The first couple of weeks of my journey felt a bit strange, and it took me a while to find the reason. It wasn't that I'm travelling without a definite definition or return date; it was social isolation. I didn't want to contract or convey Covid and as a result I was avoiding all social contact. But a man mowing the grass at the Barmedman Pool stopped for a chat and I really enjoyed it. Also, he put the word on me to visit a cafē in town. I did and a woman there gave me zucchinis out of her garden as well as selling me coffee: country friendship and kindness. The book at Ariah Park for Grey Nomads to record what they spent in town reminded me that the quid pro quo for cheap/free camping is that they put money into local economies. In Narrandera I went to the swimming pool where the guard explained that they don't put the lane ropes out in because they can't stop the kids climbing on them. I also went to the museum, where I had a very long session with the volunteer curator in which we exchanged memories prompted by pieces of historical brick-a-brack. Looking around Narrandera was fun, but I soon set out along Irrigation Way to see the country that had generated the city's prosperity. Leeton, where I spent nights 25-27, was developed as a centre for the irrigation district. Designed by Walter Burley Griffin, it advertises an annual Art-Noveau Festival. I found many factories that process fruit, vegetables and rice: all familiar brand names. The Oasis Caravan Park, a little bit out of town was welcoming. A few elderly people appeared to be living there comfortably, there was a group of young men from the Pacific going through some sort of orientation program, a number of other people who obviously had jobs, and one group of holiday makers. The National Park campsites along the Murrumbidgee were all closed because of recent flooding, so spending nights 28-29 at Gogelderie Weir Park was the best alternative. The Weir itself was quite something.
1 Comment
I was confronted by wheat as soon as I was out of the foothills. I stopped to shop in Temora and could see, just looking around, that it was a town built on wheat. After Barmedman I discovered a number of very small towns, each of which had a railway station with wheat silos beside it for loading wheat onto trains and a pub on the other side of the line, presumably to drink beer in after delivering wheat to the station. The railway was put through close to the beginning of the twentieth century. I found that while Barmedman had its mineral pool, every other town had its claim as well. Ariah Park, where I spent Night 22, claimed to be a heritage town with 1920 shop facades and old petrol bowsers in the Main Street. It obviously had decided to pull in the tourist dollar. There was cheap camping beside the football oval, carefully landscaped with trees too young to give shelter yet over every installed electricity point and tap, and garden gnomes outside the camp kitchen. In the kitchen was an exercise book for visitors to record where in town they had spent how many $$. I left Ariah Park wanting to head east to explore some pretty towns I knew lay along the B94, but I got halfway back towards Temora and felt that I couldn't go on! It seems I'd made a rule that says I can go north, south, but not east. So I did a U-turn and went west. It was already early evening and I spent Night 23 at Beckom, which had a lot of cars parked outside the pub beside the railway station (it was Australia Day) so I drove past and found another football oval to camp beside. This was uncharged and there were only trees for company. The next day I went looking for a swimming pool, the one at Ariah Park having sounded rather noisy. Ardelthan had a spanking new facility, but it was all locked up - as was the museum - and by the time I reached Narrandera it was getting late. So I drove out to Five Mile Reserve (9km E) and spent Night 24 there, beside a lagoon with a small private sandy beach to swim off and a beautiful sunset to observe. Narrandera is a wealthy town, built on the wheat trade and Victorian/Edwardian in style. In 1963, for A-Level in England, we studied Australia and heard about the Snowy Mountains Scheme, an amazing feat of engineering that stopped snow melt draining straight into the Pacific Ocean by reversing the direction of the Snowy River so that it went, via a network of tunnels and reservoirs, in the opposite direction towards the dry centre of the continent. Later, in Sydney, I would meet people from all over Europe who said, "I came out originally to work on the Snowy Scheme." But I don't think I got a concept of what that all meant until I visited the mouth of the Snowy River in Victoria in 2019 and saw a wide river estuary with a tiny trickle of water flowing into it. As a result I took notice earlier this year when we visited the Snowy Hydro Discovery Centre at Cooma. As well as providing irrigation water to the near inland the scheme generates huge amounts of hydroelectricity for supply to NSW, Victoria and South Australia. Snowy 2.0 is a current extension of the scheme to recycle water through the electricity generation process, by forcing it to flow uphill through new tunnels back into the holding dam. We were the direct beneficiaries of this scheme while we were camping at Yarrangobilly as there was a temporary phone tower nearby, put there to assist the scheme.
At Gundagai I had to cross under the Hume Motorway, the major link between Sydney and Melbourne. This felt like a rite of passage, a decisive move away from the East Coast. I stopped to photograph the motorway streaking over the Murrumbidgee plain, then decisively took to minor roads. I paused in Bethungra to admire the town and then spent nights 16&17 I spent beside Bethungra Dam. This was beautiful and windswept, and oh so windy. It was impossible to light my spirit stove. Cold food and no coffee didn't worry me as I felt oh-so-sleepy and was content to snooze in bed and pop up occasionally to admire the view. Was I infectious? I did have some symptoms, but I didn't have a temperature and couldn't buy a rat for love or money, so how would I know. I kept myself away from other people and moved through Temora to the small town of Barmedman. There was spacious camping beside a huge swimming pool, full of minerals. I spent nights 18,19, 20 &21 there, and began to feel better. Self-isolating was easy and quite pleasant. The minerals eased my aches and pains.
The drive from Snowball to Yarrangobilly was lined with dead trees, some so dead that they showed no regrowth at all, two years after the bushfires. That was depressing, but going to Yarrangobilly to spend time with family and be farewelled was exciting. Seeing Yarrangobilly involves making a deep descent into a narrow valley and exploring limestone caves, swimming in a thermal pool that is 27C year round, and maybe staying in historic Caves House, something DB and I had enjoyed before. This time we opted to camp in the Yarrangobilly Village Campground, on flatter ground 30km away. The rain was heavy and people progressively left. On the first night we were ten. On the second and third nights we were six. On the fourth night we were two, and on the fifth, sixth and seventh nights I was alone. That was Nights 2-8. It was a very happy few days exploring the countryside, the caves, and swimming in naturally heated water. Once alone, I turned my attention to fitting myself and my stuff into Bertha. I love playing with scale. It was a very long way to Australia, once, back in 1970. I planned to cross Australia by road almost immediately. It never happened. I bought Bertha in 2018. Around Xmas 2021 it took six weeks to do the six-hour drive from Gosford to Araluen. Then, ready to test myself against "the big lap", I set out from Araluen.
One hour later I was tired and felt ready to stop. So I did. I ate a cold dinner straight from the fridge and didn't need to hop into bed, seeing as I was already sitting on it. ... Ideal! That was Night 1. Waking up on a road through the Deua National Park was great. As always, when I've slept in Bertha there's a blog entry. Late: but, hey, I've been out of range since then, and here it is at last. ... I will keep up the blog as best I ca,n but posting from my phone isn't always easy, so expect a mix of random quickkies interspersed with occasional longer posts. My general strategy is to move slowly towards Broken Hill and to fossick around there a bit before moving into South Australia. From there? South there's only ocean, but there's the Nullabor to the west, Uluru to the north, and -- should I tire -- home may beckon from the east. |
AuthorIn mid 2018 I started recording each night I sleep in Bertha: sometimes just for myself, sometimes to share with friends and other travellers. Archives
February 2024
Categories |