Wangaratta 2014, February 22 (110%)

The long drive to Wangaratta started at 10am on Saturday morning, and it wasn't too long before I was glad to find out the whole way would be 110km/h on the freeway. By contrast the trip to Echuca was almost always limited at a pedestrian 100km/h and down to 60km/h when passing through several towns. So the 110 speed limit was a bonus but the endless driving with no change in scenery and no towns to pass through eventually became a bit of a bore, particularly when the FM radio dropped out 75km out of Melbourne.

It took about two and a half hours to reach Benalla, I'd been driving non-stop so I decided to pull in for a break in the last big town before Wangaratta. Benalla seemed quite alright, they have lakes and gardens as you drive into the city centre, which like everywhere else is pretty much limited to just the one street. Walking down the main street there was a few bakeries but they didn't seem to have much supply left, and the Subway had a queue of about fifty people in it, so I decided instead to just push on another twenty minutes to Glenrowan and switched into the passenger seat as well.

Glenrowan was smaller and more dead than I expected, I figured since it is the famous Ned Kelly town there might be a few interested tourists around, but given that it's two and a half hours out of Melbourne, maybe not. The day was already starting to get much hotter than was forecast, so instead of spending too much time exploring we stopped in at the creatively named Ned's Burger House for some lunch.

Neddy.

After a tasty meal it was back on the road for just another fifteen minutes into Wangaratta. The town seemed quite similar to Echuca with the range of big car dealerships and hardware stores as you head into the town, before reaching the once again typical main street. I'd remembered to research directions to the motel this time (the Melways is not a Vicways sadly) so it was easy to find it just off the main street. During check-in I noticed a lot of admin staff for the Collingwood football club including none other than two-time Brownlow medal winner Robert Harvey walking through the motel car park. This means either:

1. The motel was so great even former AFL stars stay there
2. There isn't that much accomodation in Wangaratta

I was pretty exhausted after the long drive so took a quick rest while unpacking and flicking through the TV channels - they had about six Austar channels including all of the Fox Sports but sadly no ESPN :(

Wangaratta doesn't seem to have a lot of tourist activities, so I hadn't made any big plans for the afternoon, in part also due to wanting to conserve energy for the big race the next morning. We spent some time looking around town and discovered three things:

1. There are heaps of cafe bakeries
2. There are even more pizza restaurants
3. There are no magnets

Well maybe there were magnets, but half of the shops in town had already closed down for the day by 2pm on a Saturday. Before long the other end of town had arrived, which is marked by the Ovens River, also known as the poor mans Murray River. There is a nice shaded walkway that runs along the river and it seemed like it would be a relaxing place to spend an afternoon, I suppose.

The world famous Ovens River. I did not take many photos...

With that out of the way it was off to the footy for the afternoon. Coincidentally there was an AFL preseason match with Collingwood vs. Richmond the day before the race. We got there about an hour before kickoff which normally would be plenty of time to get a good seat, but the locals must have been aware of the lack of seating and turned up even earlier than that. There is a small ridge that surrounds the oval which is good for a few rows of people to sit on, but most of that was taken already, particlarly anywhere that had some shade.

I was still pretty exhausted so had a short rest in the shade before the game started. We managed to find a decent spot to watch from, but:

1. It was directly in the sun
2. I didn't bring a hat
3. There was a whole lot of sun glare

So these things combined made it a little hard to watch the game, but luckily we had sunscreen at least. Surprisingly most of the senior players were in the game too, such as Pendlebury & Swan for Collingwood and Cotchin & Deledio for Richmond. The key forwards Cloke and Riewoldt seemed to be too important to risk though. The game was alright, but because of the difficulties imposed by the sun we left before the end. My highlight was when Tyrone Vickery got punched in the face right in front of us while going for a mark and didn't even get a free kick.

For dinner I think there was a choice of:

1. Pizza
2. More pizza
3. Kebabs
4. Fish & Chips
5. Even more pizza

We went with pizza which is a pretty good choice for energy before a big race - at least it hasn't let me down so far. I was keen to watch the hour recap of Roy & HG's Russian Revolution but it was pretty poor. The Melbourne Victory vs Adelaide FC game was on at the same time on one of the Fox Sports channels, it ended with a dramatic 4:3 scoreline but I managed to miss all but the last goal while switching between channels.