Far South Coast & Snowy Mountains

OK so if you thought the South Coast looked amazing, wait till you see the Snowy Mountains in Autumn. Nearly everywhere we looked was worthy of a photo! Thank goodness we don't have a film camera because I just downloaded over 600 photos from our last week! It was tough picking which ones to use on the blog and after I'd finally narrowed it down to 108 photos, Geoff added some more that 'HAD' to be included... Enjoy.

DALMENY (South Coast)

The afternoon after I last blogged we made some mean works burgers, before heading down to the boat ramp at Narooma (10 mins away). We were thrilled when we got there to find seals and massive manta rays swimming around the boats coming in. We really didn't think there would be seals until much further south...

 In Narooma, there is also a cut out in some rock that looks like Australia!

CENTRAL TILBA

The next day, we checked out Mystery Bay but weren't overly impressed so we pushed onto Central Tilba which is a tiny, little historic town. There is beautiful countryside surrounding the town...

Driving into town, we came across some cool scarecrows...

 We found the best lollyshop in Tilba! Geoff thought he would try some of this Old Fiery Jamaica Ginger Beer. Other than Geoff spilling it on his face, it was uneventful and sadly tasted just like normal ginger beer...

Mmmmm... the homemade rocky road was delicious... 

We also found the BEST woodwork shop we have ever seen (Tony, you must visit here!)... 

Geoff was very excited and took heaps of photos!

 

 

 I tasted EVERY cheese available at the ABC cheese factory and we finally settled on 'Tilba Cracked Pepper' cheese that we later enjoyed with happy hour. I totally regretted my glutteness consumption of cheese as we drove away from Tilba as I had the WORST cheese breath!

BERMAGUI 

We continued on our drive through spotted gum forests until we reached Bermagui. Geoff decided this was his favourite town as it was "like a country town on the coast".

 If you ask me, this town was a little strange...

 The Bermagui Marina...

Just outside of town, Geoff stopped the car to take a photo. When he reviewed his photo, he cried out in delight, "Aw! That's a bloody postcard!". This is the photo to which he was referring...

TATHRA

At Tathra we found a big old wharf full of fisherman and a nice little wave to surf...

we had found our new home!

The next morning we ambitiously got up at 5.45am to join the many hopeful fisherman on the wharf. It was great to meet people and chat, watch the seals steal most of the fish caught before they got them onto the wharf, and just to be apart of the fun... even if we didn't catch anything.

At the Tathra BIG4 Caravan park (where we were staying), 

the National 'HARRY HIGH PANTS' recipient was awarded...

BEGA

"Bega! Where is the Cheese!"

We actually had to ask someone where we find the cheese in Bega. We both thought it would be obvious! Apparently not if you enter the town from the north. Did you know you can actually buy a tin of cheese? Well, at the Bega Cheese Factory you can! It doesn't taste too bad either. We'll store this puppy away for later use (perhaps in 8 months or so)...

NB. Where do you find shoes in Bega? Try the local barber's shop.

From Bega we starting making our way up to the Snowy Mountain Region. It was a big hill we climbed as we drove up into the clouds... check out our altitude.

The view from the lookout... not happening today.

We continued to climb until we popped out above the clouds. 

The scenery was so different to Bega and the South Coast...

COOMA

We found a caravan park in Cooma to stopover for the night. It had been a long day and I was tired...

Before we left the van park in Cooma the next morning, we found an apple tree and wild blackberries...

Also found an old abandoned shack in the bush...

NB. Where do you find surf/ski clothes in Cooma? At the BP Service Station of course.

Before we left Cooma, we spent some time at the Snowy Hydro Scheme info centre. It was amazing to learn about and we're so proud of Oz. It's one of the engineering wonders of the world! If you have blonde hair you might find this photo interesting... its so true!

SNOWY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK

This is the start of the fire trail leading down to the Eucumbene river where we planned to camp, (we have a NSW camping book with us and really just plucked a campsite out)... 

It turned out to be the most stunning, peaceful, isolated spot in the wild...

Collecting some fire wood along the way...

Our new backyard for the next 3 nights...

 This was the view from our camper...

Roasting marshmellows later that night...

The next morning it was still quite chilly when I left Geoff in the camper and went for a little walk. Not far from the camper I was surprised to come across a trout fisherman. Meanwhile, inside the camper, Geoff spontanously (and quite randomly!) decided it would be hilarious if he did a nudie run around the camper, (not knowing we had a visitor to our secluded camping spot). So as I was chatting to the trout fisherman, I suddenly heard Geoff yelling and carrying on as he proceeded to do his nudy run which ended pretty quickly once he spotted the trout fisherman! It was SO FUNNY and hilarious timing of the fisherman to come along. I'm not sure how much he saw but he said something like this to me, "yeah, ya don't need to be modest in these parts". We didn't see that fisherman again, so Geoff thinks it's probably a great method to scaring people away! Everyday we were there we saw at least one trout fisherman dressed up in all their camo gear and I managed to photograph one...

