Camping Holiday: Day 4 and it’s Canberra

No post yesterday and my offering today is from our recent three week camping trip in parts of Australia.  Am struggling to keep up with the daily post and we’re just half way through the month.  

Missed sunrise this morning despite an early start, as it was overcast. We had breakfast and then packed down the campsite and were on the road around 10.30 heading for Goulburn. The couple camped next to us at Shellharbour informed Basil that the South Canberra Caravan Park was one of the worst they’d been in at due to the large number of permanent residents. Oh good, something to look forward to. The trip through Macquarie Pass National Park reminded us of Mt Messenger for a number of reasons: the road that wound its way steeply up to a plateau often scarily switchbacked on itself; and the dense rain forest vegetation something of a surprise for us. We’d been into Northern Queensland where rain forests are prolific but not many experiences of this type of vegetation further south.

Heading through the Southern Highlands made us think of New Zealand; green pastures, dry stock, sheep and dairy cattle grazing on hilly paddocks. The farming properties are huge and some of the properties on the farms quite magnificent but how many people actually live in those mansions I wonder. (Seems homes are getting larger nowadays. Is it because kids can’t afford to live on their own, or earn enough to purchase their first home? Homes now built for children to live at with parents until later than we did … back in the good old days.) Bernie’s in Moss Vale made a great half strength cappuccino and pot of tea that set us on the way to our next destination.

The reason we went to Canberra via Goulbourn was to visit YurtWorks a factory and the YurtFarm. Basil has had an interest n Yurts for a while now as we considered building one for ourselves at one point. Both ventures disappointed as the first was closed and no answer to our phone call and the second wasn’t at the address given on their website. No yurting for us today. Picnic lunch on the Wollondilly dam looking across the dam to the waterworks building was pleasant enough but quite windy.

Once back on the road we came straight through to Canberra stopping once to have a rest break and see the wind farm. Sorry about the picture the exposure isn’t very good and doesn’t do the scene justice. It was quite impressive: the sheep grazing in the foreground with the hills and windmills in the distance.

The GPS (aka Emily) navigated us directly to the South Canberra Motor Campground where we were met by two elderly women who appraised us with stern looks. We paid for our three nights and chose our campsite which proved more difficult than one would imagine. Campsites are usually marked out with site number and clear white lines demarcating the areas between which tent pegs must be and the power box clearly indicating to which site it has been assigned. Not here. We deliberated for about ten minutes trying to figure out which power box belonged to which campsites none of which had lines drawn and the sites on one side of the power boxes did not correspond with those on this side. When we found a campsite three sites down on the other side plugged into the power box up this end on the wrong side, we decided it was fair game and the dears at reception really did mean “anywhere down that area where you can find a spot will be fine.”

When the last tent peg had been driven into the ground we noticed a white four wheel drive vehicle doing circuits of the track. They finally parked on the opposite side of the track in a huge vacant area. Mrs came straight over to inform us we had pitched camp on their campsite. Difficult to believe given the layout of the park and we told them so, or Basil did with his “well we’re not moving’. “Oh that’s okay”, Mrs Mom said, “we just wanted you to know that you’re on our camp site’. She went on to inform us that the campers across from us had their tent pegs on her site and now we had ours on her site too. Oh dear, must have been a bad day all round. I guess we won’t be playing charades or enjoying a sundowner together.

The guy whose site we are actually on is quite unfazed by it all and offered us his car park and he would park in the opposite site which is as yet untaken. Too obliging. He lives in a small beachside village called Moruya which we’ve heard is worth a look see.  Good fishing, not that we’re fisher people, but there’ll be lots to see and do and fishermen to chat to.  Our friendly neighbour leaves on  Thursday.