Tathra, Bega & Bermagui

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That rain is back! With a vengeance! I thought I knew what torrential rain was, but my eyes have now been opened. We stopped for the night at a motorhome park in Tathra and woke up to find a lake outside our van. The lovely and hilarious (30 or so!) German exchange students that were camping next to us had made makeshift rain ponchos out of bin liners. They must have thought this weather was normal for Australia! We were also joined by a further 50 school kids from Canberra whose previous camping site had flooded.The wetness factor aside, it was amazing to watch the wild ocean and appreciate the beauty of the elements.

With Tathra being only little, we headed onwards to Bermagui. En route, our road was closed off due to flooding. We gave it a go anyway but had to stop when we came to a 750ml flooded dip in the road. We saw the driver of a jacked-up four-wheel drive attempt to come through it and his engine flooded in the middle (it was petrol, what was he thinking!). Thankfully he managed to restart it and get out. We weren’t going to try that so made ourselves a cup of tea instead. When it became apparent that the water wasn’t going to subside any time soon, we took the alternative route – across the 4x4 mountain’s 14km gravel/sand road. This was interesting too: the van got stuck in a ridge formed by the streams of water but Dean managed to get us out of it. The rest of the day continued to be torrential. We went for a wander around Bega (famous for its cheese apparently…) and went for a power walk (in between the downpours) in Bermagui before having a rather soggy BBQ dinner (this is where I saw the first enormous spider on this trip – I really hope it’s the last too…). I wouldn’t have thought that there would be any water left in the clouds! The forecast for tomorrow isn’t much different but the weekend might be fine – we certainly hope so as that is when we will reach Skydive Moruya!

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