MELBOURNE TO WANGARATTA

Welcome to our Christmas holiday to Wangaratta. With chauffeured pickup from home, we are transferred to meet our O’Shannessy’s Quality Tours coach and crew. We’ll make a stop for morning tea enroute to Euroa nestled at the foot of the Strathbogie Ranges where the friendly folk at the Euroa Hotel will be waiting to host us for lunch. The hotel dates back to 1884 and Euroa has a colourful history with links to the infamous Ned Kelly. A little further north we’ll reach the “gourmet food and wine region of North East Victoria” and it’s here we visit the Milawa Cheese Company, located in the historic Murray Goulburn Butter Factory. We have a tasting here before making our way to Wangaratta, home for the next four nights.

OVERNIGHT: Quality Hotel Wangaratta Gateway, WANGARATTA

EXPLORING BEECHWORTH

Today’s touring takes us to Beechworth. On arrival we will be joined on the coach by a local expert who will show us around the town, one of Victoria’s best preserved gold rush towns. The discovery of gold in the 1850’s brought with it a flurry of activity and growth. The magnificent buildings, 32 of which are listed by the National Trust and the beautiful gardens are a legacy of the gold rush days. We now have some free time to wander around the Beechworth Historic and Cultural Precinct which encompasses The Telegraph Station, Town Hall and Powder Magazine which are all part of the collection of nationally significant buildings. After time to purchase our lunch, perhaps from the famous Beechworth Bakery, we meet back at the historic Beechworth Courthouse. Here we enjoy 'The Ned Kelly Trials'. This is a new immersive 270-degree, wrap around multimedia experience, telling the stories of crime and punishment, governance and law, and bushranger Ned Kelly. The Beechworth Courthouse played a significant role during the Kelly outbreak of 1878-1880, as the location of more than 40 trials and hearings for the Kelly Gang and its sympathisers.

Lunch at own expense and arrangement

OVERNIGHT:  Quality Hotel Wangaratta Gateway, WANGARATTA

CHRISTMAS DAY

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! This morning we head down Benalla, a town which is becoming known for its “Urban Street Art”. We’ll take a drive through the town spotting some of the murals. Both local and international artists have had a hand to adorn once featureless walls. Benalla is also where soldier surgeon and war hero Edward “Weary” Dunlop was born. He was a POW under Japanese command in Singapore and worked on the infamous Burma-Thailand railway. He became a legend with the Australian prisoners for his modesty and his remarkable efforts in scrounging food for the sick, building makeshift hospitals and operating with hand-made instruments. Today we visit the Rose Gardens where we can view his statue. We now head back to Wangaratta to ready ourselves for our Christmas Lunch with all the trimmings! Later this afternoon, we can relax by the pool and tonight, a light supper will be offered for those who are feeling peckish. 

OVERNIGHT: Quality Hotel Wangaratta Gateway, WANGARATTA

GOULBURN VALLEY LARGE ARTS

We’re going to see some amazing examples of large artworks in our travels today. Firstly, we start our journey in Shepparton, where we go hunting for Moooving Art—an ever-changing public art exhibition of life-sized 3D cows. These colourful, personality-filled bovines are scattered throughout Shepparton and surrounding towns in public gardens, playgrounds and businesses. With over 90 in the herd, we’re bound to spot more than a couple today. Next, we head to Kyabram to view The Kyabram Water Tank, painted by Jimmy DVate and completed in March 2021. This stunning mural highlights the wetlands at the Kyabram Fauna Park, a crucial tourism and environmental feature of the area. The artwork features an Eastern long-necked turtle, a Golden Whistler, and a Red-capped Robin, along with a variety of birds, animals, and insects, including a Yellow Crimson Rosella, a Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo, a Plains-wanderer, a Spotted-tail Quoll, a Blue Skimmer Dragonfly, a Brolga, and a Bush Stone-curlew. Moving on, a pleasant surprise awaits us at the GrainCorp silos in Rochester, where we take in the vibrant artwork featuring a brightly painted Squirrel Glider, an Azure Kingfisher and the Duck-Billed Platypus.  Afterward, we have time to explore Rochester’s amazing wall art. Each year, the town hosts the Rochester Mural Fest, where artists compete and display their murals, which remain in place for 12 months and are dotted around the town. We enjoy our picnic lunch in Rochester before continuing our journey. Finally, we arrive in Colbinabbin, where we take in the impressive artwork across six silos.  Artist Tim Bowtell’s work showcases five different scenes from varying times in the town’s history, spanning from the early 1900s to the 1980s. This is a stunning conclusion to our day of large-scale art!  We now head back to Wangaratta.

OVERNIGHT:  Quality Hotel Wangaratta Gateway, WANGARATTA

WANGARATTA TO MELBOURNE

Unfortunately, our holiday is coming to an end. We say farewell to our hosts this morning and travel via Moyhu to Whitfield, a very pretty and very small town situated in a dairying and tobacco growing district in the highly scenic King River Valley where lush river flats are surrounded by some magnificent high country. Just to the south-west of Whitfield is Powers Lookout. This vantage point on the Wabonga Plateau was used by bushranger Harry Powers in the 1860s to keep an eye out for potential prey and predators. It offers fabulous views across some truly scenic high country. From here we continue onto Mansfield which also has a colourful history of squatters, selectors, bushrangers, gold miners, packers, coachbuilders etc. It is famous for its magnificent scenery, farms, cattle, horses and hospitality. We have time to take a wander along the main street before lunch at the Hotel Delatite. After lunch, we head to home, travelling through Bonnie Doon on the edge of Lake Eildon. We continue via Yea to join the Melba Highway through the outskirts of Melbourne. As always, our chauffeurs will be on hand to take us straight to our door – all part of the O’Shannessy’s Quality Tours superior service.