Mt Beauty to Jindabyne
11 November 2016
Click on the image for a detailed map
It was a glorious morning in Mt Beauty. I loaded the bike and headed north to the Murray Valley Highway (B400) and then west to Corryong, where I refuelled, and Khancoban, where I went for a look.
Heading north towards the Murray Valley Highway on a glorious morning
The sign ahead points to the Omeo Valley Highway and so I had completed some sort of a circle since being here on Day 8
Murray Valley Highway views. First glimpse of the Snowies in the top right
I’m not going that high!
Photo opportunity at Khancoban
I think I went to Khancoban because I thought it was Australia’s highest town. It isn’t. That honour falls to Cabramurra which I was to ride past in blissful ignorance later that day. Anyway, it was pretty on the outskirts of Khancoban, so I stopped to take a photo before retracing my steps for about 5 kilometres and turning right onto Swampy Plains Creek Road which Pterodactyl had suggested I ride.
It was a great new find for the trip. I rode through bush, high plains with beautiful but dead gum trees, past dams and lakes, through cuttings, around plenty of corners, up hills, down the other side until finally I came to the Snowy Mountains Highway (B72).
Tooma Dam
Snow gums
Many Australian eucalypts thrive on being burned occasionally. Indeed they need it to regenerate. There was clear evidence of fire along much of this road. One is greeted with the sight of blackened eucalypts still producing new growth. There are also a great many of the dead snow gums that can be seen in the above picture. Apparently they will regenerate, but from below the ground, so eventually, presumably, this beautiful dead growth will disappear and be replaced by new trees.
Just past noon I came to the Tumut Pond Reservoir. It’s a beautiful setting: isolated, quiet and buried deep in a valley. The dam walls are amazing, but the dam itself looks awful as there is relatively little water in it. I learned later that it is actually a holding dam. When the spot price of electricity is high, the authority generates power from a dam higher in the system. The water flows into the Tumut Pond. Then, at a time when the spot price of electricity is low, the company buys the cheaper power and pumps the water back up again so they can do it all again.
Winding down the hill to the Tumut Pond Reservoir
The road runs along the top of the dam wall
Looking down the dam wall
Looking back at the reservoir from the other side
I still can’t work out why this sign has a point on the right hand side. As far as I can figure, I was on the Great Dividing Range at this point and I was at about 1,500 metres too!
I had a late lunch at Adaminiby.
I should digress here to talk briefly about Australia’s obsession with big things. Bill Bryson commented on them in his book about Australia. There’s even an article about it in Wikipedia. ‘Big Things’ are enormous statues or sculptures of relatively ordinary things and are used to celebrate the connection of the thing with the place they are located. There’s the big lobster, the big sheep, the big pineapple, the big banana, the big motorbike, the big this, the big that. The most recent example of this curious phenomenon I’ve read about is in Tamworth New South Wales (which already boasts the Big Guitar) which recently unveiled the Big Big Mac to mark the connection of this agricultural area to the so-called food churned out by Macdonalds.
The Big Big Mac. Why? I ask you?
Adaminiby, a pretty enough town, but a place barely big enough to sustain one let alone two horses, boasts the big trout. I sat across the road and admired it while I ate my sandwich and drank my coffee.
About an hour later, as I headed towards Jindabyne, I had this great view of the Snowy Mountains.
I was staying with friends at their property just south of Jindabyne, but decided to take a quick detour up the Alpine Way out of Jindabyne. It was good road and worth the ride, although I didn’t get quite as far as I wanted before I needed to turn back.
Lake Jindabyne
On the Alpine Way. The sign says it’s the highest land for sale in Australia. It looked appealing this day.
I stopped in Jindabyne to acquire some wine to take to my hosts and then found my way south along the Barry Way to 8 kms of dirt at the end of which was my friends’ magnificent home and property.
