Many stops to Canberra

At the start of the year, Kendall and I took a drive to Canberra to visit a friend. We had planned to take it easy, so we made many stops on the way. We enjoyed lovely weather and saw some amazing scenery.

First stop – Lake Mokoan;  actually, first stop – South Melbourne to get take away coffee for the drive!! Next stop – Lake Mokoan, the sign said it is now decommissioned. Some googling shows that Lake Mokoan is an artificial lake, and was inefficient as a water storage facility as it lost extensive amounts of water through evaporation because it was large but shallow. Decommissioning of the dam infrastructure would see the water, that would have otherwise been lost, be returned to the up and downstream area. Eventually the Lake will be empty.

Lake Mokoan

Sunset

We checked into a motel at Rutherglen, and decided to go for a drive to try some sunset photos. Alas, we didn’t find anywhere that appealed. After driving around, we just stopped by the side of the road, (I think at Corowa) and took some shots as the sun set.

First stop the following day was Yeddonba, a very interesting Aboriginal Heritage site.After a few minutes of easy climbing, we reached a rock painting that is believed to be of the Tasmanian tiger which became extinct 2000 years old, hence the painting is thought to be at least that old.

The easy climb

Aboriginal rock painting

View from where the rock painting was

At the top

Next stop, Mount Pilot. A very easy walk to the summit, as you can almost drive to it.

Clowning around

Addressing my loyal subjects!! All hail Queen Pei Pei.

On top of the WORLD

Next, we stopped at Woolshed Falls. The sun was blazing, but as you would expect, the water was very cool.

Cottony water

Woolshed Falls, from a viewing platform

Next stop, a cemetery!!!!!!! Not just any cemetery, a chinese cemetery. It was in a town called Beechworth, a gold rush town, back in the 1850’s. There were many chinese immigrants back in the days and those who died needed to be buried traditionally. Seen in the picture below are the headstones and the burning towers. The towers were used for burning of ceremonial offerings and not actually for cremating the bodies (in case you might be thinking that).

Chinese Burning Towers

Self portrait, with the sun very low in the sky

One final stop before making it to Canberra: Gundagai. It was a stop at the park to make some sandwiches and fill our tummies for the final leg of our journey to Canberra.