Hi,
Last week three Mokes headed off on Thursday afternoon for the Adventure Film Festival in Bright Victoria looking forward to usual motivating and inspirational weekend of mostly amateur films and talks of people doing some pretty extreme trips, but things didn't go to plan, but it was still a surprisingly good trip.
Literally 500mtrs up the road from our meeting point on the Hume we hit the back end of traffic crawling along for 50 minutes to pass the scene of a fatal accident near the Tallarook turn off. So being stuck behind a tanker with a shiny rear bumper I got the idea to see how close I had to get to take a photo of my Moke in the reflection.
From there the run to our overnight bush camp on the side of the Ovens River was uneventful until we rolled into the spot I thought would be empty to find it already had 10-12 other campers with a similar idea. Rolling in behind us was couple we had met the previous year in Bright, but still will managed to get a water frontage spot in amongst the trees not suitable for the larger vans and campers.
The next morning started with a long walk to the nearest town with no money to buy breakfast so I walked back to camp and had a swim in the river until the others started stirring from their slumber. A quick pack up in light drizzle and I drove back to the nearby town and had a really really nice Choccie Milkshake for breakfast. While waiting for the others to turn up I helped a young lady with steam coming out of her little buzz box from what looked like the top radiator hose.
The others turned up so I finished my really really nice milkshake and we took a few back roads up the hill to Beechworth for a bit of a walk around in the drizzle and an over priced average toasted sandwich from an award winning bakery. The local mechanical repairs in the main street has a few old, still working, historical RACV vehicles and a reception area with hundreds of tin toy trucks and large diorama of a working logging mill littered with more rare vintage toy trucks.
Next we headed over to Yackendandah for more walking around town and looking in the windows of the 'antique' shops because most of them were closed. Then along the road to Mt Beauty where i had tried to contact Les J. to let him know we were in the area, but no need to, some locals were sending him photos of us rolling through town within moment of us arriving.
About here we were getting messages and phone calls about the impending lockdown of Victoria and while travelling through The Gap to Bright we got the message to say the Film Festival had to be cancelled. So like a lot of people who were arriving in Bright expecting to start watching films within an hour or so we wandered around, found Les J and his better half and had a late snacky afternoon lunch thingy and a chat. Parking in Bright was a bit scarce so we did our best.
We left Bright in the rain and drizzle but by the time we got to the Hume the sun was out and the temperature was back up to pleasant Moke driving weather. We parked out the back in truck park at Avenel roadhouse in the blazing sun, not my choice, but right on cue a B double pulled up next to us and provide some shade, although it doesn't look like it in the photo which was taken as he pulled away.
So we clocked up around 700km in just over 24 hours, had a great overnight camp by the river, didn't get very wet but otherwise the weather was warm and we saw a few towns and caught up with friends so it was a really good trip in my book.
Terry
Topic: The adventure that never was, sort of (Read 391 times)