The Road to Brindabella

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Day 101

Today we packed up the trailer ready to leave the campsite, the weather again was cold with a slight drizzle, not the weather we want nor like. Most sites you have to be off by 10.00 am which wasn’t a problem, but that meant dragging the trailer through the city centre. We had all day, to amuse ourselves, however we were heading back to Woodstock later to see Robert and Helen, because today Susan returns from Africa for 6 weeks, she has not been home for nearly 2 years.

Caroline and myself, love technological things, Science etc, so today we were off the CSIRO discovery centre. CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, is Australia's national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.

The Discovery centre is based within a research complex, it was a bit of a problem parking the truck and the trailer as no “double space car parks” were found, and as we didn’t want to miss this place Caroline went in to ask if we could park our rig in a bus space and the people at CSIRO said yes, so we did.

The CSIRO discovery centre was absolutely amazing, with some brilliant exhibits, what we thought was good was you could bring a group of children along for a couple of hours for a party or other occasion for a set fee, which would be better than taking then somewhere like the Golden Arches, as at least here they have a chance to learn and discover.

We probably spent 3 hours walking around the excellent exhibits a lot being directed around Australia’s farming, and health centre’s.

One exhibit was very interesting to us, “Bioclip” which was a way to remove a fleece from a “Sheep” without the aid of a sheerer, as recently we have had quite an induction with sheep farming by staying on the farm, “Woodstock” with Robert and Helen.


CSIRO - Revolutionary Wool Harvesting Takes Off
The development of Bioclip, a process which uses a naturally-occurring protein that causes sheep to shed their fleece, would benefit the nation's $3 billion wool industry, by improving wool Managing Director, Adrian Kloeden said, Bioclip is a tangible result of The Woolmark Company's research and development investment on behalf of Australian woolgrowers; an innovation that could revolutionise wool harvesting

Leaving the Discovery Centre, we both chatted about how much we enjoyed it and how brilliant it was, but instead of going to the war memorial we decided to head back towards Wagga Wagga, as we didn’t want to be to late getting there tonight for Susan’s welcome home, and we had decided not to drive the motorway route back but go over the mountains, on a non sealed road which would take longer, but would be a more interesting journey.

Caroline explained that the road became unsealed at some point after the Cotter Dam, although the map does not indicate that it is 4wd only so it should be a fairly good road, albeit still a dirt track. We agreed that if the road was too bad, or if our inexperience told us anything otherwise, then we would turn back.

Just like map said the road changed from bitumen to graded gravel instantaneously, and a sign said “not suitable for Caravans”. Having the Patrol and the trailer that has off road capability we knew that we were capable of most terrain, and it would be more of a test of thing to come.

On we drove and the scenery was breathtaking over what is known as the Australian Alps, towards Brindabella, and on route we came to a gravel junction one way towards Tumut and the other way towards Mt aggie, Mt Fanklin and Mt Ginini.

Taking the Tumut option, we were enjoying every minute of being off road, I said to Caroline it would be excellent to unroll the swag and stay a couple of nights here in the mountains. However you are not allowed to camp in some of these areas.

I had asked Caroline if she wanted to drive for a while and she said “yes” so we swapped and I was comfortable in the passenger seat nosing around. After about half hour, suddenly Caroline shouted, “Snake” and pulled up, on the left hand side a brown snake around 4 to 5 feet long was just laying there motionless, in fact so motionless I thought at first that it was dead. The Patrol was just to the side of this creature, and I could see it perfectly.

I managed to take a couple of photo’s with my camera and Caroline said she was going to get out, knowing of course that a safe distance had to be kept, I said as soon as your foot hits the floor the snake will be off, so you will have to either get on the roof or lean over my side. She took the leaning over option and we just looked at this beautiful creature for a few minutes.

As soon as we restarted the engine the snake was off, slithering straight up the rock face about 20 ft high. Elated in the fact that we had seen our first snake we drove on and arrived in Tumut. Overall the off road journey across the unsealed track was about 90 kilometres, and was great fun.

We do believe this to be an Eastern Brown snake, often referred to as the Brown Snake, remembering of course our early encounter in the Glass House Mountains was in fact a legless lizard, not sure how you tell the difference, but we are certain this is a Brown Snake which can be found all over Australia. The Eastern Brown Snake is the second most venomous land snake in the world after the Inland Taipan. Although Eastern Browns will seek to avoid confrontation, their venom is very toxic, and can be fatal.

The rest of the journey was quite uneventful, although magical with the scenery that we have driven through and we arrived back at Woodstock at 5.15 pm. Helen Robert, and Susan had just come back from Sydney airport only 15 minutes before we arrived, Caroline and Susan caught up and slipped back in to Skandia speak, as if they had not been away, catching up on all the gossip.

Helen, Robert, Susan, Jason, Sally, Caroline and myself had a great evening and meal to welcome Susan home, which was great fun. A few bottles of bubbly were consumed in celebration.

We mentioned to Robert about the technologies of Bioclip, and asked if he had heard of it, which he had, and explained that it was not a financially viable solution in wool harvesting. Shearing a sheep costs about 5 dollars and using the Bioclip method costs around 8 dollars per sheep.


The days events catching up with all of us, we all retired shattered.
C&A
xx

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Photos

The Heart of the Seat
This great sofa was in the CSIRO Discovery Centre. This area concentrated on matters of health.

3D
This is not a good picture however we were sat watching a 3 movie with those sexy glasses.

Bioclip
The Bioclip stand explains how it all works.

Learn
An area where kids can enjoy a party and pretend to be lab technicians and learn at the same time.

Exhibits
There was so much to see here in the Discovery centre, it was very colourful and very interactive. A really good mornig.

Snake Neck Turtle
Not a lot to say really, but this little fella has a long neck - he was quite nosey, kept watching us while he was swimming around.

Road to Brindabella
The tarmac runs out here, ahead of us mountain rainges beckon.

Sandwich Break
We break for a quick sarnie before hitting the dirt track.

Mountain Road
The terrain changes as we make our way through.

Entrance to Namadgi
and the Australian Alps

Views
Just to show you what we can see

Tree tops
If you look at the landscape you can see where the forest fires of 2003 ravaged this forest

Weather
The weather changes dramatically on this rod, one minute it was cold and raining, the next it was hot and sunny.

Eastern Brown Snake
Our first Snake encounter. This fella was very still, I am surprised that he did not move when the truck stopped next to him.

Express Snake
I start the truck and the snake is off.

Tracks
Just long dirt tracks

Stunning views
Just again to show you what we can see.

Working
The loggers were up in the trees working.