Friday...27 March 2015

Yesterday we drove back down the road to Kempsey and Crescent Head.
Kempsey is the area where Slim Dusty grew up and they are building a new Slim centre there but just our luck it is not open yet so our visit to Kempsey was a bit of a dud. Was rather surprised that the local Information Centre is not making a whole lot of fuss about him.

From there we drove to Crescent Head. Nice place, very popular with the whizz bang set! They were everywhere. Lots of surf boards visible. Lots of rabbits visible in broad daylight too! Himself climbed up to the actual 'Head' but I did not have enough puff for the climb so I sat and watched the ocean until he got back. 

Then we went to the little shop and got a magnum each and guess what? Both of our magnum sticks said we had won a free magnum. Two at once, how lucky is that! I have the sticks in my bag for another day, I do not think I could have eaten two one after the other.

Thursday...26 March 2015

The park at Taree was beautiful, right beside the Dawson river, but it was also right beside the old Sydney to Brisbane highway and I thought, no worries, there is a beaut new dual lane motorway a couple of kilometres away so the majority of the traffic bypasses this country town. Wrong! Taree is a third of the way to Brisbane from Sydney. The old highway which also doubles as the main street is one long strip of motels. I was rather surprised to see so many of them still operating given that the town has been bypassed. Looks like Taree is the first night stop on the Sydney to Brisbane trip for most people. Anyway the point I am making here is that lots of traffic whizzed past the park and we were the van closest to the road in that park! Bit like having a built in alarm clock.
We have now moved on and are in a park that is half way between Macksville and Nambucca Heads. Once again a lovely big park with an enormous flat grass area just right for the big rigs. And right beside the motorway! I went to sleep last night (eventually) to the hum of trucks passing us in the night. And this morning we got new neighbours in a whizz bang (kombi van) with a very noisy engine and loudly spoken occupants! We sure are lucky campers!!!!

Tuesday...24 March 2015

We went to Port Macquarie today. We made a day trip of it from Taree.
What a pretty place. Large enough to have all the facilities and laid back enough to be a perfect beach side tourist town. No wonder everyone loves it.

We drove around the town and around the outskirts along Ocean Drive and found the Tacking Point Lighthouse. We met a very helpful fellow who let us park in a work site driveway as we were too big to fit in the tiny official car park. Over 20 shipwrecks occurred in the Tacking Point area before a lighthouse was erected in 1879. It is now listed with the National Trust.

Then we went back into town and had lunch at the main shopping area, did a spot of shopping. We found this koala near our parking spot. Great day out.

Sunday...22 March 2015

We had the most marvellous afternoon. We had a cuppa and visit with the most amazingly active and interesting 92 year old who has just been given the Order of Australia Medal for his services to the community. This gentleman is Himself's uncle and I found it fascinating to sit and look from him to Himself and back again. The family resemblance is quite striking. Both him and his wife are such lovely folk. So pleased we stopped to say hello.
This morning we travelled from Raymond Terrace to Taree. Short drive but a wet one. Taree had 6 inches of rain last night. I hope the Dawson River which is right next to in the caravan park does not rise too far! On the way back to camp we toured Taree township and liked what we saw. Tomorrow we will go to the Information Centre and have a better look around this area.

Saturday...21 March 2015

Went to Sydney today.
Did another of our rocking chair rides.
Came up from Nowra to Shoalhaven then turned and went across to Picton where we joined the Hume Hwy, M31 and followed it in until we hit the M7  and it took us into Pennant Hills and after a short introduction to the real Sydney traffic of about 7 km we turned off onto the M1 and bingo we were out the other side and heading for Newcastle. How easy was that?
Now the reality was just a little bit different, but I kinda like my version. In it I am a calm contented serene passenger who was not hurling abuse at cars around me and squealing like a banshee from go to whoa! Himself has the patience of a saint, either that or he was too busy with the traffic to take his hands off the wheel to throttle me as I am sure he would think of doing when I am being Nervous Nellie!
It took us nearly six hours all up but at least that is one of the hard bits done and dusted. We never intended to stop in Sydney, we were only going through it because we are trying to travel as close to the coast as we can manage with this rig of ours.
We have stopped for the night in a little place called Raymond Terrace, what a funny name for a town, sounds more like a street to me. Choice of two caravan parks, guess who picked the worst of the two? Just for once the book we use to make our choices had it wrong. Oh well it is for one night only then we are off again.

