October 15^th, 2024

After morning routines, we left Benalla and headed across the state line after filling up fuel in Wangaratta at $1.59 AUD a litre into New South Wales (NSW). It’s just a driving day today as we want to break up the drive to Canberra.

To Doug’s frustration, he tried the radio speakers and again his side did not work!

It was another sunny day but a bit cooler. By the time we got to Tarcutta (a llarge rest area with a little town around it), the wind picked up and it felt like rain. The free camp we’d found was a sports field behind the gas station that allows campers at one end as long as you don’t disturb the playing field. There are bathrooms at the gas station and more in town about 400m away, a pub, a couple of farm stores and a huge truck rest area with a dump station for RV’s. It’s apparently considered the halfway point between Melbourne and Sydney.

Doug worked on the speakers again and installed the other new one on the driver’s side. Then he tried to install the radio that John had given us that has a USB port but it wouldn’t fit; wrong connections, it’s much smaller and it seemed like a very cheap radio. So back to the old one it was. The reason we wanted a new radio was to be able to play a USB stick not CD’s (we don’t have any) like the unit we have.

We spent the rest of the afternoon online, reading and chilling and had a pretty quiet night considering we were in a truck stop town!

Next morning we awoke to rain but it was over by 7am. After tea and dish washing, we went over to the dump spot at the truck area and lo and behold there were free showers (for the truck drivers we assume). Fran had just said “let’s see if we can’t find showers today” too! So we took advantage of them after dumping and they were good hot showers with great pressure and pretty clean too! Bonus!

It remained overcast for about 1.5 hours and as we approached Canberra, it began to clear up big time. Canberra is the capital of Australia. It was chosen when they could not agree on either Sydney or Melbourne and it’s in between them. Like Washington, DC it has an enclave that encompasses it and nearby townships called ACT which means “Australia Capital Territory” within the state of NSW.

There is not a great deal of interest to us here but we always like to visit capital cities of countries. We drove over near the Capital Hill where the parliament is located and got parked in what turned out to be the area with a lot of parks and museums and access to the parliament buildings.

We had to pay to park despite our mapping app saying that the lot we chose was free and we walked ourselves over to the capital hill to see the parliament house building that was built in 1988 to replace the old parliament.

The area is quite spacious with lots of green space and trees.

We went inside to peek (you can go on tours and even sit in and watch sessions if you so desire – we did not) and took these photos:

Next we walked back via a different route passing more parks, empty pools and museums until we reached the river where across the water you can see the Australian War Memorial:

pic from the phone:

pic online closer up:

We reached the display of international flags but as there was virtually no wind, they were pretty flaccid:

then the Captain Cook Memorial Jet:

and back to Matilda. Then it was off to Costco for some cheap gas at $1.647 a litre but just enough to get us to Goulburn where it’s $1.519 – cheapest we’ve seen in Oz! We had to get a few litres at Costco cause we didn’t think we’d make it. We did go in the store for a few things as well and then over to the Woolie’s next door to do a shop which was really a day before we needed it but the next two stops are smaller cities that may not have the selection we’ve come to expect. 😉

Before arriving in Goulburn, we saw a sign that said we were crossing the “Great Dividing Range” at 723 m / 2372’ – about the highest elevation we’ve been at since arriving Down Under.

As we drove into Goulburn we were greeted by this:

We arrived in Goulburn, filled up (there was a small line up to get in) and then drove over to Visitor’s Information where they have “long vehicle parking” and allow you to spend the night. We’d read there were five spots so arrive at 2:30, we hoped we’d be good. We were the fifth one and after pulling in, there was actually room for another camper behind us. If there were five trailers/caravans, we could see that there would only just be room for four of them. It’s not pretty but also not ugly; it’s a parking area in behind with a hedge along the side. Goulburn was the country’s first inland city settled in 1822 by ex convicts and is a major rail hub between Sydney and Melbourne.

The temperature had warmed up nicely and we had a quiet afternoon.

Click here for more photos of Canberra and area.

Thursday morning, we had a more leisurely one; Doug went for a run, Fran did yoga, we had tea and left Goulburn around 10 am. We were heading northeast to Kangaroo Valley with one stop at Morton National Park to check out the Fitzroy Falls.

The parking at the Park Office cost $4 for the day and was also the park pass. We checked out the small visitor’s centre and then to the short walking trail over to view the falls themselves. In the centre, we saw a video of the Lyre bird with its colourful display of tail feathers. We walked nearly a kilometre on the trails to four different view points:

The falls view:

Then Jersey lookout:

followed by Richardson Lookout

and finally the Twin Falls viewpoint:

There were informative signs along the walk and when we went to use the restrooms before leaving we saw a Lyre bird! It didn’t display its feather and it kept on moving but Fran managed one head on good shot with our big camera:

A lyrebird is either of two species of ground-dwelling Australian birds. They are most notable for their impressive ability to mimic natural and artificial sounds from their environment, and the striking beauty of the male bird’s huge tail when it is fanned out in courtship display. Lyrebirds have unique plumes of neutral-coloured tailfeathers and are among Australia’s best-known native birds. Lyrebirds are ancient Australian animals; fossils of lyrebirds have been found dating back to about 15 million years ago.

