Greens Lake

The lazy, restful days continue. Tuesday I went in to Shepparton with a fellow kiwi grey nomad as she wanted to buy a digital camera and thought I may know a bit about what she wanted. The result is that we have been experimenting with what our cameras can do. One evening I went for a walk and got some good reflections shots off the lake.



Then there were the experiments with taking photos of the moon over the water. I am quite proud of the one I took with the camp fire in the foreground.


About midweek we had some boaties come out after work. They provided another opportunity for us to experiment with our cameras.


Seeing as we are here for an extended period of time Brandt put up all the shade cloths that we had bought way back in Caboolture. They cut out UV as well as heat.


The one out front extends our "outdoor area" quite nicely. Unfortunately the wind often blows strongly overnight. A neighbour caught us out one morning putting one shade cloth back up.


Wouldn't be wearing winter PJs these last few mornings. We all thought of starting up our generators after "customary" curfew last night. Air con would have been welcome. We were told the overnight low would be 26 degrees.

I have a couple of snake episodes to report. The first snake was found (dead) in the men's toilets.





The other incident was when a couple driving in saw a snake swimming in the water with its head up in the air. They watched it slither ashore, called out the alert so that someone could watch and see where it went. However as it was an Eastern Brown, one of the most deadliest, the new arrival went and got a metal rod and proceeded to kill it.


You can see where he broke its back. The lighter colour is the underside of the snake.

While we have been here we have had various members of the Grey Nomads forum come to spend time with us. It has been a great sociable time.

A few days ago we had a series of thunder storms cross during the course of the day. Not much rain, but the fork lightening was spectacular. The crackle of the thunder was awesome/frightening/spectacular (actually the thunder report is from Brandt as I missed it. This was the day I went to Shepparton to assist with the camera purchase) he says he stood outside for a while just watching it pass by.

As I write this the wind has got up again and we are expecting storms again.

Why can't it be Christmas every day of the year?

One thing I didn't mention about our time in Tathra is that Irene and I decided that we would have an early Christmas on the Saturday night. She got out some of her decorations and I produced the small Christmas Tree that I'd bought from Big W


Then Last Wednesday we had another "Christmas Dinner" with our Grey Nomad friends here at Greens Lake.
I made a couple of pavs, Brandt made a trifle (and that used up the egg yolks in the custard), we did two meat dishes, one in the camp oven that we have been given and the other meat dish in the dream pot.
16 grey nomads enjoyed their early Christmas. (we even put Christmas music through our CD player and out to the awning through the external speakers we had installed on our way south).








Cheryl and Brian had bought some Christmas Crackers. Michael got some red lips in his..





A good time was had by all.

Into Victoria

From Cooma in the Snowy Mountains, we ventured further South, staying a night in a town named "Howlong" (there have been many jokes, puns etc at the expense of Howlong and also Toolong, which is another town in Oz). The proprietor of the caravan park in Howlong was amazed when she saw the name I had written on our registration form. Her maiden name was Bregmen and she is from Papakura. Of course a discussion ensued in which Bregmen identities were either known or not to both her and Brandt.

From Howlong we made our way via Shepparton to Greens Lake, where other grey nomads have been camped for varying lengths of time. At the writing of this there are 13 of us here. Upon arrival I took a photo through the kitchen window


Brandt has since put the awning out, and the only view through the kitchen window is of the roof of the awning.
The lake is very popular at weekends. One local chap offered rides on his jet ski


A down side here is the amount of bindi burr plant that is in seed. Cheryl decided to assist her dogs when taking them for a walk


Cute eh? We are frequently taking the burrs out of their coats. The socks are to prevent the burrs getting between their toes.

Here is the line up off RVs on the shore line

Snowy Mountains (minus the snow)

Left Tathra on Monday and stayed the night at Cooma. After talking to a couple of fellow travelers decided to stay a second night and take in a drive through the Snowy Mountains, which is the Kosciuszko National Park!


At first we were thinking of turning around and abandoning the idea, but then we noticed the "transit" entry on the board


We were told that the pass that we had meant that we could not get out of the car.......not even for a toilet stop!
However, we detoured for a drive through Thredbo





The road wound its way up the hill between the chalets and eventually back on to the road named Alpine Way.


We were on the highest mountain in Australia, noticed the trees all looked dead but were shooting again from the bottom


We later found out that there had been a massive brushfire through the national park in the 80s, which is why so many trees were dead.

On our return route we drove through Cabramurra, the highest town in Australia


By the way, if we had driven our scenic drive in reverse order, we would not have passed through a "toll booth" for National Parks which means wee would not have known that we should not get out of our car.

Sydney, Berry, Nowra, Moruya, Tathra

Two weeks ago left Hunter Valley and drove to Sydney. Had afternoon tea with a childhood neighbour of Brandt's, then found our way to Lane Cove National Park (on the northern outskirts of Sydney)
Monday drove through the outer suburbs of Sydney and South to Berry. (the garmin took us that way. We checked the settings later and decided that it took us on that route because it was programmed to avoid traffic. Have since changed that setting.)
At Berry met up again with fellow travelers, Brian and Cheryl plus their two dogs (I think Molly has a "thing going" for Brandt)


Cheryl and I both wanted to see the Sea Cliff Bridge so we all set out for a round trip that took us to the bridge


I took the above photo inside our car and the photo below I copied off Facebook


Our return journey took us via the Fitzroy Falls


and through Kangaroo Valley, with it's historic bridge


Next port of call was just north of Nowra, where we stayed two nights with a Young Farmer exchangee who had stayed with Brandt about 36 years ago.

Two days later moved on down to Moruya where we met up with Brian and Cheryl again and camped kerb side on the property of another Grey Nomad couple. (this stop was marred by the discovery on the Monday morning that overnight someone had helped themselves to our mobile phone extension aerial off the front of the vehicle and the part full Jerry can of petrol off the roof of the vehicle. Also the two driving lights mounted on the bull bar had been twisted, so we presume that they were going to take those too. Thankfully they didn't as the dogs barked and about five seconds later, Cheryl says she heard a car drive off in a hurry).
However we did have a good time in Moruya, taking a round trip to Braidwood on the Saturday with a drive along iconic Australian roads on the way home.

This last week we have been catching up with more ex Young Farmers in the Bega area. Monday night we stayed just north of Bega and from Tuesday to today, Sunday, we have been kerb side in Tathra. The days have been filled with another catch up in Bermegui,


shopping, shopping, the boys cutting out an unwanted tree, concreting, a spot or two of whale watching from the comfort of the lounge, and today a Sunday afternoon drive to Eden.



As we set out for Eden, a free-rider was noticed on the bonnet


So Brandt kindly shepherded it off the bonnet and to the side of the road




As a foot note the friends in Bermegui had an unusual floral arrangement


Close-up looks like this


In case you are wondering, it is cotton.