various combinations of computers and televisions to get it firing.

Every Rotary club has different schemes for raising money to support their projects and Bright has become a very wealthy club by setting up a waterslide into the Ovens river in the town centre. It mans this with volunteers and tourists flock to cool off and shell out money for the privilege.

Wandiligong ( how I love that name!) is lovely but does suffer the inconvenience of having almost no mobile phone reception and this was an issue for us on Friday morning when we were to be interviewed by phone for a radio programme. We had to ride down the hill into Bright and go into a spare room in the library to have our interview before returning down the rail trail to Myrtleford and back to Alan and Alma‘s farm in Buffalo Creek for another couple of nights. With their help we set up meetings with a few other friends over the weekend, including with former neighbour, Marilyn, who we had rescued from a ditch about 10 years ago when she was thrown from a horse and sustained a very serious chest injury. She had a ‘flail segment’ of about seven fractured ribs and was lying out of sight of the road in a ditch. We only spotted her as we drove home because she had put her riding helmet on her foot and was waving it out of the ditch. The ambulance took the best part of an hour to arrive (rural living! -one ambulance between three widely separated towns) and the ambos then proceeded to administer industrial doses of iv opiates… and, believe me, she needed it. She spent weeks in intensive care but has made an excellent recovery… and hasn’t sold her horses.

We also caught up with Rob and Sue, retired farmers who had a sheep farm in the mountains and moved into town about 10 years ago. Rob has a regular suburban block with a very large garage and in that garage lives a very large tractor. It seems that retired farmers find it difficult to part with the tractors!

On Sunday 12th of May we left Myrtleford to ride up to Yackandandah to two good friends who live on a small property there.  As we approached their road we had a very nasty scare - the most dangerous traffic incident so far -as we were attempting a right turn into their road off a major road with a 100 km an hour speed limit. Joyce checks the mirror and calls the shots. She saw one following car, which I allowed past, but not a second one and I was half way across our lane when it blasted its horn. No change in engine note, no evidence of braking, just aggressive, disorientating honking, so I had no idea if it was trying to pass right or left of me. It passed to the right at 80-100kph and continued its honking for a couple of hundred metres, leaving us very shaken.

As we cycled up Phil and Maggie‘s driveway we saw a big drilling rig in their garden and soon discovered that they were having a bore sunk to provide them with extra water. They have lived in the property for close to 20 years, relying on a 100,000 litre rainwater tank but recently they’ve become concerned about drought and whether rainwater will be adequate to keep their (beautiful) garden alive. Locally, the subsoil rock is granite so, as we sat down on the patio and talked to them about the drilling, we were amazed to hear that it was already down to over 200 m - at about $200 per metre. And there was no sign of any water. They were showing distinct signs of anxiety, only slightly alleviated by the bottle of bubbles they welcomed us with. We enjoyed a lovely afternoon chatting on the patio in the warm sun with the main topic of conversation being, obviously, water. 

Phil & Maggie trying to look perfectly composed before the water started gushing

Water has been struck - just need to fill the dam

Just an aside, both Phil and Maggie come from large families and Maggie is both an excellent cook and perhaps a ‘super taster’, who can analyse flavours in food and recreate restaurant meals without a recipe. Her brother was somewhat similar with a stellar rise through the ranks of champagne tasters, over only a few brief years, to be invited to judge in London. Shortly after that he caught a cold and it was game over. No ability to taste or smell. And that predated Covid.

I mentioned the Murray to Mountains rail trail earlier, well, it’s been a goldmine for tourism and, whilst we lived in Myrtleford, the Rail Trail committee, of which I was rather an ineffective member, scoped out an extension from Beechworth to Yackandandah (condensed to Yack by all locals). In the space of about 5 km in local bush we spotted three koalas, which makes me think, if it ever gets funded, it will be a big attraction. Koalas are a big draw card.
That night Joyce had a dream, which is quite unusual for either of us. She dreamed of gushing water and shared this with us all over breakfast the next day. By lunchtime the rig had struck water down at 330 m.
It only remains for her to have a dream about the next Melbourne Cup…
Next day was spent in relaxing, chatting, eating and drinking. Just what we needed.

OK, so you can’t see the river but, trust me, it’s there

Murray river frontage

Finally, on Tuesday, we pedalled the 45km to Albury, across the other side of the ‘Mighty Murray’ in New South Wales, for our next appointment. The Murray was a major transport artery serviced by paddle steamers from mid nineteen hundreds up till the end of WW1 but, as far as I know, there are no longer any operating out of Albury, although some old tourist boats  work the lower reaches out of Swan Hill.