Lazy Saturday

Oh bliss, a lazy day, nothing much to do just relax and watch the world go by after all it is Saturday and a Bank Holiday weekend Saturday at that

A stroll across the bridge and along the promenade, watching out for the huge pelicans resting on the lamp posts overhead, admiring the expansive sweep of the bay, people fishing off the rocks and others messing about on boats. A coffee each and a raspberry muffin to share at starfish café before we finish the walk back over the bridge. Now comes the interesting part: the bridge is suddenly shut to traffic and pedestrians but half way across the bridge, the reason, a boat is about to go under the bridge and it needs to open. It doesn’t cantilever like most bridges we’ve seen before, the whole middle section rises up. It all takes about 5 minutes before everything is back to normal, such a slick operation, all automatic controlled by the “house” on top of the bridge, now that’s where we should live!



Lorikeet

We spend the afternoon between the pool and sitting on the grass overlooking the bay, listening to the bird sounds get louder and louder, 6.30pm is feeding time for them and they’re restive! It’s such a beautiful evening we decide to go out to eat at a Tapas bar we’ve seen by the waterfront. The setting is perfect, the evening balmy and the meal wonderful, lamb stifado, crispy slow roast pork and white beans.

Batemans Bay



John and Jen

It’s with heavy hearts we leave this morning having enjoyed “The Canberra Experience” and the good company of John and Jen but we look forward to Batemans Bay. Thanks to more inside knowledge from our Aussie cousins we enjoy a lovely mid-morning stop for a coffee in the historic town of Braidwood. It’s a quaint town with the original court house and many buildings enhanced with the wrought iron lace balustrades. There’s boutique shops, shops selling home made goods or old second hand goods and an excellent bakery, that chocolate muffin had our name on it.


The rest of the journey is an unexpected trip back through steep mountain roads, switch back bends and lots of forest until at Nelligan we suddenly meet the Clyde river and follow it to Batemans bay. The campsite is right by the bridge into the town, perfect for leaving Glad for a rest and us exploring on foot. After a walk to explore we arrive back at the campsite in time to watch the early evening feeding of the birds. The noise of the loriqueets, cockatoos, galas and pigeons is deafening as they all compete for the lion’s share of food spread out for them in front of Glad. Several of the galas perch on the wires above wheezing asthmatically, while the cockatoos walk heavy footed across the top of our awning before peering upside down over the edge at us.

Canberra in a day!

Well today with John and Jen as guides we are going to try and see Canberra in a day and capture its essence and history. This is a very difficult task we’ve presented our guides with. We start out at the National Arboretum where fire came within metres of destroying Canberra but now there is the most magnificent replanting of a huge range of different trees and great views of the whole city. There’s also a wonderful National Bonsai exhibition, Dave and I feel inspired, perhaps this is the way forward for our gardening exploits. We continue with visits to see the governor generals house, parliament house (we go in to see both the house of representatives and the senate in session and visit the roof for great views). We continue the tour with visits to the national gallery which has a wonderful James Turrell exhibition and a beautiful reflection pool, the museum has so many displays it’s impossible to do more than scratch the surface of information and we finish with a drive up Anzac Parade, the avenue to the Australian war memorial. Our lunch stop amongst all this sightseeing is a delightful café in a rose garden with dappled sunlight and birds all around. All is interspersed with great conversation and information from both our guides about the history of places, their building and development and the thoughts of Australians on events etc.. The day passes with lightning speed until we are almost thrown out of the museum at closing time, we honestly could have stayed for days. In the evening Jen and John treat us to a real home Aussie BBQ and we all fall to reminiscing about times gone by and hopes for the future. John, Jen you we’re truly great city guides and even better hosts, it’s a time Dave and I will treasure for ever, Thank You.



Parliament in Canberra

 

 

 

Family Reunion

It’s with bitter sweet thoughts we get ready to move today, on one hand we’re sad to be leaving Jindabyne as it’s an area we’ve fallen in love with but on the other hand we’re very happy and excited about our next stop. We’re going to Canberra to meet Dave’s cousin Jen and her husband John, this also means we’ll be staying in a house with a proper bed and bathroom for the next 2 nights, such luxury. The drive is the reverse of our drive to Jindabyne, equally spectacular. We decide to stop for coffee on the way in Bredbo at a crepe and pancake house, it sounds unusual and we’re looking forward to choosing what we’ll have. As we approach the café, I say to Dave well we won’t be stopping here, there’s a note on the door “gone fishing back sometime”! Lunch and coffee postponed until we reach the outskirts of Canberra.

First impressions of Canberra as a city, where is it I can’t see anything but trees however the roads are excellent, wide and virtually empty. Later on talking to John and Jen they explain that Canberra is a designed city started in the 1960’s and is based on a series of self-contained village/neighbourhoods, with none of the development allowed to go above a certain height and definitely not on the top of the many hills of the area. What an excellent concept. At John and Jen’s we are given the warmest welcome imaginable and the rest of the day and evening passes so quickly with the exchange of family news , Jen’s excellent cooking and a visit to the centre of Canberra after dark for the “Enlighten Canberra” event. I can only say it is spectacular with all the major buildings lit up with changing light shows on different themes and little paper sailing boats on the lake all changing colour. Time for home and bed, we have a huge day of sightseeing tomorrow.



