Queanbeyan-Canberra-Gulgong

We left Batemans Bay on Thursday and tackled the drive up Brown's Mountain we did not find the climb as bad as we had expected, we have experienced worse before. Arrived in Queanbeyan early after lunch and headed straight to Alan & Faye's home as they said they had plenty of room for us to park in their driveway. We met Faye & Alan on one of our previous trips four years ago when we were travelling up to the Gulf of Carpentaria, we then crossed paths on a few occasions and spent some time in Cairns at the same caravan park. Since then we have kept in touch and two years ago met up with them in Rockhampton, unfortunately they will be late getting away this year as Faye has to go into hospital for an operation.

We spent Friday in and around Canberra doing the usual tourist thing of a guided tour of Parliament House and visiting the War Museum then reacquainting ourselves with Canberra and surrounds. The weather was fine but had a very chilly nip to it, especially when we drove up to Black Mountain where the Telstra communication tower is.

Today after a lovely breakfast of eggs and bacon with Faye & Alan we set off  at 9.30am to our next destination of Bathurst. Unfortunately the wet weather had caught up with us again as we travelled towards Goulburn and continued all day. Alan had suggested we take the direct route to Bathurst so after passing through Goulburn we headed north through Taralga & Oberon.Yes it was a good road but he had forgotten a couple of important details such as very, very steep descents and equally steep or steeper climbs out with two very sharp hairpin bends which took the momentum out of the vehicle, we thought we may have started going backwards a couple of times. Must remember not to consume red wine when discussing travel plans. Some of the day was spent travelling through fog due to the elevation as we were passing on the western side of the Blue Mountains National Park. We arrived in Bathurst around 2pm weather still wintery & wet so decided to keep moving north. We finally came to rest at Gulgong after travelling through Portland and Mudgee we pulled in around  5.20pm after travelling around 500klms.

Batemans Bay

We left Moruya very early Tuesday morning and travelled a big 27klms to Batemans Bay, we arrived at the Big 4 Beach Resort before other travellers even checked out. Thought we would get in nice and early to give us a full day here, have had a lovely couple of days weather wise have even cracked out the shorts and three quarters although the nights have been quite cold.

On our way here to Batemans Bay we travelled through an interesting little town Mogo which is only 10klm south of Batemans Bay. As everything was still closed due to our early rise, we decided to travel back down to browse around the main street, the boutique shops displayed the usual arts, crafts and gift wares. After enjoying a light lunch we returned to Batemans Bay where we did some sight seeing around the town and surrounding coastline, it is a very pleasant pretty place. Then it was off to the supermarket to stock up on supplies.

Bazza was up early again this morning as he wanted to wash the car, he had given the caravan a spruce up yesterday and I caught up with the washing and gave the van a quick clean inside as well. After all this cleaning we decided we would go for a ride along the water front on our bikes, only thing wrong with this was our little posteriors were not use to the bike seats. After a nice 7klm ride we were very glad to be back at the caravan park and able to sit in comfort and read for a couple of hours in the sun.

Eden

Left Paynesville about 9.30 this morning to an overcast cool morning, travelling through some lovely dairy country side near Orbost, and stopping for lunch at Cann River Snowy Mountain region. It was certainly chilly there and a nice hot pie went down well. Most of the drive today was through winding hilly terrain after leaving the coast. We crossed the Victorian – New South Wales boarder not long after lunch and I could feel it warmer already, arriving in Eden around 2pm. Lovely sunny day here and able to go for a nice walk down to the beach and along the boardwalk, we also checked out the dead centre of town.

A view to die for!