When all else fails head to the shed!

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Day 338 - Mystery Bay to Bridge Creek

Today wasn’t the beautiful, bright sunny day that we’d ordered for our trip up in to the mountains. Overcast, misty and dare we say it a little bit miserable. We said our goodbyes to Vicky and Jay this morning, hopefully our paths will cross again in the future and we wish them well with all their plans.

We’d asked advice from Jay as to which route we should take to get us up into the Alpine area. It’s not going to be the flattest of journeys, but we’re pretty used to that now. Our intention was to check out the free camp spots in the mountains but as we got closer it was fairly obvious the spectacular view we’d promised ourselves was not going to be delivered.

It’s such a shame, we just know the scenery is awesome all around us and we can’t bloody well see it!! Bugger, poo, wee. The weather went through fits and starts all day but it was consistently wet and misty each time we got near to a free camp spot, none of them looked very inviting so we kept driving. Before we knew it we’d reached The Big Trout in Admiralty, it’s somewhere Ross Noble didn’t manage to go on his big comedy tour but we did! At Kiandra we turned left and drove through Australia’s highest town, Cabramurra, and then across the Tumet Pond Dam. It’s a single lane road going across here so we have to make sure there’s nothing coming the other way when we start the drive across. That’s harder than it sounds as you can’t really see the start! We stopped for a bit of lunch but then carried on through to Corryong ignoring all the beautiful free camp spots along the way.

We hatched a second plan, to head towards the towns of Bright and Mt Beauty in Victoria’s high country. Things were going well until the navigator fell asleep leaving the driver unaware of the new plan and an unchanged Tom Tom in charge! The turning was missed and when I woke up we were near Albury and heading in to plan C!

By the time we reached our new destination we’d been on the road for nearly nine hours and had travelled 687kms! Where were we heading? Mansfield of course, well Bridge Creek to be exact and the home of the Reeves where we knew we were guaranteed of a warm welcome whatever the weather. Simone passed us on her way into town and didn’t even notice us! What the mind doesn’t know the eyes don’t see!! It was actually us that got the bigger shock, when we drove up the track on this, a Monday evening, it was a bit of a surprise to see the shed full of people. We’d come back at the right time! The extended family were visiting for the holidays so we had a whole bundle of Reeves to entertain us. The role call went something like this; Mark’s brother Jeff & son Jake, Mark’s brother Paul, Mark’s brother Wils & daughter Michelle, son Jordan with his mate ‘Football’ (!) and of course Simone, Mark and the kids.

What a way to start an impromptu party. The kids are all off school and quite happy to relax in the house enjoying a movie while the rest of us relaxed in the shed enjoying the atmosphere. The whole sound system has been given a bit of an overhaul with the kit split between here and Jeff’s place where the band also do a lot of practise. It’s sounding great and it’s brilliant to see all the brothers plus nephew Jake up on stage having a great jamming session.

It had been a very long day but we were having so much fun neither of us saw the clock slip into tomorrow! As Jake said, “If all else fails then head to the shed” and that’s exactly what we’d done so by golly we were going to enjoy it!

Dar and Sar

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