Week 2 and a bit - Canberra to the Riverina

Note: the idea was to do weekly blogs, but we've been camping in the bush for the last 8 days and mobile coverage has been sketchy.

Rambley bit followed by photos...

We spent 3 nights with friends in Queanbeyan and caught up with some other friends in Canberra.  We've been here quite a few times in recent years and so skipped most of the normal Canberra touristy bits.  The one things we did go to was the Cook exhibition at the National Museum - it was about his first exploration of the east coast and gave indigenous perspectives on his visit as well as quotes from his & Banks' journals.

After Canberra we headed to the south coast via Cooma, including lunch with a local GP and others who we met at the very friendly Cooma Baptist Church.  We camped on the beautiful Bunga Beach just south of Bermagui and then in Nadgee State Forest a bit further south.  The coastline here is completely different to that at home  - very rugged, not to mention almost no people around.  (Except in the main towns, which are packed with Grey Nomads in massive caravans or campers.)

We then headed back inland to the mountains and camped for the two nights right on the edge of the Snowy River at Island Bend, which is between Jindabyne and Guthega.  This is an amazing spot surrounded by bush with fresh water to swim in and plenty of wildlife.  (Including a possum on the camper roof in the middle of the night.)  Helen ran up Kosciuszko from Charlotte's Pass while Adam and I went for coffee and then a much shorter walk to a lookout.  We also went kayaking on Lake Jindabyne and took the chairlift to the top of Thredbo and walked to a lookout to see Kosciuszko from a different perspective.  (It's still wasn't very impressive - if you didn't know it was the highest mountain in Australia you'd just think it was a lump on top of an extraordinarily beautiful mountain range.)

We changed our plans a bit at this stage - we were going to head through the mountains into Victoria and then South Australia, but we've decided to go to SA first as they are a bit skittish about visitors from Victoria.

So we headed through Thredbo along the Alpine Way and we're now heading west, staying just north of the border, until we hit SA.  We camped on the Murray River for 2 nights (on the northern bank, looking over the water at the forbidden land!) and are now on the banks of the Edward River in Murray River National Park.

Photos...

At the Arboretum in Canberra

Somewhere between Canberra and Cooma with trees recovering from last year's bushfires.  The pine plantations were killed by the fires and, in some places, forestry workers are working frantically to harvest the timber before it rots.

Cook, on his first voyage to Australia, thought this looks like a camel's back and so called it Mount Dromedary.  Perhaps it looks different from the sea, or maybe he had forgotten what a camel looks like, or perhaps his eyesight was damaged when measuring the transit of Venus.  Anyway, the locals called it Gulaga and have a much more interesting story about it being a reclining woman.

Next to Bunga Beach just south of Bermagui.  The "No Camping" signs clearly applied only to the other side of the carpark.

Cool bridge engineering in Dalgety.  It's from the late 1800s and built to a very similar pattern to one just outside Sofala.  The heritage sign said this one was the longest surviving double span bridge of a particular structure and design completed on a Wednesday afternoon during a full moon.  Or something like that - I just thought it was cool. 

The view from Adam's camper window onto the Snowy River.

Swimming in the Snowy.

Helen at the top of Australia.

Kosciuszko in the distance (perhaps, or maybe another knobbly bit) from near Charlotte's Pass.

On the chairlift at Thredbo.

Spectacular alpine scenery.

Looking across the Murray into Victoria somewhere near Jingellic.  There were more weeds on the other side of the river, proof of their Covid-unsafety.  I went as far as the middle but no further in order to complete the SA Police Border Entry Form honestly.

The Murray River further downstream, with cattle looking longingly at NSW.