This was to be the real hot one – forecast for Tallangatta 41C! We headed out pretty early to take advantage of what remained of the beautifully cool Clack Clack dawn air. There were a couple of reasonably serious climbs in prospect today … the first a short sharpish rise – the second a long steady climb of 14 ks that ‘summited’ off the main road at Lawrence Lookout, at a tick over 800m altitude. This spectacular lookout afforded sweeping, almost 360°views across the Snowy Mountains, Burrowa Pine National Park, Mt Lawson Sate Park and beyond…
Lawrence Lookout – view east to the Snowy’s Us 3 at Lawrence Lookout
We stopped off for lunch at Shelley. We didn’t find the entrance to the rail trail here so rather that bypass Koetong (which was our plan) we ‘had to’ stop and have a beer at the Koetong Hotel, a great old pub which is a remnant of a what must have been a vibrant logging town in its heyday. We picked up a short section of the rail trail a kilometer or so past the pub. It ended quite abruptly at a ‘derelict’ trestle bridge. This of course had to be explored by Jeff! Even Johnno on this occasion took brave steps out onto the structure! The vision is for the rail trail to span the entire length of the old line from Wodonga to Cudgewa…It’ll be a ripper if this is ever fully realised.
Rickety Rail Bridge Section of the rail trail just out of Koetong
Back on the road and we descend apace out of the hills into the rolling agricultural landscapes of the Mitta River Valley. It’s damn hot so we were relieved to pull into the aptly named ‘Pure Rest’ roadside stop at Bullioh. Mark, (clothes and all) was soon fully submerged in the creek cooling off and taking full advantage of this pretty little spot!
We rode on to Old Tallangatta. In 1918 the confluence of the Mitta Mitta and Murray Rivers, upstream of Wodonga was selected as the site for the Hume reservoir. The reservoir would ultimately inundate Tallangatta displacing much of the town and its residents… The ‘new’ Tallangatta Township was subsequently completed in 1956. During dry periods (which we were fortunate to experience on this ride), the water level of the reservoir drops revealing again the site of old Tallangatta. A series of interpretive panels helped us pick out the most obvious features of town… the old railway embankment, the main street and the diagonal road to the higher ground and the old butter factory, which is still intact today…
The ride from here was back on the rail trail, which skirts the edge of the Hume weir all the way to Tallangata. We were very much hoping to get a room at one of the two pubs in town. The Victoria Hotel was fully booked but fortunately the Tallangatta Hotel had rooms free for the night. The front bar of the pub wasn’t the friendliest place we had experienced to date on the ride so after a quick walk through town we headed across to the Vic for a beer and chatted with the Chez the very experienced publican. Who gave us some real insights into the world of a country pub owner.
We walked down to the Reservoir (Jeff had a swim) and headed back to town for a bite to eat and quite unexpectedly there was an Indian Restaurant that looked half decent – and it was! The rooms of the pub were stifling…the pedestal fans were on full tilt all night!
'Clack Clack' Classic 