Noojee, Victoria November 2015
So we decided one glorious Sunday to head out to Noojee in Gippsland, a town named after the Aboriginal word for contentment or place to rest. Neither of us had been to Noojee (or if we have we can’t remember it), there are several historical sites which were photo worthy, as well as waterfalls (we’d just had a lot of rain a few days before), Latrobe River, trout farm, and a trestle bridge.
So we packed up a picnic lunch, grabbed our camera gear and headed out. Approx 2 hours from Melbourne (about 1 hour from our place), we arrived in the heart of Noojee after a pleasant and relaxing drive. Our first stop was the Old Noojee Trestle Bridge, there is only about 300m of the old trestle bridge which ran through the entire area, it was bought by the shire council in 1960 and has been partially restored. It really is a feat of early Australian engineering and in the tranquil native bushland settings a great photo opportunity!
Next stop was Tooronga Falls, about 10 minutes out of town. We decided to stop for lunch first, and found a pleasant spot to sit with rustic picnic tables and chairs. Eventually, we packed up and headed out to the falls, approx 2km round trip. In Hindsight we should have gotten there earlier for some long exposure shots, before it was so well lit with sunshine. Unfortunately my knee was aching so badly I couldn’t climb all the way to the top, disappointing, but sometimes that’s a fact of life. Still the bottom falls were quite pretty, we need to come back early in the morning!
Next Stop was the Noojee Historical Centre, complete with vintage train, this is a fairly new addition to the township, but it has quite a good display.
Getting back closer to town we went down the water wheel walk (water wheel is non functioning), along the banks of the Latrobe River, to the strands of live music from the Toolshed Bar (Local Pub), of course we stopped in for a nice cold beer, a chat to some locals and wonderful live music. The outside veranda has wonderful views overlooking the flats and river, they even have their own friendly kookaburras; who were a no show for us :-( The pub itself is quite interesting and full of quirky items (no Kermit is not up the wrong way, he was hanging from the roof).
We then decided to venture up to Mt Baw Baw ski fields, we assumed (wrongly) the view from up there would be wonderful. 40km of treacherous, windy, barely single lane roads up this mountain (it must be truly terrifying in winter when there is black ice and snow!), we finally made it to the top…….no snow but definitely colder. During the warmer months Mount Baw Baw is a mecca for on and off road bicyclists and hikers apparently, they were EVERYWHERE, but what we did not see was a view. Everywhere we looked was trees, and more trees………feeling somewhat annoyed we slowly made our way back down the mountain and stopped about halfway to get good views over some of the area.