Full circle ... the Great Alpine Road.Credit: Lee Atkinson
It's amazing what a tar job can do, writes Lee Atkinson, as she discovers one of Australia's most spectacular driving routes.
A BLUE duck is a white elephant, or at least it was during the Victorian gold rush, when a white elephant was a gold lease that yielded no gold and was called a blue duck. In 1912, it seemed like the perfect name for the new hotel that miner Billy O'Connell established on what was going to be, but wasn't, the new main road from the gold-rush town of Omeo to the goldfields.
The Blue Duck Inn has languished beside the river on a forgotten bend of the seldom-used Omeo Highway, more back road than high road, for almost a century.
The only people who called in for a beer or meal in the old slab hut - which was a butcher's shop before it was moved, room by room, through the bush on the back of a horse dray from Omeo - were fishermen keen to catch a trout in the three rivers (the Cobungra, Bundarra and Mitta Mitta) that converge here just beyond the garden fence. Hence the place's name, Anglers Rest.
However, thanks to the recent sealing of the Bogong High Plains Road linking Omeo and Falls Creek in the Victorian Alps, it looks as if the Blue Duck's poised to become one of the most popular stops on what will become one of Australia's most spectacular driving routes - a 240-kilometre alpine loop across the roof of Australia - the Bogong Alpine Way.
This drive, a clockwise circle from Bright to Omeo and back, will take less than five hours if you do it flat-chat in a topless red convertible or on the back of a big black growling motorbike. If you're in a bog-standard white family sedan, as I was, however, this is a drive best taken slowly, with long lunches at wineries, rambles along bushwalking trails to historic cattlemen's huts, explorations of the valleys on horseback and soaks in Japanese-inspired hot tubs.
From Bright, the road cuts across beautiful farmland and gentle rolling hills to Mount Beauty, past wineries and groves of chestnut trees, before climbing up into the mountains to the ski resort of Falls Creek. This used to be where the bitumen stopped but the rough and dusty potholed gravel section across the plains is now a ribbon of asphalt - although be warned, recent roadwork had left a sheen of loose gravel on the surface when I drove it in autumn, something to be careful of if using two wheels rather than four.
It's a glorious stretch of road, skirting the edge of Rocky Valley Dam, winding among skeletal snow gums with one sweeping view after another unfurling at each bend in the road.
Much of the trip is inside the boundaries of the Alpine National Park and there are plenty of places to stop and snap photos or head off on a walk, like the easy 750-metre stroll to Wallace's Hut.
Built by the Wallace brothers in 1889 from slabs of snow gum and bits of kerosene tins, it's the oldest of the high-country cattleman's huts and is surrounded by beautiful gums, some of the few in the area that were miraculously left unscathed by the 2003 and 2006 fires. Today, it's rickety and rustic, dark and lonely, and it's hard to imagine the life these tough pioneer cattlemen must have had as they spent months alone with their charges on these windswept plains.
Take a drive along the way up to the top of Mount McKay, which at 1842 metres above sea level is the highest drivable point in Australia. From the grassy top, you can gaze out over the treeless Bogong High Plains and see most of Victoria's highest peaks.
Once across the plains, the road descends beneath the snow line to run beside babbling rivers and past countless perfect picnic spots, before ending up at Anglers Rest and the Blue Duck Inn, just the place for a late-afternoon beverage.
The historic gold-rush town of Omeo, surrounded by more rolling high plains, is only half an hour away and from there the road begins to climb again, this time to the ski resort village of Dinner Plain, near Mount Hotham, home to several great restaurants (try the five-course degustation at Rundells Alpine Lodge) and the Onsen Retreat and Spa, where a massage and long soak in the outdoor hot tub is the best way I know to fix sore bits caused by a tumble from a horse at Anglers Rest.
The views get even more spectacular as you cross the top, where the road practically sits atop the ridge of the mountain for about 30 kilometres, giving spectacular views on both sides as you drive on, high above the snowline, range after range receding in the distance. It really does feel as if you can see forever.
By the time you wind your way down to the pretty Ovens Valley and the towns of Harrietville and Bright, through forests of mountain ash and stringy bark, you'll know exactly what Robert Louis Stevenson meant when he said: "To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." This really is one of the few roads in Australia that is worth driving just for the thrill of it.
The writer was a guest of North East Victoria Tourism & Tourism Victoria.
Trip notes
Getting there
The road loop from Bright is about 240 kilometres. Bright is 326 kilometres north-east of Melbourne. Closest airport is Albury (119 kilometres north of Bright); Qantas (qantas.com.au), Virgin Blue (virginblue.com.au) and Rex (rex.com.au) all fly daily between Sydney and Albury.
Where to eat
Annapurna Estate Cafe, Simmonds Creek Road, Tawonga (03) 5754 4517, www.annapurnaestate.com.au.
Rundells Alpine Lodge, 18 Big Muster Drive, Dinner Plain (03) 5159 6422, rundells.com.au.
Simone's of Bright 98 Gavan Street, Bright, (03) 5755 2266, simonesrestaurant.com.au.
Staying there
The Birches has three spa chalets overlooking Mount Beauty, priced from $350 a couple (03) 5754 1524, luxuryspachalets.com.au.
Merlot is a self-contained apartment in Dinner Plain. Summer rates start at $270 a night 1800 670 019, dinnerplain.com.
The Odd Frog has pretty studios with bush views near the centre of Bright, from $150 a couple a night 0418 362 791, theoddfrog.com.
Need to know
The Great Alpine Road (via Dinner Plain) is open all year. Snow chains must be carried from Queens Birthday in June to the first weekend in October. The Bogong High Plains Road (via Falls Creek) is sealed but closes in winter.
More information
See victoriashighcountry.com.au, visitvictoria.com.au.
THREE THINGS TO DO
1 Half-day fly fishing trips with Angling Expeditions Victoria from $110 (minimum two people), (03) 5754 1466, anglingvic.com.au.
2 90-minute horse treks with Packer's High Country Horseriding at Anglers Rest cost $80, (03) 5159 7241, horsetreks.com.
3 Massages at Onsen Retreat and Spa, Dinner Plain, start at $75, (03) 5150 8880, onsen.com.au.
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