Pyengana

On Saturday we went off on one of my famous long-distance "half-day" drives in the country: out to the North-East, through Lilydale and Scottsdale, then further on where I've not been for many years, through Branxholm and Derby, winding through the Weldborough Pass to Pyengana – where we at last lunched, at the Holy Cow Café no less!  The lush dairying farmscape out the windows, beneath high hills wreathed in low cloud, helped explain the reason why this café was located at a well-known cheese factory.

Rather than drive back the same way (we'd come about 140 km on a very winding road that is pleased to call itself a highway), we pressed on to St Helens, down to Scamander, and then up through St Mary's Pass to St Mary's.  The Pass itself is only 6 km long, which is better than the windy slow sections of the Weldborough Pass.

Then we sped through the Fingal Valley toward the Midlands Highway (some idiot has rebranded it the "Heritage Highway", but that's nuts), which I followed only for a short while before taking the turnoff to Nile and Evandale – a road less-travelled, part of which is unsealed.

Our Saturday outing only took us about 7 hours.

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