Mansfield – Day 1

We left Porepunkah a little before 10:00 driving towards Wangaratta, I’d planned our first stop to be at Tarrawingee but unfortunately we’d driven out the end of “the town” before we knew we’d arrived. Warrangaratta was very busy with no provisions for RV parking that we could find so after a couple of laps we drove on towards Moyhu. Since Tarrawingee and Moyhu rated the same sized typeface on the map we weren’t hopeful of a nice cafe but we were pleasantly surprised. It’s a lovely little place and we were able to get tasty food at a house converted into a cafe. On the way back to the car we had a conversation with one of the Pub owners who was very friendly, I think she might have opened the Pub for us if we’d asked! When we looked in through the window there were two Jack Russells in a front room, one of them seemed very happy to see us, its tail didn’t stop wagging.

The house cafe – cyclists know about it.

Another Ned

Lovely sculptures at the cafe.

You have to be imaginative if you’re trying to make a living in a small town.

Options included GF muffins.

Old Bank with the pub next door.

After Whitfield we saw a sign to Powers Lookout and thought it was worth investigating. Both of us thought the name related to the massive transmission towers and presumed the lookout would be near the highest tower but we were wrong. It was Harry Powers, the bushranger’s, lookout. We had fun investigating the area.

The big boulders hid the way down.

They rode horses down through here.

Bringing out the inner bushranger!

Caves provided some shelter.

The spring which provided the men with water.

The terrain showing some of the steps down.

Sedimentary Rocks

Harry’s view down over the valley,

Valley in the opposite direction.

Transmission towers

On reaching Mansfield we decided to stay at a Caravan Park on the outskirts of town, it’s relatively new and the trees aren’t big. That means not a lot of shade and today we could certainly have used it.

The Overseer

I think the temp was in the mid 30s so after we’d set up instead of going for a swim in the pool we went back into town for a cool place to sit and have a drink.

More fancy boots

Fancy boots

 

There is a pond at the Caravan Park with some birdlife.

The waterhole at the Caravan Park

Wood Duck

Juvenile Purple Moorhen

Purple Moorhen

Black Duck

Plover