We left a very smoky Melbourne when we flew into Auckland Dec 14th. New Zealand was so green compared to the brown countryside we had left in Melbourne. But NZ was a little brown when we left mid March.
Melbourne was even drier when we returned. The brown had turned to grey. Maybe this year they’ll get the real rain they need.
Thankyou to all our NZ hosts - Hospitality was fantastic - we had a wonderful time.
While we were in NZ our vehicles were stored with Storage King in Sunbury, not far from Melbourne airport, but unfortunately our caravan was broken into. Thankfully it wasn’t trashed but the lock was damaged, the TV/DVD was stolen along with a rechargeable torch, a really good filleting knife, scissors and a few DVD’s. We’re really glad we’d taken all our portable electronics with us to NZ.
After waiting over a week in vain for a repairman John managed to repair the lock and fit the new TV himself.
We stayed with Kay and Gary in Ocean Grove before heading through Melbourne to spend a couple of nights with Hilary and Ash, whom we’d met in the NT. Our trip across Melbourne included the Burnley Tunnel which had only just re-opened that morning after the tragic crash a few days before. Quite a long tunnel it was nice to come out into the daylight at the other end.
We then headed for the Snowy Mountains where we stayed at JINDABYNE.
Next day we drove approx 30km to Thredbo where we travelled the chair lift to Eagles Nest from where we climbed to the top of Mt Kosciuszko 2228m, the highest peak in Australia. Are you impressed?? I am! But in truth it was easy. A 13km return tramp mostly on a metal broadwalk. But we did it. It was still a climb but not like real mountain climbing. I know Mt Ruapehu at 2797m (9175ft) and Mt Taranaki at 2518m (8260ft) are out of my range (I think....)
Thredbo has a vast amount of accommodation crammed into a small area, mostly on a steep hillside with very narrow, mostly one way, streets.
Jindabyne is a new town as the old Jindabyne was flooded as part of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. This scheme is claimed to be one of the modern “Wonders of the World”. Over 100,000 men from 30 countries worked for 25 years to create this scheme from the Snowy River which includes 16 major dams, 7 power stations (2 underground) a large pumping station, 145 km interconnecting tunnels and 80km of aqueducts. The water is then diverted to the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers to be used for irrigation.
Now it’s Easter so we’ve stayed put in EDEN, NSW, over the holiday period. Eden’s a nice fishing/tourist town on a very pretty coast. But surprisingly the park’s not full, maybe it’s the $44 per night fee that puts people off. Can’t wait to get back to bush camping! ....... and for everyone to go back to work
Left Eden after Easter and travelled the Princes Highway along the South Coast to WOLLONGONG staying at various places. It was interesting at a BEGA Cheese Factory Museum to find an earlier model of Smiths Inflations, my father’s design, on display. Newer models are still sold today.
We really enjoyed this coast with it’s variety of boating and surfing spots. It was quite a winding and hilly road in places with spectacular views. I think the weather in this area would be good all year, not reaching the extremes like most places in Australia.
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| Grand Pacific Drive |
Wollongong was really nice with great beaches and cycling tracks. Di and Eddie, whom we’d met in Geraldton, came down from Sydney to spend a day with us and we did a drive along the Grand Pacific Drive This bridge is quite an engineering feat.
I spent a day in Sydney, travelling by train (without “himself” who doesn’t like cities) and had a great time!!
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| Inside the Opera House |
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| Tiles on the Opera House |
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| Sydney Casino |
From Wollongong we travelled inland to CANBERRA. This trip gave us an interesting road. We had to climb the Great Dividing Range and in places it was quite narrow and we encountered some extremely tight bends. So much so that after we’d driven around one bend our GPS told us to do a “U turn” as it thought we were travelling back down the wrong way, the tight bends were so close to each other. There were signs advising to beware of trucks reversing around corners.
Canberra was great. We stayed 6 nights and each day was spent checking out all the interesting things this city has to offer. The monuments and buildings are most impressive: the War Memorial, Old Parliament House, Parliament House, The National Gallery of Australia, the National Museum and also The Deep Space Communication Complex.
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| Parliament Buildings |
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| Part of the RSA Memorial |
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| RSA Memorial |
The layout of Canberra, the Lake and surrounds are so attractive. But it’s a ‘city’ and so we had to move on but even John had to say he enjoyed Canberra!
The countryside is very brown now we’re on the inland side of the Great Dividing Range. Still waiting for rain. But the autumn colours are just gorgeous.
From Canberra we took the “Road to Gundagai” a small town on the Murrumbidgee River. Here we saw a unique “cathedral in miniature” created by a Frank Rusconi in his spare time. It consists of 20,948 individual pieces of marble, every piece cut, turned and polished by hand. It took him 28 years. No plans but a mind blowing piece of architecture standing about a metre high.
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| Dusty whirlywind |
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| Cockatoo |
Then on to JUNEE where we had some rain, at last. Junee is a lovely old town not far from Wagga Wagga. It is a major railhead town with a huge Railway Roundhouse built in 1940’s, parts are still in use but now is also a museum. It has 42 repair bays with a turntable of 100ft.
We visited “Monte Cristo” a restored colonial mansion, strongly reputed to be haunted but the present owners do not seem to mind. If a picture is hung where the ‘ghost’ doesn’t want it to be hung it will fall down until it’s put in the ‘right’ place. A reporter tried to do a story and take photos but her cameras all malfunctioned. ........strange ........ but fascinating.
We drove on to GRIFFITH, a horticultural area relying on irrigation from the Murrumbidgee River. But all the rivers are so low now, irrigation is being reduced constantly. We had more rain here but still not enough. People were so happy to have to use their umbrellas. But it’s not drought breaking rain yet!
Next stop was COBAR. Cobar is a lead, zinc, silver and gold mining town and while there we spent an interesting hour at the meteorological station to watch the weather balloon being automatically filled with hydrogen and released. This happens each day at 9.15am. It's about a metre long and as it rises it expands to maybe the size of a double garage before it bursts about 2 hours later at about double the height that jets fly. The scientific instruments continually send back information to help with forecasting. We were shown other equipment used for the current weather situation.
