The Great Alpine Road

After the heat in the plain desert, we decided to head higher to the Alpine parts of Victoria. The summer high-season ended on Sunday when schools started here, and all the touristic villages here were more or less closed. That was perfect for us, the national parks were empty and there was tables available even in the best restaurants (anyone visiting this area, try the Simone’s restaurant in Bright, really good food and excellent service!). Bright is a bit bigger town with some year-round inhabitants as well, so we found a place to sleep there and drove around the area from there. The weather is getting bit cooler (only +38) so we managed to do bit of outdoor sports, went on a trail ride at sunrise and then walked the mountains in the evening.

The riding stable was specialized in “Australian horsemanship and bush rides” so there were people there on 5 day course on what to pack, how to work with horses and “survive” in the nature. We joined them for a ride (we didn’t need to pack anything) and that was definitely one the best trail rides we’ve been to. The horses were really responsive, we were encouraged to leave the group every now and then, take different paths, turn to open fields, use different gaits, to test that the horses were listening to us and not only following the other horses. We also saw a herd of kangaroos jumping around us . When the sun was up and it was getting hotter, we thanked for the experience and left the group to think what to pack to the bushes and headed to the swimming pool…