Adelong and Tumut

Back in Adelong to do a farm sit, looking after a dog and some sheep. But able to get away overnight or on day trips to tour and camp nearby.

Very pretty around here at the moment as the season has been good with plenty of rain and lower than usual temperatures. More green than is usual at this time of the year.

The Tumut river is running fast from the Blowering dam. There has been a steady stream of ski boats on the highway from Wagga Wagga going to the dam but as yet I haven't ventured up there. Expecting it will crowded with holiday makers as it usually is over Xmas and new year.

The town of Tumut has a Coles, Woollies, Kmart and vibrant main street and is ideal for provisioning, having most everything the traveller might need. Then a short drive out of town to Jones Bridge free camp on the Tumut River, for the night or just the day, nice. It was not crowded when I stopped there. 

The Tumut River at Jones Bridge.

Barnawartha- VIC

Spent a couple of industrious weeks with family in Adelong helping out around the place mowing lawns and doing general maintenance. Cold at night. Ordered a diesel heater on-line and had fun installing it. Also replaced the 2xAGM house batteries. Stayed busy.

After two weeks being stationary it was a good time to head off for a road trip further south to visit friends in Victoria.

Barnawartha VIC. The border town is just south of the Murray River and about 200km from Adelong and 15km from Albury/Wodonga. It's an easy drive down the M31 bypassing Tarcutta but pulling into Holbrook and the renowned bakery for a meat pie for lunch. Nice town, good pies. The rest stop park in Holbrook features the HMAS Otway_ (S 59) an Oberon-class  submarine.

Unusual place to find a ocean going vessel of any kind. The rest stop and bakery are well worth the short detour of the highway and have become a popular stop for many travellers.

At Barnawartha replacing a sheep ring-lock fence was the order of the day. Actually took a couple of days and a corner post still needs to be put in. The original was eaten out by ants at ground level. The new post will out last all of us. Just need to get it in the ground.

Being a border dweller is not without it's challenges the locals were telling me. A lot of their services, schools, doctors, medical specialists, hospitals and even regular stuff like hardware suppliers are over the river, in NSW. When in lock-down getting there can take hours instead of minuets.

It was knocked over with the mower.
The hard part is getting it all out.

Ready for the ring-lock.

The easy bit.
The hard bit-
How to get it in the hole with no mechanical help?

Coopernook - Gunning - Adelong

Left Casino on Sunday after a late breakfast and the usual talk with MGB.

Sunday night camped in back of the pub at Coopernook. Quiet night, good.

Monday morning packed up early and headed to Sydney with the plan of looping around Sydney using the new tunnel and the usual M1-M2-M7.

Uneventful except for the high winds on the south side and on to Gunning. Well almost uneventful. Nearly got blown sideways of a bridge over one of the many rivers south of Pheasants Nest. I think that is when the left segment of the windscreen cracked, not a stone kicked up by traffic this time. It was a very strong gust leaning the motorhome over significantly. Lots of effort on the steering wheel to stay on course.

Overnighted in Gunning at the free camp down by the creek. A bit damp with the resent rain and I was worried about getting bogged. But all OK. Next time I'm here I might look at staying in the main street opposite the Post Office. It's on the bitumen, parallel parking and in front of a disused bank, nice and flat and probably quiet after dark. Being in the sun in the morning and close to the coffee shop is also an advantage when its just 4deg.

Was probably once the proud local Gunning GM dealer

Drove the back way from Gunning to Yass checking out the railway and small towns that could be good for a overnight stopping. Dalton is just 11km north west of Gunning and has an old pub with street art out front, two things that I find interesting.

Street Art - love it!

Royal Dalton in Sheep Country

Leeton Rd settled, nice.

Casino NSW

Started moving stuff over to All Type Diesel Services where the motor-home is waiting for loading. Fridge is cold and freezer is working well. Got stuff loaded and about 10am decided why wait. On the road before 11am headed for Casino NSW.

The motor-home is running very smoothly. I was especially attentive for any anomalies, anything out of the ordinary, but she's a pleasure pulling up hills really well and cruising the highways and freeways without effort, better than ever.

Arrived at Casino BlazeAid camp at about 430pm on Tuesday and decided staying till Sunday helping out would be good. Been back here several times since the fires in 2019.

Unsettled weather and the paddocks were wet but we got a bit done. About 20 volunteers going out in three teams with two tractors and a tracked bobcat with bucket and auger. For me it was mostly chainsaw work building end assemblies and staying strainer posts. Fortunately all the heavy lifting was done by the machines, not like the 'good' old days. Thank god!

I found it interesting going back to, or past, farms where I had helped lockup paddocks by standing up the old burnt stuff to quickly contain the cattle. Now the teams are replacing those old burnt fences and building with new materials, far more rewarding.

Bit of handy chair saw work

One very handy device that makes nice holes

Timber spilt post fence
ready for wire.

Cotton Tree

Back into my Cotton Tree routine.

This time of year, weather wise, can be unsettled with storm cells coming through in the afternoons. But it's usually possible to get out and about and stay active.

Kandanga - Tin Can Bay

Got an email toward the end of the day from my conveying solicitor in Narrandera: deposit receive, contract sent. Looks like I just sold the two blocks of land on the Leeton Rd.

Left Kandanga to arrive at Woolies in Gympie at about 830am. Not one person wearing a mask in the shopping centre but hey no complaint from me. Got some provisions and headed to Tin Can Bay for the night.

Booked into a Caravan Park in the centre of town, down by the marina. Power tonight to test the inverter/charger, fridge, and hot water system are working properly on 240v. Everything appears good.

