Category Archives: New South Wales

Rowing for Victoria

Fri 12 June – On Friday I had the honour of rowing for Victoria, unusual for a New South Welshman.

The pin marks the spot for Paradise Beach
The pin marks the spot for Paradise Beach

The location was Paradise Beach, an unmarked beach in Barooga State Forest on the Murray River. The place was not sign posted at all – it was off a 4WD track. I drove past it twice thinking “that is surely not it”. (We actually found it in a great book titled “Bush Camping with Dogs”. It is surprisingly well researched, and also found

Great tool to finding out of the way places
Great tool to finding out of the way places

us the Tumut campsite.) However, a chat to the local constabulary confirmed it was. We arrived late at the location in light rain – not ideal for 4W driving. When we reached the Murray, we just stopped and made a quick camp. The following morning showed this to be a great choice.

The Murray River is a quiet river at present (or here) and sides are either coarse sand (such as on Paradise Beach) or reeds. So I inflated the blow up canoe we found at the camping show and followed in the wake of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer.

ParadiseBeach2Alex was busy talking on the phone so opted not to be on the first canoe attempt. Surprisingly, the dog was a willing participant.

Dreamy morning on the Murray
Dreamy morning on the Murray

So off we went, rowing away from NSW and into Victoria. Despite the slow flow, upstream was quite hard work and I had removed my warm vest after 20 minutes. On the way back downstream, we met some fellow dreamers.

ParadiseBeach4

Yarrangobilly Caves

Yarrangobilly0Wed 3 June – As the crow flies, Yarrangobilly was quite close to our camp site. Unfortunately, we had to follow the roads, so went via Tumut, past the Blowering Dam and up into the Snowy Mountain highlands. As you can see, what I thought would be a quick morning trip became a day trip,  but quite fascinating.

The caves are quite an old NSW tourist attraction. There are over 400 caves in the cliffs of which Yarrangobilly15 have tours (for the non caver). Apparently, cavers are obsessed with finding new caves and 3-4 new caves are claimed each year, but are rarely counted. Apparently you need to fit more than your head in a hole to call the hole a new cave.

The cave we visited is called the Jersey cave, so named as a part of a funding proposal to the governor, the Earl of Jersey, of NSW at the time it was opened.

Crystal flowers formed in a now dry lake
Crystal flowers formed in a now dry lake

The cave is found at the top of a deep gorge, with other caves down the cliff. Like other caves, it was formed by dissolving limestone leaving calcium carbonate deposits at different speeds. The colours form from other chemicals. The white is the pure calcium carbonate, the red is stained by iron oxide, and the black is ash sucked into the cave during a bush fire.

A high chamber
A high chamber

The tour took over an hour although we did not go very far – I think we only did eight chambers –  but there was so much in each, and so many different shapes formed from small variations in the process.

On the return home, we ran into some of the local bird life.

EmusOfTumut

FrostyMorningTue 2 June – We have finally left Canberra and have reached Tumut. Carmel was left behind because she had not finished her work. (Have you ever missed out because you didn’t get your homework finished?) We passed through Gundagai so had to visit the Dog on the Tucker box. Unfortunately, there were people about so Ash did not want to pose in front of a tourist attraction. Pip is always happy to be in a picture though!

ThomasBoydTrackheadWe left the dual carriageway at Gundagai and took a country road to Tumut. This was a bit of a novelty for Ash. He took his eyes of his iPhone and actually looked at the terrain. When we were winding down some hillsides he actually began to give me some driving advice. It is amazing what a caravan, a single lane road and a hillside will do. Perhaps we need to do the Andes next!

AGoodFireWe found the camp site at Thomas Boyd Track head without too much trouble. It is at the crossing point of the Hume and Hovell Walking Track and the road to Googandra. The camp was deserted – it was the first day of winter, so I am not surprised. The sun had already set behind the hills – we were in a steep valley, so we had to make camp quickly. We had the site set up in 30 minutes (I forwent the annex) and raced around collecting the firewood along the river banks. We found plenty of kindling, but needed to drag two whole dead saplings to our fire pit. Despite the damp wood, the scout skills my parents loving foisted on me (wasn’t it really about getting rid of me for a few weekends a year) came to the fore, and we had a good fire going. Alex learned that a camp fire was a bit different from the gas fire in the TV room at home – you have to get up every 5 minutes and feed it!

RawDamperThe first order of the day was damper. I have a lot of experience making damper as a teen, all of it a failure. Somehow, this time it was perfect. Perhaps it was the baking soda and extra virgin olive oil I added. (You can take the boy out of Sydney, but you cannot take Sydney out of the boy!) I made the amount for a large scone and a couple of pieces to wrap around sticks. The fire was a good one – not flaring too much because the wood was damp, so the stick cooking was only slightly burned, but fluffy and steamy in the middle.

CookingDamperOnce we had a bed of coals, the steak and sausages went on in a gridiron. (It is actually a “net iron” these days, more suitable to the explanation of chess than American Football.) Despite cooking quite quickly, it was well cooked – the steak was even a bit pink inside if our LED hurricane lamp was anything to do by. (The good old days of primus lamps with delicate mantles is long gone! I suppose my grandfather’s generation thought the same with the passing of the suicidal kerosene lamp.) So we feasted on bush tucker for dinner. Note the lack of veggies (as if I had just done a Cash Out). The truth was that by that point my fingers were numb, and I did not want to fiddle with knives and carrots. Tomorrow night I will have the veggies prepared ahead of time.

BushTucker

Tomorrow we are off to the caves!

Farewell to Goulburn

GoulburnWarMemorial3We have left Goulburn, but have many good memories. On the last day we visited the War Memorial on the hill. It was a foggy morning. Foggy mornings in Goulburn start around 6am and continue to midday. This shot of the war memorial was taken at 11:00 am and the sun was only just visible.

The War Memorial is on a high hill with a great view of Goulburn and the valley around (except on foggy mornings). The hill is an interesting geological formation – a white metamorphic rock that broke into cubic chunks.

FoggyMorning

We did have an interesting learning experience as we left. In levelling the caravan, I must have wound the jockey wheel up past the end of the thread. Even though I perfectly backed the tow ball under the trailed coupling, there was no safe way to drop it down the last 5 cm. Nothing I had could reach.

TroubleInTheMill

Fortunately a fellow caravanee had a hydraulic jack that we could place on a couple of bricks under the frame and jack it up. Experience is invaluable in this game.

CityOfGoulburn

An Afternoon at Goulburn Roundhouse

One thing Goulburn is well known for is trains. It is on the Southern Line and used to have a major repair and maintenance shop. You can visit the roundhouse in the Rail Heritage Centre.

RoundHouse

It was in use until a few years ago when they had a nasty accident.

A bad day at the roundhouse
A bad day at the roundhouse

It destroyed the bridge and smashed the concrete (the hole to the right of the bridge). According to the guide, the insurance covered the repairs, but the company has stalled on spending it. He did not like governments much.

Behind the round house there was a workshop with cool equipment. I particularly liked the wheel lathe that was for grinding the wheels in the right location.

WheelLathe

And of course, the cool engines were worth the visit.

SteamEngine