We continued along the highway to Kangaroo Valley with a campground in mind (there’s no wild camping around).  As you approach the town, you cross the Hampden Bridge.

Hampden Bridge is a heritage-listed single-span suspension bridge across the Kangaroo River. Opened on 19 May 1898, the bridge is named in honour of Lord Hampden, the Governor of New South Wales from 1895 to 1899. It was added to the  NSW Heritage Register on 2 August 2019. The bridge has a sheer sandstone face on its northern side and sandy inclined riverbank on the southern side. The bridge features four large Victorian Gothic Revival crenelated turrets made of locally quarried sandstone. This elaborate form, and the relatively sophisticated structural design of the span, reflect the importance of this river crossing at the time of construction.

but before going there took the turn off to Bendeela Recreation Area along the Kangaroo River where there are supposed to be a lot of wombats – something we’d not seen in the wild as yet. We began to see wombat crossing signs on the highway – someone had painted eyes on this one:

Fran had read they are normally nocturnal and best seen at dawn and dusk but she saw two blogs where people said they roamed the campground down in the park. We drove it and saw none but parked by the river where a fellow said we could see the holes to the burrows which we did:

The river is a good size and we saw outfitters putting people in kayaks on tours.

Still no sign of the actual wombat except their scat and there was a good amount of that. Fran asked a fellow in a campsite who said he’d seen one last night but knew there were a lot around after dark; you can hear them scrounging around.

We decided to stay here the night even though the cell reception was almost non-existent. The campground we’d thought about going to was $24 a night for an unpowered site and here you just had to pay a booking fee of $6; there are no set sites, you camp wherever you like but it’s huge and there are toilets, drinking water fountains and a dump station. Can’t beat that price really. So fingers crossed it proves to be a good decision. We got parked on the edge of the camping area with some shade and sat outside reading for a while. The sky was clear and in the sun it was rather warm but not hot.

The quirky thing about this campground, is they have placed large brown rocks in places and we think it’s only to confuse you and mistake them for wombats!!!!!

In the late afternoon before making dinner, we saw two kangaroos hop across the campground!

The sun set around 7:15 and we took a short walk around the campground around 7:45 – nada so maybe it wasn’t dark enough. Just after 8pm we went out again and saw nothing in the main campground but as we approached the back area that is currently closed, we met another couple and they hadn’t seen anything but as we were chatting, we spotted a kangaroo lying under a nearby tree. While it was a full moon tonight, night time pics were not happening on the camera very well.

We separated from the other couple and walked more into the field and we began to see wombats!!!

Here’s a shot Fran was able to lighten up and it shows three wombats (not rocks!):

 

Although the first one did not seemed bothered by us, the second one scampered away quickly. We took pics of the first and third ones we saw and then walked away so as not to disturb them too much and make them feel like we were following/harassing them. Then we saw a few more further away.

On the walk back to the main campground we spotted a three more and then as we got close to our site, Fran saw one on the right side of the road and Doug saw one on the left with two kangaroos – these were too far away to get night time pics with or without a flash but we saw them – a total of 11 wombats altogether. This made camping out here with hardly any cell signal so worth it! The campsite only cost the $6 booking fee and there were bathrooms and a dump station – nothing else service wise.

Wombats are short-legged, muscular quadrupedal marsupials that are native to Australia. They are are about 1 m / 40’ in length with small, stubby tails and weigh between 20-35 kg / 44-77 lb. They are adaptable and habitat tolerant, and are found in forested, mountainous, and heathland areas of southern and eastern Australia, including Tasmania, as well as an isolated patch  in central Queensland.

Wombats dig extensive burrow systems with their rodent-like front teeth and powerful claws. One distinctive adaptation of wombats is their backward pouch. The advantage of a backward-facing pouch is that when digging, the wombat does not gather soil in its pouch over its young. They are not commonly seen, but leave ample evidence of their passage, treating fences as minor inconveniences to be gone through or under.

Wombats leave distinctive cubic feces and they arrange these feces to mark territories and attract mates, it is believed that the cubic shape makes them more stack-able and less likely to roll, which gives this shape a biological advantage. The method by which the wombat produces them is not well understood, but it is believed that the wombat intestine stretches preferentially at the walls, with two flexible and two stiff areas around its intestines. The adult wombat produces between 80 and 100, pieces of feces in a single night, and four to eight pieces each bowel movement. 

All wombat teeth lack roots and are ever-growing. Wombats are herbivores; their diets consist mostly of grasses, herbs, bark and roots.  Their fur can vary from a sandy colour to brown, or from grey to black.

Female wombats give birth to a single young after a gestation period of roughly 20–30 days, which varies between species. All species have well-developed pouches, which the young leave after about six to seven months. Wombats are weaned after 15 months, and are sexually mature at 18 months.

