So… the main reason for us taking our short trip through Victoria was to catch up with Jo’s school friend Penny and her husband Steve while they were travelling around Victoria as well. We’d previously decided to meet up in Bright and stay at the Big4 Bright Holiday Park situated on the banks of the Ovens River.

Penny & Steve had recently acquired a lovely Swift caravan and were travelling around Victoria for all of March.

At the start of our trip Penny challenged us to see which couple could find the tackiest tourist gift for under $15… a challenge we gladly accepted. Upon meeting up in the Big4 Bright Holiday Park we had the customary drinks and proceeded to present each other with our gifts. Penny & Steve offloaded us with a particularly cringeworthy Melbourne Demons (AFL) football shaped wine cork remover. We were pleased to present them with a slightly offensive solar powered jiggling koala.

Between us we couldn’t agree which of the two ‘gifts’ was the tackiest so we asked the van next door to adjudicate. They proclaimed the jiggling koala to be the tackier of the two but I think we all agree that they were both very tacky and worthy of the title…

It was a thoroughly enjoyable time spent with Penny & Steve at Bright and we spent each day touring around the Buckland Valley, Omeo and the surrounds of Bright.

The Big4 Bright Holiday Park itself is not a cheap stay but on the whole, given the location, amenities, and quality of the park it is well worth the stay. Most sites are slightly challenging to back into but one in they are perfectly level and fairly spacious with lots of shade from trees and privacy. We didn’t have a slab site but instead were provided with a large rubber ‘honeycomb’ style mat, which we thought was a fence until Penny & Steve pointed it out to us.

The park is a short walk into town along a picturesque river walk that tracks down to a public water park area including a slide into the river, a diving board, water dump bucket and various water play spots. The water is crystal clear and the temperature is very refreshing…

The path takes you past the Bright Brewery where we spent our last evening with Penny & Steve sampling their beers and cider and feasting upon pizza. Their beers were quite left field with a lot of Pale Ale’s (which I am NOT a fan of)… But I did try the following:

Bright Sour – More like a cross between a cider and a wine. Interesting but not spectacular.
Mole Stout – A stout beer based around a Mexican Mole (chocolate) sauce concept… Quite smooth and chocolate’y but not creamy like Guinness.
Alpine Lager – Too floral (like an IPA) for my taste and not crisp enough.

Jo had the Alpine Dry Cider and thought it was quite good.

Would love to go back to Bright one day and despite thoroughly enjoying the Big4 Bright Holiday Park, we thought we’d probably opt to stay in nearby Porepunkah or even Myrtleford next time.

Our first outing in Bright was in search of the Buckland Valley Goldfields, only a short drive from Bright, crossing over the Ovens and Buckland Rivers at various points. A truly scenic drive with a number of points of interest along the way including a few kilometres on dirt road into the Buckland Valley Goldfields themselves.

The catalyst for this trip was for our friend, Penny, to try and track down the location of the small settlement where some of her ancestors were once located.

First stop was the historic Buckland Cemetery, which contained a number of graves from the mid 1800’s settlers and also the burial place of a number of Chinese miners that were the unfortunate subject of a massacre a racially motivated massacre there. Unfortunately Penny did not find any of here ancestors graves there but Rob did discover the grave of a ‘Maguire’, which may, or may not, have been a distant relation.

The cemetery itself was quite well kept and had a beautiful flowering gum in the centre that was in full flower with thousands of bees working away at the blossoms as well as one bright butterfly nudging its way in as well.

After the cemetery we stopped at ‘Ah Youngs Camp’… a Chinese mining camp that is now a very tranquil and relaxing free camp area. There were still remnants of the massive hand dug Chinese open mine, now overgrown, as well as two side-by-side pits that were between 8m and 10m deep. Steve found a rock that had glistening flecks throughout and proclaimed that it was gold… Rob suggested that it was more likely to be iron pyrites or mica… Undaunted, Steve kept the rock to be assayed for gold at a later time or more likely to find it’s way into his rock collection.

From the camp we followed the dirt road up to the Buckland Valley and the site of the small settlement that is no longer there but for a shallow river crossing and the ruined pylons of the third bridge that had been washed away. It was a magically serene place and at last Penny was able to discover that this was the settlement that held a school and a church denoting the place where her ancestors were. Much to her chagrin though, very close by the settlement was a place on the river called ‘Maguires Point’ so Rob thanked Penny very much for taking him on a family journey of discovery as much as her own.

