Dog on the tuckerbox

So we reached Gundagai after visiting the Southern Cloud Memorial and seeing more snow capped peaks. We stayed in the world's noisiest caravan park although our van did have it's own little house! The Hume highway seemed to be immediately above us on the hilside and trucks were compression braking down the hill all night long.


One of Gundagai's claim to fame is a very long tressle bridge - in fact two, one for road and one for the railway, but both now defunct.

The dog is still sitting on his tuckerbox - will he never learn!

On the road to Gundagai

We are on our travels again and have reached Corryong in northern Victoria, although last night was at Hume Weir in NSW. Tomorrow we travel to Gundagai via Tumbarumba (what a great name!). The weather has been great but very cold at night - in the zero region. We found yet another rail trail on the disused line from Wodonga to Corryong and a tressle bridge at Boggy Creek, of which there must be hundreds in Australia. It was amazing to see the snow on top of the Snowy Mountains - you can see how they got their name.

Mt Hotham and Baldy Hollow

The drive up Mt Hotham from Omeo is quite easy - at least for Dave who was the passenger for this part of the journey. Up the top it was 23 degrees, windy and sunny so one of the best visits we have made - same time last year we were here in the swirling mist and about 10 degrees C.

The view from the top at 1800 m is magnificent! "Not too near the edge!", said Cathy.

It was so kind of someone to have named part of the mountain after me. I have a similar photo from many years ago in fromt of the "Little Baldy" signpost, but that does not seem quite so appropriate these days.

Dargo and beyond

We are camped on a hill overlooking Omeo having spent a great few days in the caravan park at Wonangatta where we swam, rested and drove the Disco up and down precipitous mountains. Hill Descent Control is amazing but somewhat frightening to take your foot off the brake to let it work!

Our first 4X4 trip was curtailed by an inconvenient tree, which had fallen across the track and wedged between two others. None of us had a chain saw so 10 point turns were required to head back the other way.

More fun was had fording a couple of rivers but the water level was down from last year so no water over the bonnet this time.

The trip from Dargo to Omeo on Australia Day was uneventful apart from the need to dodge oncoming log trucks whose drivers were not aware it was a public holiday. Stopped for lunch by the Tambo River.

And so on to Bright where it's supposed to be 40 degrees, but at least there is the river!

The perils of Bass Strait

Friday 5th / Saturday 6th Dec 2008 - Loading at Devonport went very smoothly though we could not say the same for the crossing. I am convinced that the Spirit was performing icebreaking duties in the middle of Bass Strait. We seemed to be hitting large lumps of something around 1.30 in the morning and it was hard to get any sleep until we passed the Heads into Port Philip Bay around 5 am.

We were off the boat and set up to have breakfast among the early morning joggers by 7.30. Then we had to find a route home that did not require use of the right hand indicator as this was causing very strange things to happend to the rev counter and temperature gauge not to mention the odd stall, which also happened whenever the headlights were turned on! When we got home I traced this to a couple of loose relays on the fuse box, which is anoying as we had been driving like this for three days - and I was blaming it on being a Land Rover!

Bridport

Wednesday 3rd/Thursday 4th Dec. Our last but one night was spent just 20 metres from the sea at Bridport and the weather was glorious including a great sunset as viewed from our van. We went for a long walk and Cathy managed the bend this tree right over with one hand - doesn't know her own strength!

Thursday was another working day for David with a visit to Bell Bay Power Station on the Tamar River. Cathy stayed in George Town with the caravan which we had parked right outside the town hall. Our final night in the van is on the other side of the Tamar at Kelso, where we have a friendly wombat for company. Back to Devonport and the ferry on Friday.

Summer in St Helens

Monday-Tuesday 1st/2nd Dec. Well its officially summer so I wore shorts and a polo shirt all day to explore St Helens and surounding coastline. Cathy finally managed to comandeer my jeans for long enough to wash them. Grease seems to pass through thin air whenever I get within a yard of the tow ball.

Binalong Bay is aptly named as it seems to go on forever, although nothing compared with Bay of Fires slightly further north. The white sand and brilliant blue sea could have had us fooled into thinking we were in North Queensland, but for the bitingly cold wind which has been blowing offshore while we have been here. The offshore winds result in what the ABC forcaster describes as "confused" seas - fortunately the fishermen are not confused and seem to be bringing in good catches. We enjoyed local oysters last night at $13 a doz fromthe fish shop and bought some more today direct from the oyster farm and still in their unopened shells for $8.

Tomorrow we are off to Bridport on the north coast and then to Launceston and back to Devonport for the ferry on Friday evening. Somewhere in that lot I have to visit Bell Bay Power Station to talk to a man about a tapchanger.