My Achy Breaky Heart

To be honest I have never had a great impression of Australian rivers. This is partly due to the fact that I have spent most of my time in Australian cities that have rivers like The Barwon, The Yarra, the Swan and the Brisbane rivers. All of these are really upside down rivers where the mud seems to float on the top, and not particularly attractive. I know that in writing this I am offending a number of people who are passionate about their slow moving bodies of sludge – but this is just my opinion. You see in NZ we have really great rivers. Fast, clean, lots of rocks and boulders. That to me is my idea of a river. But over the last week my impression of Australian rivers has been slightly altered.

Firstly, we spent 6 nights in Jindabyne, pretty much in the heart of the Alpine district. There we go to see the Snowy River, the Thredbo River and a couple of others. These are much more like the NZ rivers I am used to, although a lack of rain means that they are definitely below their best. We really enjoyed our time in Jindabyne. After 8 weeks on the coast it was nice to be seeing something different. The scenery changed almost immediately we left the eastern coastal plain, all of a sudden it became really brown and barren. After driving down the east coast for so long, we got used to seeing greenery, and so this was quite different. And we got up to Jindabyne we noticed something else had changed, it got cold. We have a ‘winter box’ in the car with warm gear in it. That got emptied within the first hour. Days weren’t too bad, but night times were freezing. That was one little reminder of NZ that I am happy to leave behind.

We stayed in the BIG 4 caravan park, just out of town and on the lake. It was out first Big 4 and our first time back in a Caravan Park since Port Macquarie, about 6 weeks earlier, so it felt a little cramped for room. But it was good to have a playground and TV room for the kids, internet reception for me, and washing machines for… (I’m not going to say it). Anyway, a bit of luxury was nice for a few nights.

We happened to be in town at the same time as the Country Music Channel Rocks the Snowies, a country music festival being held half an hour away up the mountain in Thredbo. We had a number of people in our caravan park attending (they had a courtesy bus going from the campsite, or should that be curtsy bus?), and we also went up to Thredbo for a look the day the festival kicked off. I have never seen so many Stetsons, flannel, black denim and country bumpkins in my life. It was like a Billy Ray Cyrus video… mullets included.

Despite this, our day trip to Thredbo was actually great. It’s a ski resort, and being summer it was a little shut down, but it’s a nice wander through the town center. We also took the chair lift up the mountain even higher and had a wander around up there for a while. The kids loved the ride up and down.

On the Sunday we were there, another town some 40 kms away had their show day, Dalgety. This is the biggest show in the area, and it was well worth the visit. Again, it was a little bit like wandering through the country music festival, but that aside, good fun. There was wood chopping (remember when this was a TV show in NZ…) prizes for cattle, horse show jumping, sheep dog trials, kid’s rides. They even had baking, flower arranging and vege growing and home brew competitions. Really, it had everything a country show day should have, and then some. The boys were actually really into the sheep dog trials. Ever since we have been traveling they have slowly been getting over their dog phobias, wondering up to people with dogs asking if they can pat them and things like that. The real test will be how they go with Moses in Geelong, but they are slowly getting there.

On our last day in Jindabyne we took a drive up the next valley past Perisher Valley ski resort, and up to Charlottes pass. I think this is the highest road in Australia, about 1900 meters above sea level. There was a little walk way up there wit views of Kosciusko and the whole range. The weather was awesome while we were up there, a great trip.

On Tuesday it was time to head off, so we headed over the Great Dividing Range (a drive and a half) and into the Murray valley. We followed the Murray and have ended up just outside of Cobram, camped about 5 meters from the river bank, and it’s quite a place. Again, my idea of the Murray was a dirty brown river with very little life, but I have been pleasantly surprised. Its not exactly clear water, kind of a murky green / brown day old dishwater water color, buts it’s flowing and quite pleasant. Everything around is very dry. We are camping on dust, which is currently mud after our morning of showers, but apart from that, very pleasant.

Yesterday we had our first bit of fishing for the trip, having finally purchased a license to fish. Even though we are on the Vic side, the water comes from NSW and so a license is necessary. And yes, we caught something. A golden perch, weighing just over a kilo, about 45 cm long (quite legal thank you) and went very nice on the BBQ last night with roasted potatoes done in the Cobb. The guys camped next to us (by that I mean 50 meters away) have a boat and have been fishing up and down the river for several days and caught nothing. We sat on the bank where they launch their boat and caught this in an hour of fishing… not too bad. There is a little debate over who exactly caught the fish. It was Tane’s rod, but he was not present when the fish got on the line, and he didn’t wind it in either, but he celebrated like nothing else. “I caught a fish, I caught a fish I really really caught a fish” he sang and danced around the bank. We even have photos to prove it.

This morning the weather was a little closed in, so we headed off for a drive, visiting a cheese factory, a buffalo farm and a winery. Not bad for a mornings work. From here we head to our house boat trip in Mildura. We have had a slight change of plans around this. We are actually going there via Geelong and leaving the kids there while Tracy and I head off for 3 days on our own. We feel a little sad / bad for excluding the kids from this part of the trip, but really feel we would benefit from the time just with the two of us and a little space from the little ones. From there we will travel back to Geelong and catch up with some family and friends.

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