What we did on Chinese New Year Eve and Chinese New Year Day
We've made a spontaneous trip to the mountains on Chinese New Year Eve since we didn't have any reunion dinner to attend.
Our plan is to do canoeing in one of the National Parks in Victoria. We set off to Bright, a town in the middle of the Alpine National Park and Buffalo National Park in the morning. It took us more than 4 hours to get there. Since it was a spontaneous trip, we didn't made any arrangement for accommodation. We were told by the staff at Bright's information centre that the hotels in surrounding areas have been fully booked except for a hotel at Myrtleford, which is the other direction from where we were heading. In the end we've decided to take the risk. I managed to call up a motel from an advertisement in a tourist brochure and booked a room.
Dinner Plain is located on Mt Hotham, which is part of the Alpine National Park.
On the way, we have to pass through the Mt Hotham summit. The area is full of ski resorts and chair lifts which were not in operation. There was hardly any sign of life around. I think this place is only popular in winter.
On top of Mt Hotham
We arrived at Dinner Plain around 5pm. The motel is located in a very nice and peaceful village. We were elated that our motel turned out to be very nice.
Rundells
The lobby
Dinner Plain village
We've decided to view the sunset on top of Mt Hotham based on the recommendation by a local shopkeeper. But before that we took dinner at a pizza joint there.
The sunset was really breathtaking. We could see 360 degrees of the whole mountain range, each layer with its own hue.
The next morning, we had a very nice breakfast at the motel. It is probably the best we've had. We could really taste the difference in the quality of the food served.
After the great breakfast we headed off to Mt Buffalo. We were excited to get to Lake Catini where we planned to do canoeing. However, when we arrived there, there was no one in charge even though the canoes were there, without the paddle. I tried calling the phone numbers on the sign board but in vain. We had to give up canoeing and continued our journey to Horn, the summit of Mt Buffalo. We parked our car and started to follow the 1.5km track to the top. The view was equally breathtaking.
It was a great trip indeed even though not the usual way of spending Chinese New Year Eve and Chinese New Year.
For more photos, please visit my Flickr.
