Entry 2 - Canberra & Onwards

Entry 2 - March 2018

As always it was good catching up with Canberra based son Tim and his wife Penny. There was the constant chatter, sharing one another’s news, thoughts and plans. Tim showed his appreciation for his dad’s presence with a wish list of things to do around the house. Tim and Steve spent time at the shops purchasing an internal ceiling fan, an external roof mounted solar powered air vent, some new sink taps, locks for the house windows, a new stove range hood along with various tools and materials to assist with fitment.

Penny and Mary enjoyed time together cooking up some feasts for their hard-working men.

Our tow tugs recent fitment of a bull bar and suspension upgrade was booked in for the required 1000-kilometre inspection and tightening at the Canberra based TJM shop. Naturally this required us to arrive across Canberra at 8.30am with peak hour traffic. A nearby café provided us with a delicious bacon & egg roll with a pot of tea for breakfast while we waited for the job to be completed.

We spent 7 nights at Tim’s home, occupied most days attending to Tim’s wish list and enjoying their company.

Leaving Canberra, we travelled nearly 100 kilometres before calling stumps for the day camping overnight on the bitumen carpark of the Servicemen’s Club at Braidwood. We enjoyed walking around the town viewing many different 18^th & early 19^th century building architecture. The National Trust had classified the whole town as an urban conservation area.

About another 60 kilometres down the road we stopped at the visitor’s information centre at the coastal town of Batemans Bay obtaining some local information for our interests. We topped up the pantry and travelled about 10 kilometres north to the North Head campground in the Murramarang National Park. It was in a magnificent bush setting with the constant soothing background sound of crashing waves, with a lovely beach located about 150 metres away and it was a no cost camp ground. In the morning we woke to the sound of the surf, the singing of lyre birds, kookaburra’s and magpies. Monitor lizards wandered about the campground with kangaroos present evening and morning. We walked along the beach and along the walking trails. Unfortunately, the sky was blocked by a beautiful tree canopy which impacted our need for solar power and we had to move on after 3 days to find open skies due to low battery power. It had rained during the night and we appreciated our tow tugs 4wd capabilities for the 10 kilometres of driving on hilly wet tracks back to the bitumen road. On a down side our tow tug and caravan lost their shine, covered by a coating of dirt.

Route to campground

About 40 kilometres down the road was our next destination, Congo camp ground in Eurobodalla National Park. On one side we had a lovely bush setting with the other side having beach and ocean views. It was a superb setting and would have held us captive for many days if it hadn’t been for the grey skies and several showers of rain over the day. We still managed to squeeze in a couple of lovely beach rambles. However, with a dull weather forecast for the next few days we decided to seek out a caravan park to obtain access to electricity and fully recharge our caravan batteries.

Congo campground

We stayed a night at Tuross Beach caravan park about 22 kilometres down the road where our batteries obtained a good charging. This is a lovely secluded little township, we walked to the boatshed to have fish and chips overlooking the water. Unfortunately, this establishment was not open, so on we went to the town centre. We had a very pleasant shared Asian meal instead. We were travelling in the most populated state of Australia and with a long holiday weekend approaching we needed to find a location to set camp before being inundated with people crowding the coastal regions of our present location for a getaway. About 20 kilometres down the road was Lake Brou a free campground still in Eurobodalla National Park. We were lucky to obtain a spot with a small hole in the overhead tree canopy where we were exposed to full sun for about 1 ½ hours in the day providing our batteries with the required daily dose of solar power charge. This was another beautiful location with the lake located about 200 metres away on one side and a lovely sandy beach on the ocean about 200 metres on the other side.

Jelly fish in lake

We enjoyed walking along the beach, swimming in the ocean, walking along bush tracks and chatting with other happy campers.

Steve attempting to bogy board on the waves

An outing for the day involved a small drive to the small township of Dalmeny, about 5 kilometres down the road, where we followed the coastline. Stopping and viewing many beautiful bays with surfers riding the rolling waves. We continued to the township of Narooma another interesting location. On the northern side of Wagonga Inlet bridge we stopped to view the constant stream of returning fishing boats at the boat ramp and were mesmerised by three playful seals floating in the water next to the boat ramp. With the arrival of each new boat a large stingray would swim up for a look, then disappear back into the waters depths.

We obtained some provisions in town, continued through town to the breakwater for boats entering from the ocean into the inlet. At this location was a rock with a hole resembling the shape of the Australian coast line. We walked out to the end of the breakwater and were entertained by another seven seals. Continuing along the coast we travelled past a magnificent looking golf course with uninterrupted views of the ocean. This area of coastline provided brilliant viewing with wonderful scenery which also came with plenty of people about, either living there or visiting.

For us Lake Brou was one of those special locations in a great setting providing positive thoughts, for good well-being. Every night we participated in happy hour with other campers and the below photo shows the effect of Lake Brou on sun set with happy hour still going strong 3 ½ hours on.