Enlighten Canberra

Ski Slopes in Summer

The morning looks grey not what we expected after the blue skies of yesterday, so instead of trying to hire a boat we decide to drive to the next village of Thredbo. The drive is lovely with the mountains becoming increasingly steep sided and thickly covered in trees. It comes as a surprise to us that we have to pay to enter the Kosciuszko national park, not that we mind the entrance fee of 16 dollars seems more than reasonable. Thredbo is a long skinny development built very much in the style of European ski resorts and is at this time of year like a ghost town, there are a few people mountain biking or walking the trails, we both feel like extras caught up in the wrong movie. We do our best to fit in strolling round the village, investigating the ski lift and having a coffee at the only place open (no après ski here currently). With no more to occupy us we head back to Jindabyne and a consolation lunch of lamb burger with greek style toppings of feta and mint salad followed by a walk round Banjo Patterson park to admire the scenery once more now the sun is shining and the many sculptures along the way. The rest of the afternoon and evening is taken up with lazing by the lake with feet up just watching the world go by and the busy bird life all around us.



Thredbo

From Coast to Alpine Lakes

Wow, and wow again is the only way to begin to describe the drive from Merimbula to Jindabyne. It starts out gently through small patches of trees and farmland before the Snowy Mountain Highway branches off and turns inland and upwards. The road becomes increasingly surrounded by forest all the while twisting and turning as it climbs, eventually we reach a view point and safe stopping point. The view through the trees to the coast is breathtakingly beautiful and amazingly the walkways are all block paved to further view points in the forest. Glad continues to climb sometimes reduced to a crawl, often round hairpin bends until without warning we’re on a flat plateau 1110 metres above sea level. This is obviously  a big sheep farming area as there are sheep everywhere you look. After some considerable time the road starts to descend and we get our first sight of Lake Jindabyne. The whole area reminds us strongly of The Alps, steep sided wooded mountains surrounding a huge azure blue lake and all the while the scent of pine reaches us through the open windows.

The campsite here is on the shore of Lake Jindabyne with gorgeous views through the trees of the lake and at its edge a small boat hire jetty. We can walk from the site into the village of Jindabyne along a walking track by the shore of the lake, it’s hot and sunny with cloudless blue skies, the only things we see are birds (feathered variety). There’s hardly anyone here as this is considered to be a skiing area so isn’t popular until the snow falls. We can only say lots of people are missing out on a beautiful area.



Dave & Jan at Lake Jindabyne

It’s too far to walk back to the village to eat, so Dave will have to suffer my cooking tonight, mind you the view from the table will make up for any faults in the meal.

Merimbula

Sunday morning and the skies are looking very grey and threatening, not to be discouraged we set off to walk to Merimbula. A kind Aussie couple stop and offer us a lift to town, which we gratefully accept, it turns out they have been coming here for 20 years and love the area, even in the rain it is beautiful. An emergency shelter in a coffee shop to order 2 Americano’s, this causes immense confusion “what’s an Americano?” is it a flat white – no – but at least a small part of Australia is not impacted by the global giant that is America!!! followed some window shopping while’s away the time until the rain passes. We walk back to the campsite via Rotary Park and Bar Beach, through what feels like rainforest. There are plaques along the way giving descriptions, pictures and uses of the indigenous plant species and all the while through the trees glimpses of the expansive bay.

After a brief stop for lunch, we set off to explore the beach behind the campsite. From the top of the cliffs the beach is spread out in a broad arch of golden sand with a lake behind the beach providing still waters. The walk is hard going at times with the soft golden sand squeaking as we walk over it and all the time the wind whipping up the sea into white foam. The sun provides pools of warmth that chase us along the beach. The day might not be the beautiful hot, sunny Aussie weather we dreamed of but it certainly is dramatic.

Now, the last thing you expect at a campsite in Australia we’ve come to believe is a vibrant music scene and a café serving surprisingly haute cuisine food. We wandered up to The Cheeky Mango expecting an average evening of entertainment, how wrong we were. The Aussie’s (and one New Zealander) were wonderfully welcoming, 3 brother-in-laws given a pass out by the sisters they were married too and here for the 4^th sister’s wedding, chatted to us (1 Farmer – arable & livestock, 1 general maintenance/lumberjack, 1 sheep sheerer-200 sheep/day!) as if we’d known them all our lives. Then there was the music, acoustic guitar, blues, harmony, blue grass and all with an Ed Sheeran look/sound alike, absolutely brilliant. I haven’t even reached the food yet, salt and pepper calamari with alioli and filo wrapped prawns (huge) with sweet chilli, a great unexpected evening after a wind-blown day.



Live music at "The Cheeky Mango"