Day 2 - 4; 26th- 28th March; Porepunkah to Buchan

Day 2 - 4; Porepunkah to Buchan. 26 -28th March

The day dawned bright with a little bit of cloud cover and a cool breeze. We all stirred at about 7.00 a.m. The coffee pot and the kettle were set and soon we were greeted with the aroma of Al and Will cooking a fry up of bacon, eggs & sausages. Yummo!!!
We “broke camp at about 10.30 and headed towards Bright for a quick refuel before continuing on to Harrietville, a very pretty little village at the base of Mt. Hotham. From here we started our ascent of Mt. Hotham for 30 or so kms. The Millenium Pajero was really feeling the pinch up some of those climbs especially with a full load of fuel, water, food, luggage and people. Anyway we made it to the top and as you can see the views were quite spectacular.
We must have beaten the bad weather by about six hours, because by the next day most of the Victorian Alpine areas had reported snowfalls!!!
From the top we proceeded along the Great Alpine Road past Dinner Plain and on towards Omeo which is one of th more remote Victorian towns. Swifts Creek followed Omeo and we were making very quick progress down the valley towards Bairnsdale.
A quick dunny stop was made at Bruthen, about 30 k’s from Bairnsdale. Here we headed east towards Cann River before heading north once more for 50 or k’s to get to Buchan. About 5 km’s before our destination we were forced to stop for about 10 – 15 mins as the road had been blocked as a result of a huge branch falling across the road.
Fortunately no-one had been caught under it, as this would have resulted in a certain fatality, such was the size of the branch. Within a matter of minutes half a dozen cars had arrived and several chainsaws had burst into life and the offending branch had been chain-sawed and disposed of on the side of the road and we were free to continue.
These country people sure don’t muck around!!!
It was getting late in the afternoon (5.30 pm), and we had travelled almost 270 k’s by the time we reached the delightfully pretty town of Buchan, which of course is home to the famous Buchan Caves. We were booked in to the camping reserve for 2 nights.
We located our camp site and as the rain started falling, proceeded to set up for our 2nd night in the Chariot of Love. It rained fairly heavily for 2 or so hours.
Dinner that night was Spaghetti Bolognaise, which Andrea had very craftily prepared before we left Melbourne.
Not surprisingly, we were all in bed pretty early that evening. Jassy & Daisy in particular were looking forward to visiting the “Fairy Cave” in the morning.
Day 2 concluded at about 9.30 pm.
Cheers