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Published: October 12th 2010
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Snowy River lunch stop
On the banks of the Snowy River at Dalgety Continuing on from the last edition - late August.
21st August was the day of the Federal Election. We both worked as polling booth attendants at Eden Marine High School. This was a very interesting job, though tiring at the end of a long day. We’ll line up for the next election…whenever that is.
Mel, Gareth and Maya returned home from Europe towards the end of August. We stayed on for another 10 days and therefore were still down the south coast when it was buffeted by gale-force winds and many roads were blocked by fallen trees. We were quite sheltered and were able to enjoy cooking a camp-oven roast in the back yard.
After enjoying Fathers day with family, we departed the following day. It was hard to leave but we had been there for 7½ weeks! We drove over road works and some other dirt roads through rain. Why does Peter wash the car and van before we head for our next destination? They were both filthy. We stopped off to visit friends in Jindabyne. Lee and Troy, and Chris and Craig are friends from the Central Coast who are now living, working and enjoying life
in the Snowy Mountains. After visiting Lee, Troy and their girls, we stayed for one night with Chris and Craig, and THEIR “girls” (2 border collies - very spoilt!). Oh, and the cat, too. The next day, Christine drove us up to the snow-fields, about 30 minutes’ drive away. It was a gloriously sunny day with plenty of soft powdery snow around. This is a place we want to come back to for some more fun in the soft white stuff. After throwing the obligatory snow-balls at each other we headed back to town to be shown the new Parker Estate. Chris and Craig have purchased 5 acres of land just out of town.
Just before lunch-time we left Jindabyne, heading for Wagga Wagga (only 3 hours drive???). We stopped at Berridale for lunch and shopping - yeah! We actually were able to spend some Bartercard dollars!!!!! Forging on, we travelled the Snowy Mountains Highway over the Snowy Mountains through rain, snow and very cold conditions. The road was very steep and windy so our 3 hours really got lost somewhere. The road conditions obviously made Peter’s job (driving) much more strenuous than usual. Passing through snow-covered hills and
trees, water coursing over paddocks, following the lowest points in the fields, made for an awesome and spectacular sunny afternoon driving. Why were Wendy’s knuckles so white? It must have been really cold in the van.
The day was slipping away and Peter was getting tired, so when we stopped for coffee at Hume’s Crossing Camp Area in Kosciusko National Park, on the banks of Blowering Dam, we chose to stay for the night. We used our generator to run the air-conditioner, but the weather was surprisingly mild. The next morning we drove on through Tumut, stopping at the visitor information centre to purchase some famous Batlow apples. The landscape is soooo green. We haven’t seen this much green grass since we were kids. Wattle blossoms gave the countryside a patriotic green/gold colour scheme. The spring blossoms gave an added boost of prettiness.
As we passed through the bridgeworks at Adelong we were puzzled about the men inspecting the swimming pool down below, which looked like it had been emptied, yet it appeared very muddy. We read in the newspaper later that indeed, the Adelong Creek had flooded, making a complete mess of the pool, just before the beginning of
The Murrumbidgee River
By the time this photo was taken, the river level had dropped quite lot. The water had been as high as half-way up the sign. the “swimming season”. There was a lot of interest in the level of the Murrumbidgee River as we pulled in to the Wagga Wagga Beach Caravan Park. The water level had just begun to recede after peaking earlier that morning - just below the top of the levy along the caravan park foreshore. (See the photos.)
Peter landed himself the most unusual job. A guy walking through the caravan park stopped for a chat and asked Peter if would mind giving him a hand with a job he was doing. Darrell Pitchford is an organ builder. He was restoring the pipe organ in St Michael’s Catholic Cathedral, just outside the gate of the caravan park. He needed someone to help him ferry the large reconditioned pipes back up the stairs to be replaced in the bowels of the organ. Those of you who know Peter’s background (son of an Anglican Minister) know his attraction to pipe organs! He was fascinated and Darrell was a fountain of information and an all round nice guy - and he’s from Wamberal!!!!
The Wagga Wagga Jazz Festival was a disappointment. We expected it to be along the lines of the Country Music
I helped fix this masterpiece!
This is only a small section of the "workings" of the pipe organ in St Michael's Cathedral, Wagga Wagga. Festival, you know, busking in the streets, the occasional free concert in the park, market stalls etc, etc. But NO! All events seemed to be ticketed, no party atmosphere here!
When we left the South Coast, we had a cleaning job lined up at a couple of preschools here in Wagga, 3 nights a week while the regular cleaner went on holiday. As a result, Peter loathes play dough and chocolate brownies on carpets! It pays to speak out when we check in to caravan parks. Wendy has been getting quite a few shifts on the cleaning team here at Riverview Holiday Park. Sadly Peter has only had 3 shifts, but that has allowed him time for other pursuits.
To fill in time one afternoon we took a drive out to a place by the river which is meant to be a great camping spot. The picnic / rest area at Oura Beach was very overgrown after all the rain that’s been falling here over the past few weeks, and the tracks were quite muddy after the flood waters had come up quite a lot. We’ve got a 4WD, we should be right! We don’t have mud tyres
No-wheel-driving
This is what happens when you try to drive through mud whith ordinary road tyres. though, so we got well and truly stuck, we just couldn’t get any traction. Peter was able to catch a ride on the back of a truck back up to some houses to see if we could get a tow out of there. In the meantime it was getting later and we knew that night would not be far off, and the clouds were building. Another car - should we say a Toyota 4WD ute came over the hill and around the bend. No way - he wasn’t going to come anywhere near that slippery stuff. He’s had to get his neighbour to pull him out of a bog on his property 4 times in the past week! Anyway, Peter arrived back at the scene in a commodore sedan! Wendy was amused - How was this going to work? Never mind - another vehicle was on its way to save us. Once out of the bog, we were left on our own to make our way home. The car was on high ground, but there was so much mud on the tyres, for one heart-stopping minute we had absolutely no traction. Needless to say, all’s well that ends well. And
Oura Beach
This is where we were stuck the clouds didn’t break, and it wasn’t quite dark. We are very grateful to the local people who helped us out.
Floriade was on in Canberra, so when we heard that Wendy’s Mum would be there with her caravan club friends, we decided to take a run across there for the weekend. We’re not keen gardeners (or gardeners of any kind, for that matter), but Wendy wanted to go and see what all the hype is about. Parking for the event is a nightmare. After driving around in circles for what seemed like an hour or more, we mounted the kerb in a parking lot and butted up against a tree - hoping to not come back to a parking infringement notice on the windscreen. It was a lovely spring day, and Floriade is indeed a beautiful place to visit. The bonus was that we caught part of the entertainment - Katie Noonan was singing, and spending time with Wendy’s Mum made it special, too. No parking ticket!
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