Swifts Creek: Where For Art Thou Omeo?

We left pretty Bright and drove south into the Australian Alps, along the Great Alpine Road. We passed through a couple of small villages at the base of the mountains, Harrietville and Smoko (though no time to stop for one). As we wound our way up the steep road onto the mountain range, the scenery was spectacular, despite (and because of) dead trees from a recent bushfire. Dannys Lookout just before Mt Hotham ski fields was particularly stunning. Hotham was like a ghost town, so we continued a short distance to Dinner Plain, a newer ski resort which was a lot more appealing. We had lunch then hiked along a new track called ‘Room with a view”. On the other side of the mountains, just before Omeo, we stopped for a break at the Oriental Claims, an old gold mine site. We decided against the scenic walk – we had done enough walking the last couple of days. We drove slowly through the town of Omeo to admire the old buildings, but didn’t stop. We continued a little further to the small town of Swifts Creek, and camped at the cheap campsite by the creek, only $8 for the night. It began again to drizzle with rain - is this really summer?