Not too long after this, we heard a "Hello there" from the top of the hill. A trout fisherman had reversed his ute on top of a large rock and was stuck. Conrad the Cruiser to the rescue...

Making jaffles for lunch with our new jaffle iron... they were the best!

The firewood we had collected the day before was Alpine Ash which we discovered burns really quickly to ash! There was lots of dead alpine ash on the top of the hill as it was killed in the 2003 bushfires and once burnt the tree doesn't regrow except from seed. We had one small issue... where do we put the firewood to carry it back to camp? Mr Fix It had a hair-brained idea to make a firewood slay. Very, very slowly he dragged it 1.2km down the hill back to camp... you can see in the photos there wasn't quite as much firewood by the time he got back to camp, but alas, we had something to burn!

Doing some exploring...

You can just see our camper up stream in the valley...

We had also purchased a camp oven to do some real bush cooking. Very bravely I attempted to do a roast beef and roast vegetables... now we just had to wait.

Still waiting...

While we were waiting a swarm of moths came by. Geoff got a couple of beautiful photos...

And finally it was ready and I was SO surprised that it actually worked! I never thought we'd be enjoying a roast dinner whilst on the road... (not the best photo, but it was great). 

3 cheers for our camp oven!

The next day we went exploring again. We found some massive wombat burrow's. There is a story of a Australian man who stepped out of his caravan right on top of a wombat. And apparently wombats are quite grumpy, angry balls of fluff and hence attacked the man. He was savagely bitten on the arms, legs and chest and the attack only ended when the old man was able to kill the wombat with an axe. After we read this, we were not so keen to go wombat spotting at night! They can charge at you, running up to 40kms/hr! They also have a weak spot for chocolate biscuits...

Sadly Geoff broke his driver at his last game of golf. 

Bonus for me, as I now have a beaut walking stick...

When we got back to our camper, it looked a little odd...

A gust of wind had broken a part of the awning. We can still use it but will need to get it repaired somewhere (still under warranty). 

My next bush cooking endeavour was to master damper...

  

I surprised myself again, (I'm definitely no chef), when it turned out perfectly and was actually edible! We had the damper with leftover savoury mince, and the next night toasted with bacon and eggs. 

This night (sunday night just past) was the largest full moon in 20 years! What a great night to be out in the wild. So we pulled out the tripod and had some fun taking photos...

The next morning as we packed up we were in the clouds (it looked great but was a bit wet and cold).

YARRANGOBILLY CAVES

We opted to take a tour into the Jillabenan Cave, (there was 3 cave tours to choose from). It is a limestone cave full of straw stalactites, cave coral and all sorts of other weird and wonderful names of things which I'd be blowed to name. Once in the cave though, it was truly God's hidden masterpiece! It's hard to describe. You really need to see it in person (the photos don't do it justice). 

 It just didn't look real. One word I guess. 

Breathtaking...

ROAD TRIP

One of the most stunning drives we have done was from the Yarrangobilly Caves to Jindabyne. 

Here are some photos along the way...

 It was tough finding a park at the Selwyn Snowfields...

 It was a deserted, ghost town. It was so strange being there alone. 

Geoff checked if he was still in skiing form...

Cabramurra's sign should read "The Weirdest Town in Australia". Way stranger than even the mining town of Glenden that we passed through last year. 

The view from their lookout was pretty special though...

On the road again...

The few photos below are all part of the Snowy Hydro Mountain Scheme. 

It's not just one power station, or dam, it's a collection all over the place...

 It was such a scenic day taking in all God's amazing creation. 

We stopped for the night on the Murray River at a camp area called Tom Groggins. There was an abundance of kangaroo's there that were a little too friendly. I had one about 1.5m away from me while I was trying to cook!

On this side of the Murray River is NSW. The other side of this river is VIC.

The next day (which was yesterday, Monday), we continued our drive towards Jindabyne. It was a rainy, cold day. Photo below is just near Dead Horse Gap... 

When we arrived in Jindabyne it was still a pretty wet and miserable day, so we just unhooked the trailer at the BIG4 Caravan Park and headed into town. Today has been a day to do some washing, make some calls (as we finally have service again) and of course do some blogging. 

The weather has been better too...

We're hoping to climb Mount Kosciuszko in the next day or two before making our way back to the coast.