Day 1/4: Around The Hume

The Hume highway, linking Melbourne and Sydney, is one of the most boring roads on the planet. But there are some interesting things around it and I'm going to explore them on this trip.

I've been to three military bases before: one in Bangkok to do some target shooting and one each side of the Korean demilitarized zone. As I turned off the Hume at Seymour I was about to visit my forth. Puckapunyal is a huge military base containing an army museum which is known for its collection of tanks. If it was in Melbourne it would get a good number of civilian visitors. Unfortunately it doesn't because, well, its in the middle of a huge military base.

Getting in the base was no problem; after being given a visitor pass at the security check I was free to ride the bike inside the base to the museum, which even had a 'motorcycles only' parking area. The collection of tanks was impressive in size, much larger than even the army museum in London. It could do with more investment though for restoration of both the tanks and the faded signage. They also had a memorial for soldiers who had died in training. Fresh flowers were placed for the latest casualty, Private David Smith who died at Puckapunyal this time last year.

In the afternoon I tackled three rides listed in my motorcycling atlas. The first was the old Hume Highway which runs parallel to the railway line between Seymour and Longwood. Many years ago it used to accommodate all the traffic, but now it is essentially empty, and apart from Avenel there seems little life left in the towns along the route: an interesting trip to the past. The second ride was from Euroa to Merton, and from there I went on to do the well-known Mansfield to Whitfield run. Mansfield was busy today as it is the gateway to the snowfields at Mt Buller. Mansfield to Whitfield is twisty and generally downhill (with lots of debris today), which is a combination I definitely need more practice at since I typically use engine braking on the flat. From Whitfield I ploughed on up the faster section of the C521, back to the Hume at Wangaratta.

Riding Distance: 345 kms