A bit of wild weather overnight but a nice sunny day to follow, if a bit humid. Just cruisin' around town checking out the places I remember from back in 2012 when I stayed here for a couple of weeks. Tin Can Bay is a nice place to visit and probably a good place to retire to, if you are into fishing that is. Quiet at the moment but goes crazy-mad over the summer holidays and the bugs, like midges, are prolific. The buggers would feast on me so you won't seeing me here then.

Touring Again

Cotton Tree - Kandanga

The repairs are complete and the MH is ready to go. I won't bore you with the details but putting it simply, it was a big job. So now I'm able to tour again. And this trip is just for a few days to reacquaint myself with the MH, a shake-down, if you will. I'm looking forward to the borders being open again soon but till then, north is the only real option.

Bike on the back and away we go.

Just a short drive to Kandanga for tonight, 70km, stopping at the nice little free camp in town. It gives me time to set MH up and work out what's needed and where, then knock up some more kms tomorrow.

Corindi Beach - Mid North Coast NSW

May 2021

Corindi Beach is just north of Woopi (what locals call Woolgoolga) north of Coffs Harbour in NSW. Back in early March they had a one in 500 year rain event. Local farmers describe a wall of water larger and faster than has ever been seen before flooding houses upto a meter deep. Tractors, water tanks, fences and pretty much anything in its path was washed away.

BlazeAid set up a camp in the local caravan park and the volunteers responded from the towns around as well as some grey nomads. Having time to spare I took a drive down from Maroochydore to do a couple of weeks work.

A small team effectively cleared or rebuilt on average about 500m per day. Just about every farm had wet paddocks and the work at times was tough. One of the berry farms on Sherwood Creek Rd lost millions of dollars of produce already prepared for market the next day. The flood waters rose during the night peaking at about 3am and then reseeding very quickly.

Berry farm devastation.

Very handy thing to have on a ute.

Adelong BA and chooks

March 12th

Catching up with family in Adelong, slashing grass, painting, building a chook pen and levelling a site for two 20 foot containers. The containers might at some point be home to the MH. A couple of trusses between the two, a roof, and you have an all-weather shelter complete with rooms for a workshop and storage.

Also managed to fit in a couple of days at the BlazeAid camp in Adelong. Just a small group of us driving to Batlow each day to rebuild fences on somewhat challenging terrain.

Then it's heading north for Easter. 

The first time around was with a wheeled Bobcat
 but this little digger sorted it.

A tilt-tray truck delivered the containers.

Should have included this in the earlier post. Copied from the Internet.
McKillops bridge.

Ten Years On.

This blog started out as private back in April 2011. A private diary of travel. As I say to anyone that will listen: an argument stopper for when I'm in the retirement home and reminiscing about where I've been. I started it at a time of radical change in my life. After 40 years of marriage, I was now on my own, retired and touring about without a specific destination.

Three years on and a casual campfire conversation with other travellers convinced me to make it public. And from there the page view counter started registering visitors.

In September 2017 google reported 13,000 views. Now in 2021, it's ticking over 30,500 views, go figure, I never would have. Maybe when I set it up I should have ticked the box to monetise and permit advertising, nuh just kidding.

Wulgulmerang and McKillops Bridge

So the first trip in The Bug is down to Victoria and a BlazeAid camp at Wulgulmerang, population 11.

In actual fact, I was killing time having a few days free before meeting family in Adelong NSW.

The quickest or should I say the shortest way there is via Cooma, Jindabyne and cross the border at Suggen Buggen. Signs at Jindabyne suggested border passes were required to enter Victoria but I saw nobody. In actual fact only saw a couple of vehicles on the 100km trip. That was good because most of the road is gravel and just a single lane in some places and best travelled at about 40km/h. The Bug went well on the gravel.

Stay a few days and did some hilly fences with a mostly overseas backpacker group of volunteers.

Heading back to NSW decided to see McKillops bridge, a magnificent structure in some wild hilly country that was built across the Snowy River. Main Road C611, is listed as one of the most dangerous roads in the country according to www.dangerousroads.org If I had read that about the road beforehand I would not have gone that way! But I'm glad to have seen it. Fortunately, after a significant amount of rain overnight, I didn't see another vehicle as the gravel road was wet and very slippery on the shady side of the mountains. A fallen tree across the road did not deter either.

The bridge has a very interesting history.

Check out this video on Youtube that ends with the bridge crossing.

McKillops Bridge

Tree down and no chainsaw, but I managed.

The Bug

Over seven months in one place, staying in bricks and mortar, well that's not been achieved since hitting the road full time, leaving Narrandera back in March 2010. Usually, a long stay for me would be coming back to Cotton Tree for the annual Certificate of Inspection required for heavy vehicles like my motorhome, pay bills, catch up on the snail-mail, check the unit, splash in the warm waters of Maroochydore, then off again.

Surprisingly good real estate prices and quick sales appear to be a product of the pandemic here in south-east Qld. Two units in my block of ten changed hands after each having just one day of open-house inspections and they got very generous prices. A friend up in the hinterland, not all that far away, sold her house to an interstate couple with just photos on the Internet, go figure. It's all go here.

The new plan sees me trade the Suzuki for a VW Multivan. The Bug as I call it gives me the cruise control I want and the space I need to carry stuff and sleep in the vehicle. It's white and nondescript unlike an 8t motorhome. A few additions make it a comfortable option for those overnight trips. If a motorhome is a home on wheels The Bug is a weekender.

The bed storage and generous sleeping space when extended.