We were on the road a bit after 9am, heading 40 mins south over the border and back into Vic to Genoa.
Genoa is the first area south of the Vic/NSW border. Genoa has an old run down pub on what was many years ago the old highway. There are two other derelict buildings but nothing else.
Genoa is much more famous and more simply known as the turn off from the highway to head to Mallacoota.
We’re camped in a freecamp on the banks of the Genoa River.
We’ve stayed here a few times before and Ross took Max for a walk over the old bridge to where the pub is located, well off the highway, on a side road to nowhere which at one point long ago the original highway one.
The Genoa Hotel is invisible from the highway, and would attract absolutely zero passing trade.
The pub has a for sale sign, no cars out front and looks very much “no longer trading”. Back at camp the real estate article suggests the pub still operates so Ross and Barb will wander over later for a cordial.
There’s no mention anywhere in the camp area of a pub within a pleasant hundred metre stroll. A check of Wikicamps and there’s no mention of the pub in there either.
What an incredibly stupid and tragically missed golden opportunity. This freecamp is incredibly popular, there are always people camped here. Often there would be 50 plus people in the camp area each night and most of them would be oblivious to the existance of the pub
Barb enjoying a peaceful zen like relaxation in the sunshine. Barb is indicating to Ross how happy she is her by hold up the number 1, meaning very happy
Ross made friends with an elderly couple this morning who pulled into the campground and wandered over to our camp for a chat.
They were heading into Mallacoota. The guy asked if we’d seen any chickens around. What a really odd question to ask.
The fellow told the story of how he stupidly volunteered to help some old muncher on a charity walk from Syd to Melb some 15mths ago, and they camped here during the walk.
There were apparently 6 or so chickens wandering about the place. Ross suggested chickens arent generally your survive in the wild type animals, and would likely have been eaten long ago by foxes … that’s of course if these chickens had in fact ever even existed outside his mind
It’s now not hard to guess what turned up shortly after that conversation ….. WTF, you guessed it a bloody big chicken. We’ve the movie Chicken Run, and chickens can be very sneaky.
We sat outside and watched the Aust Open on satellite tv, and play with Max most of the morning till shortly after lunch
Freecamping attracts all kinds of people, with just as diverse a range of reasons for travelling off the grid. Some folk at one end of the scale find it just a cheaper way to live, and at the the other end are retired folk in 1/4 $mill setups living like mobile royalty
Somewhere in between youll find some harmless but genuine nut jobs. You can predict who or what will turn up in a freecamp. Being a old muncher wandering around in your undies for a few hours is pretty normal for some folk.
No matter how hard you try something are impossible unsee … so you photograph it and post it on your blog
Ross and Barb left Daniel and Max at the van, and wandered over to the pub for a cordial or 10. They were the only people within cooee and had thd publicans undivded attention. He had lived in the area his entire life, had owned the pub for the last 20 years and was a wealth of knowledge on the pub and the area.
It was a great way to spend an hour or so
We’ll add the hotel to Wikicamps. The sale of the pub is apparently under contract. Hopefully the sale goes through and the new owner will see the benefits that the freecamp could provide
The campground started to fill up and the chicken even come visiting … but it waited until we’d had dinner. Its a decent sized but how the hell does a chicken survive in the wild.
A rental motorhome pulled into camp and the Chinese occupant came over to ask for a screwdriver to fix the toilet door. She came back and asked if i knew why their 240v camera battery charger wont work …. ummmm !!!!
Hmmm, there are many many funny retorts that sprang to mind but none would have been appropriate … funny, but not appropriate.
Ross put their battery on our inverter, and spent an hour or so chatting with them
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