Friday...20 March 2015

A couple of nights ago, a camper here woke up in the middle of the night to find his caravan rocking even though there was no wind. The rocking continued while he moved around, turned on lights and called out with no reply, so he took his torch and walked around the outside of  his caravan. Still nothing to see but the caravan continued to rock, so he got down on his hands and knees and shone his torch under his caravan and there was the culprit, a wombat was using the under carriage of his caravan to scratch its back. Clever thing to find such a good scratching post!
Last night I was sitting here at my computer playing games as I often do before bed when there was an almighty bang and my caravan shook. Himself felt it too so he got out of bed and taking the torch went outside to see what had caused all the noise. Nothing visible but he could clearly see track marks in the long grass beside the caravan. We are assuming that the same wombat came past us and crashed into the back bumper or the back steps. We really should get this van wired so that we can monitor outside night time activity around us, it could be very interesting or very scary!

Wednesday...18 March 2015

Out came the sun and dried up all the rain and insy winsy scardy cat came out to camp again!
The weather forecast said fine and sunny but when I got up this morning the sky was dark and foreboding and then the lightning and thunder started and down came the rain, buckets of it. After several loud and very near claps of thunder and lots of bright serious lightning, I was yelling barley charlie and hurling abuse at the supplier of all this noise and terror.
We are parked up at the Nowra Show grounds overlooking the Shoalhaven River, great view.
As we ate our lunch the sun suddenly jumped out from under what was left of the storm and now we have gone to the opposite extreme whereby we have heat and lots of steam! But hey, at least we are dry again and I can hear myself think.
The naval air station HMAS Albatross is a few km south of town. This helicopter is on display at the local Information Centre.

Monday...16 March 2015

Left Dalmeny today and travelled to Nowra.
We had thought of stopping in Bateman's Bay but the lovely people there told us that it was $44 a night but as we were so big we would be charged for two sites but they could be generous and give us a discount and only charge us $65 a night. Um....No Thank You!! Their rather large park was three quarters empty, I wonder why?
As we were leaving Dalmeny a pod of dolphins were surfing the waves down on the beach in front of the camp ground. They drew quite a crowd. Himself went down and took the camera but even though they were clearly visible they were out of the range of my little camera so I cannot show you the big event.
This coastal road is rather steep in places and constantly winding and it occurred to me that we have not seen any bike riding tourists lately. I think maybe this road is just a bit too hard for them.

Sunday...15 March 2015

Yesterday we had a very long and extremely enjoyable lunch at Anton's in Kianga.
It was recommended to me by a family member for a good cup of coffee with a fantastic view over the ocean..
We did lunch there with other holidaying family members and had a fantastic time.
The service was perfect and the food was exactly what we wanted, all served in a timely manner with a smile. What's not to like about that? Well done Anton's.

Over the road is the ocean. Very pretty. We walked along the beach to make ourselves feel better about our  indulgent lunch!

Friday...13 March 2015

Following a recommendation from a family member, we took a trip to Tilba today. 

We started with Tilba Tilba and then went to Tilba Central which has a cheese factory and lots of shops with great stuff in them. I remember the woodwork shop, loved their coat racks made of railway nails and each with a shiny old penny embedded in the wood. Wish I had somewhere to put one of those!

We found the old lolly shop and Himself got a few (lots) of them. Then it was on to the cheese factory. Ended up buying three different lots of cheese to make our happy hour trays look interesting.We wandered into the leather shop and checked out the pub and one of the cafes. It was a shame that the bakery was closed today.

When we left Tilba we decided to go to Bermagui just a little further south and only 14 km in off the main highway. We had a great fish and chip lunch and drove around the town. A very  pretty little place with lots of boats.

On the way back to Narooma we detoured to Mystery Bay. This one is only 2 km off the highway. It is a very small town.  Once again we found lovely ocean views although this area was quite rocky.

Wednesday...11 March 2015

We left Bega on Monday and came up the road to Dalmeny Campground. It is a very pretty little spot beside the sea a couple of km past Narooma. The rates are dirt cheap so we booked for a week straight up and Himself is already considering another week. Great views.

An added bonus is my foster mothers younger brother is holidaying here too! We have had a couple of chat fests already! We all have plans to go for coffee at a particular spot recommended by a family member who used to live here.
Today Himself and I went for a drive further up the road to Batemans Bay. Another lovely seaside town but way too expensive for us. On the way back we stopped at a little village called Mogo and wandered around the many village shoppes. We had an ice cream and came back to camp.
While we were having ourselves a well deserved happy hour we had two sets of visitors. The first was seven Rainbow Lorikeets who dropped in and demanded sustenance. Himself was happy to oblige with some apple......

