Stuart’s Birthday Holiday, Part 3b

It didn’t take long to get both some great views and some interesting drops. The road however remained fairly wide but we failed to meet anyone!

Occasionally there were camping areas including one we should have photographed called “No Name Campground”. There was also a ridge called “Sign Post Ridge”…

There wasn’t much other than trees to see at that point though.

Another stopping point and lookout with a view…

And the view…

Before more of the same…

And the now standard stopping on corners…

Then another stopping place and a much better view in the opposite direction

We were in Victoria now.

Then we changed life and turned off just before a hamlet called “Seldom Seen”. Next time…

…before life continued with many more twists and turns and just generally a narrower road and greater drops if that was actually possible!

Told you. The road got narrower and twistier
And the views continued… (that’s Little River Gorge).

And that’s McKillop Road

Yep, he claimed that bit of Australia for the Taylor household!

And then it was time to make camp. It was late in the day now and we had decided to take the first campground no matter what.

That what was to be a sign that said “4×4 only”, not recommended as it usually said, but only. I’m mean how bad could it be? Cough… Only 5km of road, no road is the wrong word. That implies anyone could drive it… 5km of rough track that would have been hell to walk might be a better description. It started off lulling you into a false sense of security. Then suddenly it went down and down and down. Now a flat bit, then up! What do you mean up? we’re meant to be going down to the river. It repeated this several times. We were following a ridge down to a river junction apparently. But that was only to become visible the next day.

When we got to the campground there were loads of 4x4s in it. A 4×4 club had selected this campground for the night… But it was getting late now so we stayed. There were one or two surprised looks to see me driving Serenity and a few questions were asked when they saw I was on crutches… At least we knew we would have help if we needed it though I was informed that I should have dropped my tyre pressures for the track. Personally I would have done if I had felt that there was a need, however it was bone dry and was to remain that way and Serenity had never shown any reason as to have dropped them. She never had the slightest problem with the track. I was asked if I had felt scared at all doing the track. Err, no. It was actually good fun to drive it although I did have to ask Stuart at one point if he had any idea where the track was because I couldn’t see it because it dropped off that steeply I had stopped and decided that low ratio was needed at this point just for the engine braking alone and had now lost sight of it below the bonnet of Serenity. We made it to the end without any issues.

Our pitch for the night. Only the 1 dead branch above but it wouldn’t hit us if it came down.

The campground was busy!

There was definitely a change in the weather coming. That track would be interesting if not challenging to drive tomorrow if it rained overnight but for now, I was too tired to care.

Stuart’s Birthday Holiday, Part 3a

The next day dawned clear and blue again. This time however there are a few clouds in the sky. A sign that the weather was due to change, but it didn’t really matter. Today was a transit day and we needed to get out on the road. We were aiming for Eden because that was where Stuart wanted to go to. But we didn’t want to go there the easy way. We wanted something more interesting.

When the flasks were full, the roof tent down and everything packed and ready to go, there was one last thing to do. Fill up the fresh water. A lot of these sites don’t have fresh water, well actually they don’t have water full stop. This one had an old concrete tank at the top of the hill which collected rainwater from its roof. And there was a tap at the bottom. More importantly, with no one else around, it was easy to get Serenity up to the tap to fill the fresh water up. After all, our fresh water was rain water…

The water tank is at the top on the left, in the shade.
Then we were back in the land of boring roads, smooth, fast and straight and we knew the scenery all too well.

Lunch was had at the raw food Cafe in Cooma. We both had some delicious tortilla type wrap filled with “feta” and spinach that I forgot to photo! But deserts were photographed.

The chocolate caramel slice (all dairy free) was excellent. Stuart had the pear and vanilla slice.

Some supermarket shopping was then done and Serenity also needed feeding (LPG and petrol) and we were ready to get on our way once we decided on a route to take.

Eden was the destination, but we were not to make it that day. When browsing over the paper maps when we first arrived in Australia, I had spotted a major highway in the mountains that wasn’t sealed. It had intrigued me ever since and we decided to do it. I can confirm that it hasn’t been sealed yet. It probably won’t be. And it would be an awful road to drive in the school holidays. But right now, it was a lovely clear blue sky day, windows down, wind in your hair type day… oh and a mouthful of dirt. Forget the windows down idea…

Yep, that’s more like it.

We’ve learnt that whenever there is a lookout, is worth stopping because all you’ll have seen up to this point will be trees. If you want a view and some literature to read whilst someone else heads off into those trees (you can just make out the roof of the composting toilet… ) you need to stop at these lookouts.

Ok, now for the view. I’ll point out that every stretch of road you can see in the entire photo was road we were to soon drive. There were no other roads, only the one ahead of us.

Yep, even that road over on the right… Don’t ask me how we got there but we did.

It’s not a bad view is it?

I got bored waiting…

But it appears that Stuart had similar ideas only he felt like being more creative.

After that, it was glimpses of views and stopping on bends to have a good look.

It was actually a great road to drive even if the info sign saying that the next fuel was in 160km was a good reminder of what you were getting yourself into. Somewhere along the way life changed to Victoria from NSW. Nothing much changed of course.

(cont…)