4 - Cotter Campground just down the road from Canberra.
Another one of Australia’s great rivers is the Murrumbidgee
River flowing for 1600 kilometres from its infancy in Kosciuszko National Park
to where it connects with the Murray River near Balranald in NSW. The
Murrumbidgee River travels for 66 kilometres through the ACT with Canberra’s
drinking water drawn from the Murrumbidgee River.
After driving about 35 kilometres from our son’s home we set
camp at the Cotter Campground in a beautiful bush setting overlooking the
Cotter River which flowed into the Murrumbidgee River near the campground. We
had never visited this area and as each new day presented - our fondness
increased appreciating the scenery and walking opportunities available around
this region.
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| Scene directly to rear of our caravan |
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| Left - Murrumbidgee River on the Right the end of the road for the Cotter River |
We walked each day with walks ranging from an hour to a few
hours. There were the well-defined cement walking paths and a mix of steep
rugged bush tracks meandering through a great bush setting.
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| Slow moving red bellied black snake |
One of our main reasons for being in Canberra at this time
was to see the hot air balloons. It was a fabulous experience being up close to
the balloons whilst on the ground. Unfortunately we were not in luck with an
opportunity to view them in flight.
Day 1 fog stopped any chance of a launch, day 2 the weather
forecast was for more morning fog so we decided to rest our bodies from the
shock of an extra early morning wake up only to learn after the event that the
balloons managed to launch in the morning. Day 3 we were up early to read on
the balloon web site “No Launch due to weather,” and managed to go back to
sleep. Day 4 we were up early and the web site showed “Launch Pending”, so
whilst awaiting a decision we got dressed and ready to drive into town hoping
to have enough time to view the launching of the balloons. Eventually the web
site displayed “No Launch due to weather” and by then we were dressed and fully
awake with nowhere to go.
We decided our bodies had sustained enough punishment with
broken sleep and we would no more set the alarm for those early morning wake
ups.
Our first morning at Cotter Campground we were awoken at
5.30 am by a nearby vehicle closing their doors and driving out. Our thoughts
immediately focused on the balloon flights where we assessed we were just as
close to the launch area as we were at Tim’s & Penny’s home. Unfortunately
we had no phone reception and we started the drive towards Canberra. After
several kilometres we obtained phone reception to discover “No Launch due to
weather.” A U turn was executed and we returned for an early breakfast then
back to bed.
Day 2 at the campground and we were once again awoken at
5.30 am by 3 vehicles noisy departure (as it turned out they all departed at
that time to avoid paying their camping fees to the ranger in the morning and
all returned in the afternoon for another nights free use of facilities.) Being
woken by these vehicles we slowly pushed ourselves to have another try with our
luck at balloon spotting. Well it was drizzling and we were contemplating that
U turn but persevered and when we got phone reception the web site showed “Balloons
are Launching.”
We were already a bit on the late side and headed to the
lookout at the Arboretum where Tim & Penny had mentioned people use as a viewing
spot for the balloons.
From the lookout we saw all the balloons had already
launched but were still at a low level. We spent a couple of hours at the
lookout watching the balloons in flight, with the added bonus they nearly all
floated towards us landing in the paddocks on the other side of the lookout.
The only disappointment was with the overcast weather and balloons regularly
disappearing into the low misty clouds.
We were still ecstatic having viewed the balloons in flight.
And we could only imagine how spectacular a spectacle it would be with a
beautiful blue sky as a background which Tim had informed us was normal for the
balloons to be seen with beautiful blue cloudless skies.
We spent 4 enjoyable days at Cotter campground before we
moved on to explore other locations with our next target Mount Kosciuszko
national park.
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