The second visitors were the relatives and we all spent another hour or two exchanging stories and information. Loving these chats.
The only negative I have found so far is the hit and miss internet, very frustrating.

Saturday...7 March 2015

Couple of days ago Himself and his cousin did a road trip which took in Mt Kosciuszko and the Snowy Hydro Scheme.
I was invited but knowing that it was yet another winding mountain road I decided to stay in camp and read a book. Most less stress all round. I loved my down time and the boys enjoyed not having the women squealing and telling them how to drive on the mountain roads!

They left Bega and went up and over Brown Mountain to Cooma then on to Jindabyne which is where the Snowy River starts. Damming of the Snowy River at Jindabyne was the most controversial part of the Snowy Scheme.

Next stop was Thredbo. They were going to take the chairlift up but it was minus 1 at the top of the chairlift and there was still a 9 km return walk to get to the summit. A worker at the visitor centre said the wind at the top was officially gale force with a severe chill factor so they settled for  looking at it from the various lookouts.

On the way to Khancoban they stopped off to look at the Murray 1 Power Station. This power station is fed water through massive pipes which poke out of the side of the mountain. The pipes are connected to tunnels which bring the water from Lake Eucumbene.

After that it was on to Khancoban. Khancoban Dam is fed water from Murray power station 2 which gets it's water  via tunnels and  pipes from Murray power station 1. The head water of the Murray river is at Khancoban.

Next stop was Cabramurra which at 1488 metres above sea level is officially the highest town in Australia. During the construction of the Snowy Mountains Scheme it was a town but is now strictly accommodation for the  Snowy Hydro workers,Main Roads and Kosciuszko National Park  people.

Leaving Cabramurra they went over Mount Selwyn to Kiandra and then onto Adaminaby. This town was completely uplifted and relocated from its original site because Lake Eucumbene would have flooded it once construction was completed and it filled with water. It is now trout fishing territory!

Talking of water they visited almost every dam and lake in the Snowy Hydro Scheme. They also saw some of the high country cattlemen's huts which are still in use but mainly for hikers.

They saw a very large cross section of Australia's native wildlife including snakes, wombats, kangaroos, wallabies, echindnas and just to round out the day they also saw two foxes and a lot of rabbits.
Then it was back down to Cooma and back over Brown Mountain in the dark and on to Bega. They left at 7.30 am and got back just on 8.00 pm. Long day but two very happy lads having a beer at the end.

Thursday...5 March 2015

We did a trip back down the road to Eden on Monday. Lovely little place on the coast. Famous for its whale visits. They have a killer whale museum.

Apparently the killer whales had a working relationship with the whalers and would herd the big baleen whales into the bay for the whalers to kill and then after processing they got the left overs. Sounds odd but it is a recorded fact. The pack leader was called Old Tom and when he was found dead in the bay back in 1930 his bones were kept and he is now on display in this museum.

After a fish and chip lunch at the Eden wharf we came back to base through Pambula, Merimbula and Tathra which are all places on the coast with varying degrees of popularity. This is Merimbula.

Yesterday we did a day trip to Canberra to have lunch and a visit with an old friend. Lovely to see him again. The trip there and back was a bit hairy for my liking. Most of the two and a half hour drive each way is quite pleasant country but there is something called Brown Mountain to cross and it is 15 km of scary bending and winding road and to cap things off the home trip involved coming over the top of that mountain in very very thick fog. Visibility was zero but stopping was impossible and extremely dangerous as other vehicles would have run into the back of us. Those who know me will believe when I say I alternatively screamed and blessed every saint I could think of and a few more I made up and included my extensive knowledge of the entire swear word dictionary from the time we hit that fog until we arrived safe and sound at he bottom of that terrible descent!

Monday...2 March 2015

Just out of Bega up in the hills is a lovely little village called Candelo.

On the first Sunday of each new month they have their markets. So off we went. When asked later in the day if we got anything at the markets I was able to say we got wet and we got peaches! Such a shame, they are quite big markets but it rained and rained. The only stall holders who did not mind were those selling pot plants. Everyone else was working hard to protect their stock from the constant showers. Umbrellas and gumboots were the dress standard of the day.
When we came back into town we went to the Bega Cheese Factory and the Information Centre next door.

You can't do actual tours of the factory any more but they do still have free tasting of all their cheeses. Yummy. Upstairs is a small dairy museum with all sorts of old equipment and information on the early days of the dairy industry in this area. We found a model of a limousin cow, they call this one the stretch limo......

After all that touring we returned to camp for a rest then went off to visit Himself's cousin again and were treated to a BBQ dinner. Lovely to share a wonderful meal with very nice people.