A day of sightseeing!

Today, we made a trip around part of the Hume Reservoir, in glorious sunshine, with a beautiful green countryside made even more stunning after the heavy rain yesterday.    We saw lots of cows.    Dairy country.

On the mat below there is a road which comes in on the left of the map, above Bonegilla. This is where the dam wall is situated.  We drove down to Bonegilla village where we had a weak cup of coffee at the cafe.   It cannot  always be perfect, although it nearly always is, in Australia.

We continued  down the reservoir and then along the bottom until we came to a town called Tallangatta, which is pronounced with the emphasis on the 'lang' part '' Tal-LANG-atta.   I cannot get my tongue around this one as I think it should follow the pattern of all the other places ending in 'gatta'  for example, 'Coolangatta'.    Walter keeps testing me!

Except for the lower arm of the reservoir, the rest of the water follows the old Murray River.    If you enlarge the map you will see the dotted lines of the river.

So back to Tallangatta.    In 1956 they moved 104 houses from the existing site, which was going to be flooded when they extended the dam, to another site 5 miles down the road.   A huge undertaking.

The old butter factory on the hill above the old town.

The old Tallangatta site, where it is possible to see the markings of the bases of the houses, plus the streets.   It was never a brilliant place to build a town, as there was a creek running behind the town, and it often flooded.    The reservoir is very low at the moment, due to low rainfall during the last couple of years, so there is no water currently covering the old town site.

The moving of the houses.

There was a settlement called Bolga where the town of Tallengatta was to be re-established, so it was incorporated into the new settlement.   I am not sure the people were happy about this.

As well as moving the wooden houses, they also dismantled and rebuilt 37 brick houses and moved 73 pre-fabricated houses from other towns.   They built two new hotels, three banks, a butter factory and a hospital.   Plus a new shopping centre. The existing state school was relocated.   Quite a mammoth undertaking!    Not to mention the amount of money that was spent.   

Some of the houses in the centre of the new town.

I think this was one of the wooden houses that was moved to the new town.

The shopping centre.

The old railway line is now a rail trail, some of it sealed, which runs for kilometres.   The bridge below is part of the rail trail.

                                        
Once we left Old Tallengatta we drove along the inside of the reservoir.    So basically we drove along the opposite side of the arm that we had already travelled.   This was not our intention, as we were going to cut across the hills to the top part of the reservoir.    So easy to get a bit lost when you are not concentrating enough!

We drove along a very narrow dirt road which often had alarming drops on the side facing the water.   Luckily there was no other traffic.

Then out of nowhere there were traffic lights!   On red.    After thinking that we may be there for hours, they changed to green.    Apparently they were widening the road, and preparing to seal it too.

So pleased we took this road as it led to a gorgeous little village called Bethanga, where the general store had a lovely cafe.   Walter chose the fattening option of a bacon and egg roll, freshly cooked, while I chose the slimming option, a ham and salad roll.   Piper ate our crumbs.    

Opposite the general store was the Post Office/clothes shop with a hairdresser beside it.  There was not much else, a hall on the corner, a couple of old churches and a few houses.   I am fairly sure we saw a golf course a few km before we arrived at the village.    I think it must be quite a tourist stop though.

We continued on until we reached the top part of the reservoir and then followed it until we reached the main Murray River again.    I thought that the Murray River started below the dam, but this was not correct, as the Murray River continues past the reservoir, and ends up in the mountains somewhere.

The top part of the reservoir, with the Murray River flowing under the water somewhere.

And finally the upper part of the Murray River, which I know does not look any different from the photograph above.   The difference is with the currents, which you can see very clearly from the bank.   There was also a sign warning of swimming in the strong currents.

Very picturesque.   And muddy looking.    So it is not just in South Australia that the river is muddy.  And murky.

So we turned around at this point and drove back along the road, over the steel bridge and back to our caravan.

 I made pizzas for dinner, which I have proudly perfected somewhat. I buy pizza bases from the supermarket, put the toppings on them, put them in the frying pan to brown the bases, then pop them under the grill until they are nicely brown and the cheese is bubbling.   Delicious.   

Tomorrow we head west, firstly along the Hume Highway to Benalla (Walter's home town) then onto Shepparton, where we will stay for two nights.