Gundagai

Rain on and off all night last night … and another thing we aren’t used to, it was quite cold.   The night before, in Nelson Bay,  we had all the canvass open, all night long, to let in a breeze.   Last night we were all rugged up hiding from the rain and cold in the camper ….. and we had the heater on this morning before we left.

Ross got up during the night as he heard a clicking sound that was a little too disconcerting to ignore.   All seemed to be ok, but he found out what was causing it the next morning.   The camp next door, which was dubbed “Camp Half Arsed” looked like a tornado had narrowly missed us and got them next door.   Only half their pegs were in and every piece of the crape paper thin camp gear was flapping in the breeze, with metal eyelets and pegs banging into the car all night.

They say what goes around comes around ………

Huge day for the Poo Poo Head today. Aside from the first day to Mallacoota, this is the biggest day in the car. All 5 1/2 hours of it. Considering the distance and time locked into the car seat, he did a pretty good job.

We headed out from Narrabeen but forgot one extremely important aspect of the planned days travels …. Peak hour traffic ….. in SYDNEY.

We had to get south and west of the city to find the Hume Hwy.   It was an epic journey with Katie doing a glorious job of helping us out.   Neither Barb nor Ross realized that Sydney had so many tunnels, and we think we ended up in all of them.   We had to cross many kilometers of city streets and roads before we got anywhere near a freeway, and then a different kind of fun started. With the confusion on the freeways, Katie yelling directions, Poo Poo Head demanding attention it was all almost a bit too much for Ross.

We think we may be up for about $300 dollars in freeway tolls as well.

There are so many forks and splits in the freeways, we would hate to try to negotiate it without Katie, it was difficult enough with her guidance. To Katies credit, she somehow even works underground … a true woman – can still talk and issue instructions even when underground.

Few big rigs at the piddle stop.   We all hang out together, us big rigs.

In the back of Ross’s time machine ….. apparently if you get in the back and close your eyes (say the magic word), when you open your eyes you’re already hours into the future.   No such luck for the time machine pilot, he has to endure every laborious minute.

We hit the open Hume freeway after 1 ½ hours and just rolled and rolled and rolled until we hit Gundagai.   We of course visited the dog on the tuckerbox which is now metric … 8 kilometres from Gundagai.   The kiosk and surrounds are all closed up and the dog seems a bit lonely.   With a massive BP service centre 100 metres up the road I can guess why the kiosk is closed.

It turns out that the story of a faithful dog waiting for it’s master, siting on his tuckerbox, is a crock of dribble. The legend, apparently, is of some guy who basically got bogged and his dog “sat” (or possibly shat) on his tuckerbox …….. crap story, and Ross wishes he never stopped and read that damned story board. Poo Poo Head couldn’t see what all the fuss was over either.

Gundagai was merely a sleepover mid way to Beechworth, but Ross was pleasantly surprised by the town.   It’s quite a nice town with a main street and surrounds steeped in history.   Poo Poo Head had an ice cream in the Niagara Café on the main street.   It boasts almost 100 years operation and was visited by Prime Minister ‘s John Curtain and Robert Menzies .

There is the single longest trestle bridge still in one piece (almost) in Australia which served for 80 years as the main Murrumbidgee crossing between Melbourne and Sydney until 1977.

Ross loves all that stuff.

It’s ironic that we have spent the best part of 5 weeks along the east coast all of which has, at worst, minimal water restrictions, and we had to wait until we traveled inland, deep into drought effected Australia to get our very first lush green grass caravan park site.   Ross is lying out on the grass right now.

Poo Poo Head isn’t very fond of chocolate and lollies.

The Gundagai caravan park is right next door to the public outdoor pool, so it was a little too inviting to pass up a swim.

Off to Beechworth for a few days tomorrow, weather dependent of course. Ross is really looking forward to the mountain bike park.