Great Alpine Road

Great Alpine Road - Bairnsdale to Wangaratta

The Great Alpine Road in Victoria goes from the town of Bairnsdale and travels over the mountains to the town of Wangaratta. Omeo is an historic town that used to be a gold mining center in the eighteen hundreds during the days of the Australian Gold Rush. The Omeo jail was built in 1859 and everything there is real and old. You can learn about the old gold digging days at the Omeo Historic Park. The Omeo Caravan park has a great range of accommodation options from tent sites to cabins.

If you get a fold down caravan it will be a lot easier to tow behind the car and will fold down quickly and easily. Drawers are set down below the sinks and cupboards and a stove will help you prepare meals quickly. Most have a four burner cooker and also a griller. The fold down caravans are very easy to tow and are made of robust materials. They are flexible and very comfortable. Get a portable fridge such as the Waeco that will run off the 240 volts or it will run off the battery for twenty four hours. There are also fold down camper trailers complete with mattress and cooking facilities. An internal slide out drawer and sinks and ovens will be supplied with any camper trailer. They can go anywhere - through the desert and up to Cape Yorke along the roughest track in Australia. A four wheel drive combined with a camper trailer will let you go to any place along the Great Alpine Road.

You can learn how to do fly fishing on the rivers of Victoria along the Great Alpine Road. Get your fishing gear and head on into the stream and cast away into the water. It is different from anything else and is so peaceful heading into the hills of Victoria. After a fish go to the hotel and tell lies about the size of the fish that got away. Catch a nice sized trout and you have a delicious dinner just waiting for you.

Dinner Plain is packed full of activities and sports. In the summer you can go skiing and in summer you can go bush walking or mountain bike riding. You can see nice views of MOunt Hotham and go at a leisurely pace to suit your own fitness level. You can also see Mount Feathertop on the way on your mountain bike ride at Dinner Plain. After that you can go for a horse ride. Put on your helmet and off you go into the bush of the Alpine region. The horses are placid and know their way around and are very safe. Riding the mountain ranges along the Great Alpine Road is a great thing to do and is a great adventure.

Wangaratta is the end of the Great Alpine Road. Stay at the Wangaratta Tourist Park where the peacocks wander around freely. There is some history at the Vine Hotel which seems like just another country pub. But the original Vine Hotel has been here for more than a hundred years. In the cellar underneath there is a museum with the tunnel that was supposed to have been dug by Ned Kelly himself to get in unnoticed to the pub above.

.