Beechworth

Left Gundagai this morning after a history making sleep in the the Poo Poo Head.   In an unprecedented event of events, Poo Poo Head slept in until about 7.30am.

The drive was relatively short today and with the bonus of a few days in Beechworth we weren’t in any rush.

I had a brief chat to the German tourists that turned up late ;ast night in a rental motor home.   They’d flown into Cairns and were a little shocked by the heat and humidity.   They then flew to Sydney and were surprised by the time it took (3 Hours) to fly what appeared to be a short distance on the map.   They hired the motor home in Sydney to drive to the Great Ocean Road !!!!! ….. you guessed it, they’d driven all day long and ended up in Gundagai, still 500 kilometres from the Great Ocean Road, and still in a different state.

He was shocked by the size of the country and distances, and in his broken English described the size of Germany in his balled up hands.

On the way south west across the drought effected NSW inland we stopped off at Holbrook for the magnificent full size genuine Oberon Class submarine, the Otway, on display in the town centre.   The town is named after submarine Commander Norman Holbrook.   The whole story is too long for this blog, but we can say that the town, originally called Germanton, was renamed after a WWI British navy submarine Commander Norman Holbrook, and at that time Holbrook who was born bred and lived in Britain, had never even heard of the place.

Holbrook Shire then bought the decommissioned Otway, a WWII Oberon Class submarine, which was to be sold off as scrap and trucked the top section 400 odd km inland and mounted all 90 metres of it on a concrete base resembling the shape of the submarine bottom.

The town, nor Commander Holbrook, nor the Otway had any connection with each other before the Shire folk brought them all together; but now Holbrook is the submarine capital of Australia and it goes to show you can start with nothing and mold yourself into whatever you desire, however bizarre it first appears.

Ross loves ALL things WWI and WWII, and he says the small museum was fantastic.   We’ll take his word for it.   Whilst Poo Poo Head ran amok outside with Barb chasing him about relentlessly, Ross wandered quietly through the museum oblivious to the the outside world and ‘scoped’ the camper and car in the carpark across the street from the replica submarine control room and operating periscope.

Poo Poo Head and Ross were running along the deck of the Otway, and bBarb had had enought.   She was bored senseless when something sparked her attention.   A large round opening in the deck allowed access down about 5 feet to nothing except some selfish peoples rubbish,  but looking up from the ground where Barb was waiting patiently it looked like something completely different.   When Poo Poo Head and Ross started to climb down, Barb’s face lit up, “can you get inside?” she was heard to ask, to which Ross replied, “yeah, it looks great to”.

Poo Poo Head and Ross knelt down and waited the minute or so that they knew it would take Barb to alk to the ladder, climb up and walk up the deck.   This is the face of disappointment when Barb discovered the rubbish’y truth.

Next stop was the Ettamogah Pub at Ettamogah just outside Albury.   Poo Poo Head loved the pickup sitting on the roof and the crashed plane sticking out of the ground.   A quick wander around and it off to Beechworth and our beloved Victoria.

This is Poo Poo Head after his first semi successful flying lesson.

We did have a brief discussion about leaving Poo Poo Head in here …… cant remember who gave in and let him out!

Setup camp and checked out Lake Sambell which the caravan park sits along side.  

We walked the short (or long according to Ross) distance Beechworth and made a tempting short visit to the Beechworth Bakery.   The great Tom O’Tmantra coffee cup and napkin mantra is something we live by, and will live by again tomorrow (4 or 5 times).

(Funny thing is, although Ross runs and rides for miles, he hates walking anything more than 20 feet)

Ross wanted to check out the mountain bike park before tomorrow and we drove up into the pine plantation in the hills behind Beechworth along some 4×4 goat tracks on the way.   The mountain bike track is not far out of town in the state forest and is just a series of maintained paths over a huge area of native bush designed for the various types of mountain bike styles.

Once we left the coast we have noticed, or rather been forced to notice the bloody flies, they  are horrendous.

This trip is coming frighteningly close to the end.   We have spoken the last couple of days about things we have done that seem like eons ago.   Poo Poo Head hasn’t pined for home at all since we have been away.

Back to camp and our very leafy and shaded campsite for dinner and some sitting around on our bums drinking.   Woo hoo.