Category: Victoria

Navigation was simple today. Join the East Gippsland Railtrail. Stay on it until near end. The Gippsland line was opened in 1916 to serve the agriculture and timber industries. Closing in 1988 it became a rail-trial not too long afterwards. The surface is tarmac or packed gravel for the main part, with a rough stone surface for a 10 mile section to keep you awake.

If that didn’t, the sights would. From old hop-kilns (like lime kilns but for hops), to maize storage frames, to former timber yards: all dating from early 1900s.

The trestle bridges are amazing in their decaying grandeur: red iron bark and grey box timber sourced locally. One was burned leaving nothing but melted rails in 2011 (1 February 2011 if you want to be precise) along with 11000 hectares of land. New word for me – epicormic buds along eucalypt trees started sprouting 3/4 weeks later. Now only the burned bark remains.

The work continues with the restoration of the Snowy River Railbridge (trestle of course) approaching Orbost. To be completed soon, a 3.5mill AUD project. Its huge longitudinal beams are made from now rare Southern Mahogany. Scale: it’s 770 metres long, straddling the Snowy floodplains since 1916.

Cycling via the rail-trail has help revitalise Orbost. The locals we see staggering around might need revitalised too. !

Tomorrow cut inland to start going over the Australian Alps.

Fun day!

As we cycled through the fan oven reaching over 30C with a wind on a short hop, a day of reflection.

So far, since Adelaide. Polite drivers, including to pedestrians, allowing people to cross vs pushing in. Good quality of surfaces on “minor roads”. Friendly people. Good coffee though not as good as they think it is. Fire risk, active water management. Car number plates difficult to decipher and can’t tell age of car by rust as they don’t use salt on road. Very few electric cars and charging points, as in negligible (looking it up, 1% for whole of Australia vs 4% for UK). Lots of good quality public toilets. Lots of street water fountains (bring them back to UK), lots of physios and osteopaths. Very little litter, including hardly any plastic water bottles (its not complicated – see water fountains). Inexpensive quality sun tan lotions.

We haven’t thus far seen much Aborigine presence apart from art and some place names. A common way to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land is to say something like, “I’d like to begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which we meet today”. Or statements like “The … acknowledges the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognises their continuing connection to land, waters, culture and community. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.”

Though not enough respect nor acknowledgement to return the land the traditional owners lost. Feels a little tokenistic to my cynical mind. Coming from the colonial “mother” country which has done so much to disposess people across the world in the name of King and Country and our own views of civilisation (I include Scottish emigres from the clearances physical and economic, still playing out in the USA gun control debate and the 2nd amendment), I suspect my views are not to be shared too widely, nor of value. Plus ca change!

We seem to be in race course country, flat and with watering holes in every field. Poor cows don’t know whether to wallow in the pools or hang out in the shade of trees where they can find them.

Bairnsdale may have Macleod origins from Skye: a Macleod was an early settler and Bernsdale is on Skye. It might mean children. Anyway it’s too hot to go out and melt along the (recent history) heritage trail so we may never know!

Tomorrow back to rail-trail exploring. Less reflection else I’ll end up derailed….

Not named after the Manchester suburb, rather a General Sale who made a name for himself in an Afganistan War. Or it might have been his wife. Rory Stewart has written about her, so that increases the chances she’s the one.

Today was straight forward navigation. Turn left onto the rail track, continue straight for 70km. At rail end turn left onto highway. Continue in a dead straight line for another 70km.

The railway line was punctuated by former stations, such as Welshpool. Either side was vast acres of pasteural land with cows happily making their way to be milked.

You enter the Sale area by way of a swing bridge and then a heritage water park. The former is the last swing bridge in the world which can rotate 360 degrees. The latter was created in 1964 by dredging – we’re near the sea and lakes. It’s boardwalks take you between areas full of grazing birds of all disguises.

Before being called Sale it was known as Flooding Creek, which is a clue to what happens. Wide streets dotted with everything the 15000 residents might want – but can’t get today! Today nothing was for sale as it’s a public holiday for the Melbourne Cup.

Tomorrow a short skip to another large 18000 population town – Bairnsdale. Butting is being pinned up as I type…..

It started as Stockyard Creek. It had a stockyard. Gold (alluvial) discovered in 1868, 200 miners had arrived by 1872 and, in the next 8 years, 3 tonnes of gold had been extracted. Various operations continued on a diminishing basis until 1950. The creek still flows, most traces of mining gone. Judge Foster lives on in his town of 1200 people.

It’s an entry point for the Wilson Promontory National Park and other South Gippsland tourist attractions. By way of illustration about rural towns: it has an IGA (found everywhere, a supermarket chain selling brand and own-brand products); a BP garage – they have been the most common, with fuel about 90p/litre for diesel or petrol (varying wildly); a medical centre with various services such as oesteopath/meditation; pharmacy; cafe(s); hotel. This town seems to be a service centre for the county with a police station, hospital and fire station.

The hotel is the last remaining, opening in 1871 and rebuilt after the bushfire of 1905 which burned the town down. Easy to forget the reality of the constant risk: since 1851 bushfires have killed 800 people and billions of animals.

There seems a arty theme to these rail towns. A cute series of Art Cubes – small containers – have been dropped outside the community centre.

The other common thread is war memorials – particularly for WW1 and the Vietnam war. Of the 0.5million youngsters, from the general population of 5million, who signed up, 60000 died and 156000 were gassed injured or taken prisoner. Gallipolli seems a strong memory – killing 9000 Australians ( 45000 in total for the Allies and 87000 Ottoman soldiers). Churchill’s military second front disaster hasn’t won any Oscars. The real shame is the memorials are living monuments, added with names of recent conflicts – never mind the cost of PTSD to all soldiers across the world.

Tomorrow we rejoin the railtrail for a good while, then continue to Sale on this leg to Canberra.