Homeward bound...

Well this time tomorrow we'll be back on home soil. Not permanently, just for a little christmas break. We're currently staying with friends in Sydney, John and Judy Reid who have been wonderful and will be looking after Lulu for us whilst we're back in Tassie. Since Lake Lyell we've camped in a few spots in the Blue Mountains a little closer to Sydney. Places such Ingra camp (where we watched a big red bellied black snake devour a frog!), Murphy's Glen (on two seperate occasions) and Euroka camp near Glenbrook. Lulu has tackled some pretty hairy tracks but so far we've managed to stay out of trouble. The weather has been pretty good to us too since Lake Lyell with not much rain to report. It was actually 35 degrees here in Castle Hill yesterday which saw us seeking refuge in the pool here. And very nice it was too. The only downside regarding the Sydney side of the Blue Mountains is the tourists. We've seen plenty. Luckily they dont seem to be into camping tho so it is pretty easy to get away from them. We've done a few good walks throughout the mountains. Some pretty tame and others that required using ropes and ladders to negotiate the terrain. We even found a nice little creek to have a swim in at the Euroka camp site. It was sign posted as a 4 hour return hike to get to get to the creek and back. We're not sure why as it only took us 15 minutes to get down into the gorge and probably no more than 25 minutes to get back out. We did the walk, had a swim and lunch in under 3 hours. Although it was pretty hard work coming back out though. Nothing much else to report unfortunately. We took a train into the city today and had a stroll around Darling Harbour and killed a couple of hours in the Sydney aquarium. Some pretty cool critters in there but to be honest we thought the Melbourne aquarium was a little better. Sorry Sydney! Anyways, is very much our bed time so we'll sign off for now and hope to catch up with a few of you over the next three weeks. Be good peoples!

Always Take The Weather With You!

And the rain keeps afallin’! It appears that we have bought the rain with us from Tassie and these parts of NSW are experiencing the best rainfall for the last 10 years. The roads are a mess, either closed for trees down or flooded, not to mention the copious amounts of pot holes and landslides across the roads. Lulu has been dodging washouts and fording streams, that on reflection were a little too deep, but she is managing a treat. I’m not too sure if Bronson’s theory of increased speed makes the bumps more bearable tho, and I think Lulu is a little unsure of the merit of it too!

From Nowra and with a new set of front brake pads for Lulu we headed inland again (just so we could try out the new brakes coming back down again!). Visibility was next to none heading up the hill to Budderoo National Park, we were lucky to find the camping ground. Most cars were driving with their hazard lights on and at a snail’s pace (or just a little above Lulu’s cruising speed!). The Carrington Falls did not disappoint after a short walk from our camp to see them. The area was also thick with frogs and we managed to identify striped marsh frogs and something that we can’t remember what it was now (some sort of froglet). Brons went for a little fish until we came across a sign indicating the protected nature of the fauna in the area and we assume this included fish, so the fishing was short lived and unsuccessful.

On to the Blue Mountains (via Abercrombe River which was in flood and the national park mostly required 4WD to access it). Here we found a great camp spot which was set in the grounds of an old stone homestead. The huts were open for people to utilise them for shelter in poor weather with a big open fire. We took the opportunity to dry out our annex and camp in the shelter of an old carport. Lead and Silver used to be mined in the area and we took a stroll to an old mine a few kms down the road. Here we not only found more leeches but also some bits of rock with silvery looking bits in them. Don’t think we’ll be rich beyond our wildest dreams but we fossicked all the same. On the return journey back to camp we were stampeded by a wombat making a startled dash back to his hole. The next night was spent in Kanangra-Boyd national park just a little ways down the road, on the way we went to Janolan Caves but it was a little populated with weekenders form Sydney for our liking. A cup of tea’s worth of time after arriving at Boyd River camp site and enough time to decide we would fashion a yabby trap out of a cola bottle and a teabag to hold some tinned salmon, it started to bucket rain. Luckily we had set up camp next to a shelter with yet another lovely open fire. In dire need of a wash we took opportunity of the down pour and stripped off. We ended up washing in the overflow from the tank on the shelter. Very refreshing and very cold! The next morning before heading off to Bathurst we called into the Kanangra Walls to have a look. For once the vista was not impeded with fog and we could see the magnificent escarpment and take more than just photos of mist!

After a quick stop in Bathurst for supplies (and some non-stinky shoes for Brons) we headed onto Sofala with the hope of fishing the river. The river had been in flood only within the last week or so, the road was torn up and parts impassable due to the flooding. A quick flit with the spinning rod with no results saw us heading back into town to check out the local pub for a couple of ales. The locals were a buzz with talk of the recent shooting on the Gold Coast, after a little more eavesdropping we were able to ascertain that the suspect in the shooting was an ex local of Sofala Keith. His claim to fame up until now was that he put an axe through someone’s head back in the 70’s and there were even holes in the wall of the pub where he took shots at it with his air rifle. Hmm no wonder we didn’t sleep too soundly that night!

Needless to say we were up and out of the Sofala district the next morning headed for Wollemi national park. On the way we pulled up and picked up a long necked turtle who was destined to be cleaned up by the log truck that came past us a couple of minutes later. We dubbed her Sofie and released her in a stream a couple of kms up the road.