Steve continued to fossick for that elusive gold nugget and ended up snaffling a nice piece of white quartz to add to his ‘gold bearing’ rock collection. Meanwhile we took the opportunity to put the drone up and get a bird’s eye view of the area.

In case you’re wondering what Steve was doing in the video… He was cracking open rocks trying to find a quick fortune in gold that had been missed in the gold rush years…

Before leaving we had a brief chat with a Queenslander who had been camping there for a few days. Interesting young bloke who regaled us of his trout fishing exploits as well as his method for cooking them in the ground in his camp fire.

On our second day in Bright Penny and Steve chauffeured us on a day trip to Mt Hotham and Omeo where Penny was once again on the trail to try and find the place where he grandmother was born in a tent back in the day…

Our first stop was at the Mt Hotham ski fields area to take in the autumnal alpine vista available from both sides of the road. It seemed that preparations were taking place for the upcoming ski season and we were surprised by the low visibility, due to fog and cloud on the trip up contrasting with the clear blue skies once we crested the pass at the top.

Mt Hotham had a slight chill in the air but aside from the handful of resort workers was eerily empty like a post-apocolyptic zombie town, which was emphasized by the cloud rolling over the range and slowly spilling down into the ski slopes.

After a short break we continued onto Omeo… another picturesque alpine town dominated by the art-deco style ‘Golden Age Hotel’ at the centre, which started life as a small timber dwelling and was rebuilt twice after the second version burnt down resulting in the grand art-deco version that we witnessed.

Just down from the Golden Age Hotel we stopped in at the Information Centre/Library/Bendigo Bank/Centrelink office where Penny did some more searching for her ancestral links to the area but unfortunately didn’t unearth anything. Following that we strolled down to the quaint Omeo Court House and the ruins of another decent sized water wheel used to drive a gold ore battery back in the day.

So at this point we were going to turn tail and head home but changed our minds and decided to continue on the loop road via Anglers Rest and Falls Creek.

Anglers Rest sits on a bend in the road nestled in the mountain tops where a bridge crosses the Cobrunga River. Just near the bridge is the Blue Duck Inn, so named when a failed gold miner nailed his gold pan to the door and wrote ‘Blue Duck’ on it, which was miners slang for a failed gold lease… Inside the Blue Duck is rustic dining area filled with wooden decoy ducks, a fireplace and a beautiful wooden kayak suspended upside down from the ceiling.

The menu was very enticing so we decided to stay for lunch and eat out on the verandah overlooking the grassy lawns heading down to the river. Penny and I opted for a cold-smoked trout (being in the mountains near a bubbling stream) whilst Jo and Steve went with the more contemporary salt’n’pepper squid.

The trout (actually from nearby Harrietville) was superb as was the squid, washed down with beers and cider making for a rather satisfying and somewhat unexpected meal… for what seemed quite reasonable prices. Jo and Penny amused themselves by eavesdropping on the couple at the next table trying to guess the reason for their ‘rendezvous’ so far from anywhere given the difference in their age and ethnicity. A variety of interesting theories were put forward.

From Anglers Rest we continued our scenic drive through the mountains stopping to view Cody’s Hut and Wallace Hut after some slightly misleading information from the Omeo Information Centre. Wallace Hut apart from being an alpine shelter is the oldest hut and part of the Wallaces Hut Walk. It was the first ‘tourism hut’ built in the Victorian Alps. The hust is quite spartan on the inside but sleeps eight in bunks with a fireplace and small side-room with a wash basin. It would be a welcome respite for hikers walking in after a long day on the trail…

From there it was back out of the mountains via Falls Creek and Mt Beauty for quick stop and a cuppa tea near the Mount Beauty Pondage. Mt Beauty itself was originally built by the Victorian State Electricity Commission to service the Kiewa Hydroelectric Scheme and you pass over one of their dams, similar to Jindabyne dam, on the drive to Mt Beauty.

The whole drive from Bright through the alps and back to Bright was scenic from start to finish. It was an excellent day out and the food of future memories…