Mount Bogong

I fell in love with Mount Beauty ever since I was a 4th year medical student doing a rural rotation there. Situated at the foot of Mount Bogong (literally means Big Fella in indigenous language), Victoria's highest mountain, the township of Mount Beauty brings mystical feelings each time I take a drive down the misty Kiewa Valley. The shadows of mountains guard the farm life that thrive underneath for years in the valley. This place is the heart and soul of Australia's highcountry's cattlemen.

As such, for last 3 or 4 years, I have always wanted to climb Mount Bogong (1986m) but time never permitted me in any way. As the southern hemisphere slowly inches into winter, and with days of less sunshine to come, I took the perfect opportunity to scale Mount Bogong with my great friends over the weekend!

The climb was difficult for me, as I was completely out of shape! We started at the Mountain Creek Picnic ground. There are a few starting points - Eskdale spur looks reasonably short but the gradient looks more tracherous than the Staircase Spur that originates at the picnic ground. So we chose the more popular route and off we went for a 6km of non-stop climb with plenty of rest and huffing and puffing inbetween. Not bad that we made to the top in 4 hours with 1 hour to spare at the pinnacle.

The view during the climb was breath-taking. There is a gradual change of view from gum trees to stringybarks to snow gums and then the tree line stops near the peak and all go barren and rocky. These pictures are from midway through the climb.

After a hard effort, we all made it to the top of Victoria.

Who said Australia is a flat land? At the top, we were surrounded in every direction by endless stretch of mountains, all part of the Great Dividing Range, continuing east to Mt Kosiousko (Australia's highest) and Blue Mountains up north.

Here we are again, the conquerer's of Victoria's highest mountain... And I wonder which idiot brought all these stones to the peak to erect such a monument???

View from the pinnacle in northeast direction... Endless array of blue tinged mountains...

We decided to be a little naughty and make our mark on the way down... We inscribed something on the wooden planks of this emergency shelther. Could anyone spot anything??? Shhhhh...

A weekend on the farm

G'day mate...

A good thing about working at Wodonga is that you are never far away from the mountains... so when Rob (ED Registrar) invited us for a weekend on his farm, we just could not turn down the offer... We just have to experience the Aussie way of life on the farm!

Here is the picture of our lovely hosts (Jamie, Rob and Ned) and their holiday farm house at the back. It's amazing how Jamie built the whole thing in 2 years. It's pretty cool really, a 3 layered house cluttered with odd furniture, a warm fire place, an amazing chandalier made out of tractor wheelers, a spiralled staircase and assorted kitchenware which did not match anything...

After a satisfying brunch of bacon, toast and poached eggs fresh from the chook house, Jamie gave us a guided tour around his 80 acre farm, which spread over 5 hills! It was quite a walk - took about 2 hours. We saw the cows, goats, chooks, rabbit holes and wombat holes. Ned the Lab went crazy when it's time for him to dive into the pond.

As evening set in, Rob again showed off his culinary skills...

While I tried to entertain the crowd with Waltzing Matilda...

Bing found herself a worthy dance partner of highest calibre...

This is us mucking around at the "crusher". It's a place where a cow's head gets trapped between the doors so that her hindnie is free to be jabbed with some immunisations... Pretty cool, but yoooouch!

Jamie's babies... There were about 30 of them and he knew them by name!!! I would have called them Brown, Browny, Browner, Black, Blackie, etc etc...

Jamie feeding Yvonne early in the morning...

We like to think that our stay brought rain to the arid region that has been hit with draught for last 3 or 4 years... That night, it rained about 36cm and every farmer was happy although we felt wet and miserable.

On our way back, we dropped by at Tallangatta. This is rain on Lake Hume - main catchment lake for Wodonga which is now only 5% filled with water! Let's hope there is more rain in days to come!