A quiet day in Bright
There are days travelling when you need or want a quiet day and this was one of those.
We started the day late as Pam had to go into Bright to get her hair cut, and as a result we didn't breakfast until after 10.00.
After that we decided we would go into town to buy some postcards and three of us went into town.
Suddenly this entailed a trawl of all the shops in Bright. Luckily for me there aren't that many. What there are is a number of small independent clothes shops which are the sort of establishments which seem to hold a dreadful fascination for Rosemarie. And lo and behold, she found a pair of cropped trousers she really really liked and we had to purchase them. We did look for a hat for me but were unsuccessful, Rosemarie has decided that my hat, which is like a trusted old friend is no longer up to the task and therefore, I must have a new one.
We went out for lunch to a pleasant restaurant overlooking the River Ovens and returned home for a quiet afternoon. Much of the evening was spent watching the Australian Open Tennis until I reached the point where I was so bored I went off to read a book.
One of the things I really miss is the news, the BBC do a fantastic job, and whilst I have found ABC radio which takes and transmits a lot of BBC stories it is not the same as sitting down with the Guardian and listening to Radio Four. This is probably just an old man's thing and if that's the worst thing you can miss travelling must be good. In these days of iPads and laptops it is easy to look up the BBC News or the online Guardian, but even twenty years ago this was not easy if even possible and I wonder how many ten pound migrants missed the news coverage when they arrived?
I have forgotten completely to write anything about he journey from Eden to Bright. We went through the southern wilderness coastline and came up the Great Alpine road, the highlight of which was suddenly and unexpectedly arriving on the summit of Mount Hotham. Whilst we both knew we had been climbing for a while it came as a great surprise that we were on the top of a high mountain looking down on several other peaks. This meant that the expedition's photographer had to have several photo stops to try and capture the majesty of the scenery. Unfortunately it was a rather hazy day and many of the photographs will not be that good. The journey up the mountain was surprising in that there were very few bends and certainly no hairpins, the descent made up for this and we enjoyed the drive tremendously.