The town of Newnes and access to the Wollemi national park lay at the end of a very rough and rugged road. This is where we may have miss judged the depth of a couple of streams and puddles but Lulu took it all in her stride and came out bonza! We camped under enormous cliff faces that seemed to change colour every time you looked up at them as the sun was slipping away at night. We decided to forego the 4WD only ford for Lulu and went on foot to the old oil shale refinery which was in operation in the early 1900’s. Mostly ruins now it’s hard to believe so much infrastructure was set up in such a harsh place, but the bush has crumbled it back to almost nothing. Wombats and roos were aplenty at this camp site and so was a C130 Hercules that was doing low altitude laps above us.

Now we are in the other cultural hub of the universe (I know there are more than just Wynyard!) Lithgow. We camped last night at Lake Lyell where we awoke to a water feature running through the annex. Upon closer inspection of our chosen camp site we realised we had parked Lulu on the runoff channels from the near by road! All very soggy and muddy now.

We are on the home straight to coming back for a few weeks for Christmas. Only a week to go and we will be flying out of Sydney for some much needed home cooking and family time.

P.S. We see we have a new follower? Smoka2 what happened to Smoka1?

Raindrops keep falling on my head...

It's raining in Nowra. The rain has been with us for 4 days now and it may well be with us for another 4 days. We've taken shelter in a grotty motel in Nowra but more on that later. So where have we been since our last post? When we last left you we had just set up camp back at Island Bend on the banks of the Snowy. Unfortunately due to the power stations being in operation the river itself was flooded and not really fishable. No real excuse for the several fish we managed to miss right at our camp site! The first night there we were awakened at around 3am to some terrible scraping noises and Lulu rocking from side to side. At first we thought we may have been the targets of some practical joke undertaken by a group of youths we had seen earlier. Upon inspection it actually turned out to be a huge wombat scratching its arse on the underside of the van! After two nights there we proceeded back down the mountain and onto the coast (not before we were treated to a quick visit from our newly acquired naturalist mates). Whilst discussing the logistics of nude travel such as seat belt chafing, the fabrically challenged couple in question pulled up next to us in their van to see how our fishing had been going. They were on their way home (or possibly to a campsite near you!) and we are happy to report that yes they do use those fluffy seat belt pads to minimise chaffage! On our way back down the mountain we stopped briefly at Bega to sample some cheese at the factory. We shouldn’t have bothered, although the discerning processed cheese singles connoisseur might disagree! We then made our way to Mimosa Rocks where we spent just the one night trying to keep two very inquisitive possums from climbing into the back of Lulu. Whilst we were here we realised that sitting in the van of a night reading with the lights on and the rear door open is not something that should be attempted. Apart from the nosy possums we ended up with about a kabillion insects in the van with us. The many specimens flattened into the pages of the books we were reading show why! Then it was off to Marramarang NP just a little ways north of Batemans Bay. It was a nice little spot apart from the fact that we landed in a marine reserve which meant fishing was not on the cards. We met a young couple from Canberra who were on their way home after a whirlwind tour around the country. We spent the evening chatting with them around the campfire. Next day we made our way to the northern end of the park to Pretty Beach. Another nice spot with lots of kangaroos grazing in the camp grounds but it was here that the weather turned sour. A couple of afternoon thunderstorms passed us by but the showers hit us the morning we decided to pack up. We decided to head inland to see if the weather was any better and spent a couple of fairly miserable days sitting in our annex avoiding the rain at a little roadside campsite just outside of Nerriga. The only excitement we had was watching the fuel gauge after assuming we could get fuel at Nerriga and finding out there wasn't any! But we made it back to Braidwood after our couple of soggy nights with plenty to spare and proceeded onwards to the northern end of Morton NP just outside the lovely little town of Bundanoon. In the afternoon we visited some waterfalls in the park and that evening we visited Glow worm Glen. I know what you're all thinking but no, we never did find a dude called Glen happily chowing down on a feast of glow worms. Nothing quite that exciting. Just a very picturesque little creek lined with small limestone cliffs filled with glow worms. Had Glen actually been there he may instead have tucked into a few of the leeches that we kept finding attached to our shoes and pants. Somehow we managed not to get bitten despite removing 20+ leeches from our clothing. We stayed that night at a campsite nearby and this morning after taking in the very misty views at Fitzroy falls (and an 11am bacardi!), came back down out of the hills and into Nowra. We had hoped to spend a few nights at Abercrombie NP but the weather is driving us nuts and the rivers are starting to flood a little. So now we're sitting here in our affore mentioned grotty motel room where they want to charge us $7 to do a load of laundry plus an additional $7 to use their dryer because the one provided has shit itself. I think Ruth politely told them to get knotted! Lulu is going well but had the bushes in the idler arm replaced today and is getting some new brake pads in the morning. Tonight we will have to decide where to head to next. We can't possibly spend another night here. Unfortunately we're a little low on power as we've had next to no sun but as long as we can keep the cola cold we'll be happy! Apologies for the long-winded-ness of this post but we had a bit to add and we have been out of reception alot so internet access has been very limited. We'll try to be a bit more frequent with our updates. That way we don't have to sit here racking our brains thinking of what has happened since our last post. Cheers peoples! Us. xx