The Victorian High Country - Milawa-Beechworth-Yackandandah-Bright-Milawa then home to Sydney

After doing long drives to get from Alice Springs to Victoria, we've done really short drives around this great area. As small as 36kms in a day!

Prosecco tasting, Milawa (King Valley) is Australia's Prosecco capital!

Beechworth

Milawa to Beechworth is a whopping 30kms.  Beechworth is an old gold mining town with some beautiful heritage buildings, excellent restaurants, brewery, cafes and shops to wander around.  Thankfully they also had a hairdresser who was able to repair Jayne's terrible haircut she had a week before in Swan Hill. 

Our most infamous bushranger Ned Kelly spent time here in Beechworth Prison (as well as his Mum)

The Beechworth Caravan Park is on Lake Sambell, we got ourselves a lake view site

The Victorian High Country is a beautiful area and fantastic for bike riding.  The Victorian Government has turned the old railway line into a rail trail and you can ride the full length, or just short sections.  We rode 16 kms from Beechworth to Everton, but it was all downhill and way too easy. We only had to pedal a couple of times, so twice along the trail, we turned around and did a few kms of the return uphill ride.

Jayne arranged a great option of a shuttle pickup from Everton back to Beechworth for $15 each.  After the two times we turned around, we're glad we took the easy option.  While we waited for the shuttle we shared an enormous hamburger from the only shop open in Everton.

My bike helmet hair-do!

They're a bit weird around here!

Yackandandah

From Beechworth we went to Yackandandah, via Wodonga.  Our Diesel Heater had konked out and needed a service to clear all the soot out. So we turned a 22km move into a whopping 54kms. Talk about overdo ourselves!

At least now the diesel heater works again and we're toasty warm in the mornings.

We stayed two nights at the caravan park so we could go up to the Star Hotel's Wednesday night regular jam session, and Thursday night the Blues jam. While the Blues was good, the normal jam was much better.  They had a good crowd of 12 musicians playing various instruments, but were missing their double bass player who is very ill.

Bright

Bright is 70kms from Yack and we nearly had to stop for a sleep half way. Instead we refreshed ourselves with coffee at Lupo's Kiln Cafe in Myrtleford. We've wanted to go here for a while, but most places are only open Wednesday to Sunday to capture the weekend/tourist market from Melbourne. This time we drove through on Thursday so we sat on the balcony in the warm sun with our coffee.  Jayne bought some of their fresh Gnocchi ($10 a serve) which we ate for dinner with a pre-made jar of delicious Brown Brothers pasta sauce.

Myrtleford used to be a tobacco growing area so there are many old tobacco kilns around the area.  The kilns were all closed down in 2006 after a payout deal by BATA and Phillip Morris when they started buying tobacco from overseas.

Behind Jayne, with a few old kilns in the background is part of the rail trail bike track.

We went to the Bright Brewery for a afternoon drink which was quite nice, but I'm not really one for boutique beers. Give me a Corona with lime any day.  The location is great with the Ovens River in front of the brewery.

One of the highlights of Bright is Tomahawks Restaurant. The food here is amazingly different. Their char-grilled broccoli with smoked butter and almonds is the best vegetable I've eaten. Jayne has been trying to replicate this dish since the last time we were here. She's got it so close but we needed a return visit.

We had to try the broccoli again to see how close Jayne's attempts have been

Here she is trying to steal their final touches, but she was busted!

So the chef came out to have words with her and gave her the low-down on how to make it.

I can now expect this to be 100% when she next cooks it, YUM!

We had two nice Rail Trail rides from Bright. The first to Porepunkah and beyond.

The second to Wandiligong, which includes the Chinese Bridge where gold panning was done in the river.

For our last night in Bright we wanted to go back to Tomahawks, but they don't open on Mondays. So they recommended we go to the Bright Distillery, Reed and Co.  We thought the food at Tomahawks was the best, but we have to say that Reed and Co came pretty close.  Their own distilled gin was also very good.

We loved their oven roasted brussel sprouts with citrus and buttermilk dressing was definitely in the same league at Tomahawks Broccoli.

We'll have to wait and see how goods Jayne's is when we get home!

Milawa

We love Milawa and the camping at Brown Brothers Winery, so we decided to come back from Bright, after driving 68kms yesterday. We'd have loved to stop off again at Lupo's Kiln Cafe but being a Tuesday, it was closed.

Wednesday was our 38th Wedding Anniversary, so we booked a table at Brown Brother's Patricia's Table Restaurant for lunch. It's just across the road from their free camp. What could be easier?

From Milawa we head home on Thursday to be home on Friday. We need to go via Alternate Gas & Refrigeration in Arndell Park to get our air-conditioner re-gassed. It has a broken refrigerant line which hopefully they can repair rather than replace the thing. We don't use our aircon much, but when it's really hot we do need it.

This is the last entry for this fantastic trip.