Kelly country

Ned Kelly, that is. So after a lovely (albeit hot) winetasting in the Yarra valley, we came up through northern Victoria, through the alps and into a pretty special part of our country and our history. As a kid growing up in Australia, we are all taught about the history of the notorious Kelly gang: a band of wild Irish bushrangers who roamed this part of the Victorian countryside, giving the rich British squatters and cops a very hard time. The Irish were very much an underclass in the early colonial days, many of whom, like my ancestors, were essentially rounded up and shipped off to Australia to be used as slave labour. Upon pardon (if they were that lucky), they had to work hard to eek out a living for their families and were often harassed by the police. OK, maybe some of them actually deserved it, since they were Irish after all. Anyway, Ned Kelly, and his brothers got a bit tired of all this, and decided to take matters into their own hands. They were sort of like "Robbin Hood", in that they stole from the rich, and well, at least some of it went to the poor. The Kelly gang were finally captured after a bloody shootout at Glenrowan, and Ned was hanged in Melbourne gaol in 1880. His final words reportedly were, "Such is Life". We had the pleasure of stopping through Glenrowan which is about as kitsch touristy as it gets (see photo). Although, staying overnight the previous night in the bush in Strathbogie gave us a lot better feel for what the Kelly gang experienced as it was touted to be one of their bush hide-outs.