Goulburn Weir, not via Yea...

Remember last month when I went to Goulburn Weir and took half a day to get there? Well, this week I had another crack at it by researching the directions thoroughly, making a special note to turn onto the M39 instead of staying on the M31, and ensuring I didn’t go via Yea. Look, I know what you’re thinking: “but if you’d stayed on the M31, you would’ve headed towards Sydney and Yea is south of Seymour even, so how in god’s name did you end up in Yea if you were headed north?!?!” 

How's the serenity? (Nowhere near Bonnie Doon)

Ahhh, it’s a special skill dear reader, and one which I’m proud to say requires merely the ability to decide left or right on a complete whim. On this particular day, I had decided on too many lefts and ended up heading east before realising the sun wasn’t where it should've been. So I pulled over to have a think, eat a sandwich (it was waaaay past lunchtime), consult Google maps and realised I was 15kms away from Bonnie Doon and driving into Lake Eildon.

Now, having seen where I made my left versus right error, I could’ve just retraced my steps and gone back the way I came, couldn’t I? No, dear reader. No, I could not. Why? Well, I’ve already seen those roads, haven’t I? And there’s not much point in looking at them again, when I can drive in a big circle and see some roads I’ve never visited before, right? So it was that I took off towards Yea, then onto Seymour and eventually up to Goulburn Weir….just in time for all the clouds to pile up and the sun to disappear.

​So this time, I turned on to the M39 and headed straight to Nagambie.

A bit of Lake Nagambie

I stopped for sustenance at Buckley Park, overlooking Lake Nagambie and noticed two things:

1. Nagambie has a very colourful public toilet block;
2. there are very straight lines of buoys on the lake which pleases me greatly. I like straight lines.

Suitably fed and watered, I ventured on towards Kirwans Bridge, a tiny village just outside of Nagambie best known for having Victoria's oldest timber bridge. But before I got there, I spied another bridge just outside of Nagambie. Chinamans Bridge crosses the Goulburn River, and used to be a drawbridge that opened up to allow steamers to pass through. 

Onward to Kirwans...

The imaginatively titled main road

Kirwans took all of about 90 seconds to drive through and  then it was off to the Weir. First stop: canola fields.

Who doesn't love a good canola field, eh? Especially one with gum trees included.

Fun fact (stolen from Nagambie Lakes Tourism website):
"The Goulburn Weir, completed in 1891, was the first major diversion structure built in Australia and remains a remarkable feat of engineering that uses the Goulburn River to irrigate half a million hectares of farmland.”

​https://www.nagambielakestourism.com.au/attractions/128-history

Total kilometres travelled: 269kms.