Lake Eildon

We made it out of Sydney alive! with clean clothes, our tummies full of takeaway and Jarvis loaded up with grandparent hugs.

We stopped at Blackheath on our first night to visit Nonna. A visit which I had been dying for and as if a Nonna hug wasn't enough, she fed us her famous risotto, berry crumble and loaded us up with veges from the garden.

From Blackheath we headed over the range to Bathurst and then followed the western foothills of the range south. The drive from Bathurst to Young was gorgeous, well worth the trip if you're headed that way. Some of the highlights for us were the lunch stop at the wind farm near Blaney (such an engineer I know, but it was really interesting) and the orchards on the hills on the way into young. We only stopped for a night in Young before continuing south towards Vic. We had a rest stop in Cootamundra and we were hoping to see the Cootamundra Wattle in bloom but we were a bit late so only small patches remained. However we did make a fly by visit of Donald Bradman's birthplace, a fairly simple little house, but Jarvis has been asking "where's Dong's house" ever since and is convinced every historic looking house or pub is Dong's house. Maybe we have a budding cricket enthusiast on our hands.

We spent the next four days, including my birthday, at Lake Eildon. We stayed in a state forest just near Mansfield. Mansfield itself is a really cute town, it's got a bit of that Alpine feel as Mount Bulla is just up the road but also has great cafes, deli and all those sorts of things that we love. The campsite was great and free! We had a little clearing on the foreshore of the lake all to ourselves. The lake was extremely full due to all the recent rain and there were trees poking out of the water for metres from the foreshore. The lake itself is spectacular, there are steep rolling hills right down to the water with little farms, pine forests and bush. There are a couple of little towns, one of which is the famous Bonnie Doon ("love the smell of two stroke in the morning"). We took the boat the Bonnie Doon on my birthday. It took over an hour to get there due to the massive size of the lake and we found a little island for a picnic lunch. Rob got a spot of fishing in while during our stay at the Lake and Jarvis again assisted this process by sleeping for most of the time on the boat. We will definitely be back to Lake Eildon for a visit one day we have had a fabulous time here.

Jarvis fishing for a daddy fish.

Random camel by the side of the road

Sleeping on the boat

Campsite

Snow, Surf and Weddings

Due to lack of internet access and fairly regular moving between destinations, the posts have been somewhat lacking. So I wanted to bring you up to speed on what we've been doing over the last couple of weeks.

After we left Deni (amid a few tears, mostly mine) we set out for the Alps. We got to the foothills of the  mountain range near Khancoban just as it was getting dark and so we asked the guy at the petrol station if he knew anywhere we could camp (not in a caravan park). He suggested a bend in the Murray River not far from where we were. It was a gorgeous spot next to the river which was flowing fast, there was a small area of lush grass under a small grove of elm trees which were shedding their autumn leaves (perfect for some Jarvis jumping and crunching in his gumboots) and best of all there was noone to be seen. We set up camp in the quickly fading light and cooked up a steamy hot risotto to ward away the very chilly night air. We were even allowed to have a small fire. In the morning we woke to more cold, but also a gorgeous mist that had lifted enough by the time we had finished breakfast for us to see the snow capped mountain tops we were heading for. Unfortunately for this blog we didn't take a single photo. But the lack of photos has left me with a feeling that the place was just in our imagination, which is kind of nice.

The drive up to Thredbo was slow.. very slow. The camper weighs a lot and we have stacked Big Red to its capacity. I think we made a top speed of 40km/h. Thankfully the road on the western side of the Alps is much less used that the east side so we were left to take it at a leisurely pace without stalling the traffic. We stopped for some lunch at Thredbo and then continued down to Jindabyne for three days with Mum, Dad, Jess, Jake, Lara, Adam, Finnley and Ollie. There was snowboarding, tobogganing, snowmen making, apre skiing (aka drinking in the bar) and even a Xavier Rudd concert. Rob somehow won a hand painted guitar signed by Xavier, thanks dad for the ticket and rubbing some of your good luck on it.

 

From Jindabyne we headed to the coast. We stayed with Lara, Adam and Finnley in their gorgeous new place at Bermagui which overlooks the beach all the way to Camel Rock. After a few days we took the much anticipated drive a bit further down the coast to Merrimbula to purchase our very own boat, well a tinnie and a 15hp engine to be exact, but we were super excited all the same. We spent a night at Pambula in a gorgeous caravan park on the beach and then made our way back to Bermie. On our return we stayed with Grandma Laura on her divine property; Ironbark. Rob was promptly put to work (as all good grandson-in-laws should be) overhauling the garden and he did a fabulous job.

We then decided it was time for some serious camping in our camper and most importantly some fishing time in the new boat. We headed for Lake Conjola on the advice of Aunty Lara. And what a great spot it was. We immersed ourselves in Caravan Park life on the shore of Lake Conjola just a stones throw from Conjola Beach. The boating / fishing / reading expeditions were a great success. Rob even cracked a bottle (mini bottle) of Jack Daniels Black Label over the bow of the boat on her maiden voyage. The most successful part of these trips was the fact that I could read uninterrupted for a few hours and Jarvis had a 2 hour nap one day on the life jackets, not much in the way of fish were actually caught.

We then made our way towards Kangaroo Valley for the much anticipated Boundy-Church nuptials. We were kindly housed and fed by Gen and Matt in Bundanoon the night before, handed over Jarvis to his Pa in Bowral and then headed into the "Tie the Knot Festival" (otherwise known as Cath and Cy's wedding). It was three days of complete and absolute fun and a whole lot of love. What a fabulous wedding, well worth hanging around the east coast for.

Having attended the wedding of the century, passed through Sydney to drop off some unnecessary items and pick up our son, we will be heading west across the Blue Mountains tomorrow. It's been a fabulous couple of weeks and a great way to say goodbye to the east coast of Australia. It may be 12 months or more before we see it again but many adventures are sure to be had in the mean time.