A group of wombats is known as a wisdom, a mob, or a colony.

Wombats typically live up to 15 years in the wild, but can live past 20 and even 30 years in captivity. The longest-lived captive wombat lived to 34 years of age.

Overnight a couple of wombats came to visit the camper and we knew this because they came over and went underneath as they like to rub up against the underside of the vehicle and we felt the camper rock for a bit!

Next morning we awoke to sprinkling rain and it felt very humid. On the way to dump our cassette, we saw three more kangaroos but Fran had left her camera in the back of the camper so these are phone photos which did not turn out too bad:

We left the campground and drove till we had a cell signal to do our Spanish and catch up and we saw two more kangaroos on the side of the road before stopping and one more through the back window while we were stopped!

Here’s a link to more photos from Kangaroo valley.

As we drove through Nowra we stopped at an auto supply shop and bought a new radio for Matilda since the one John gave us won’t work and the MP5 player he also gave us means more things to plug in up front and one more monitor that has to sit on the dash – we have enough electronics up front already!

We found something with a USB port and the kind clerk set us up with the proper connectors. Let’s hope this doe the trick for music for us!

South of Nowra we saw a big field in the distance with about another dozen kangaroos but no place to stop and view them. This is more than we’ve seen in the two months we’ve been here!

So with overcast skies and coolish temperatures, it was not really beach weather but that was our next couple of stops. The forecast did not look much better for tomorrow either so we decided to at least go see some of the beaches at Jervis Bay which are described as “magnificent with white sand”. Fran had found a possible wild camp away from the beach in the state forest, but upon checking out the road after the recent rain, we changed our minds:

There is also a beach here that produce bio-luminescence at certain times of the year but with overcast skies and a full moon, we weren’t going to be in luck to see that here but we wanted to see Barfleur Beach anyway. It’s quite pretty and has wonderful sand.

There we cool rectangular shapes in the rocks along the shore:

 

then it was on to Greenfield Beach – much smaller but very pretty setting:

 

Before leaving the parking area, we had our brunch and moved on to Hyams Beach which is supposed to be quite popular and we saw why: nice waves, white sand, lovely colour and a pretty wide beach – the widest of the three.

The rain had stopped by the time we reached this beach but it was still quite overcast and rain was to continue till at least tomorrow afternoon on and off.

We decided that as it’s not really that warm and we’ll have lots of opportunity for beach time later in our time in Australia, we’ll move on. There was a possible overnight stop at a rest area but upon reaching it we felt it was going to be too noisy beside the highway; it’s still early afternoon so we have time to find something better. Fran found a spot on the coast but we were sure it would have cell reception so looking a bit deeper, she found the show grounds in the city of Milton offered camping at a reasonable rate with free laundry machines! Sold, she booked it online and we headed there.

It sprinkled on and off all afternoon and never really cleared up that day. Fran got the laundry done easily (there were two washers and two dryers – both free!) and we had a quiet evening. We had hoped to be able to book two nights for a day off driving but Fran was told there was a community event this weekend and no campers could be on site (?).

We left around 10:45 after Doug’s long run and Fran’s yoga and a few chores (check out was 11) and it started out quite clear but turned overcast for a couple of hours in the late morning. On the radio, we heard on the news that King Charles was in Canberra for a couple of days – we just missed him – darn – NOT!

We stopped at Woollies in Ulladulla for a couple of items we were low on and then carried on down the Princess Highway to a free spot Fran had found on iOverlander at the beach town of Narooma. The town is divided into two sections with the north section on one side of the river and there’s park and two beaches with two parking lots. The larger one away a bit further from the beach was a perfect spot to spend a couple of nights and not be in the way. We parked at the far end to be even less intrusive. We’d read recently that some towns are cracking down on campers overnighting so we don’t want to add to the problem.

Here’s the gallery  of more photos from Jervis Bay.

The skies were now partly cloudy and there was a rather brisk wind.

After getting parked we had our brunch and Fran went for a walk while Doug installed the new radio and he did so successfully.

On her walk Fran spotted pelicans, cormorants, seals and a cool rock with a large whole in it shaped like Australia, hence it’s name: Australia Rock.

The beaches here are very nice; one is quite protected and calm with a sectioned off bit for swimming and the other has decent waves for boogie boarding or beginning surfers. They are both clean, not much seaweed and nice golden sand.

The next “trick” was whether the USB stick could be read; after hearing one song and it not moving onto the next one, Fran tried a different stick; that worked. Then the first stick gave us an “Error 23” code meaning the stick needed reformatting which means everything gets deleted. She copied the music back onto her old computer and then saw that some of the music on the first stick was not in MP3 format so after reformatting the USB stick and reformatting about 500 songs she tried it the next morning and it seems to work. The only thing was if the USB is in “random” mode, it won’t fast forward or rewind songs so we’ll just leave it non random mode. We do have another large 32GB stick if this one once again gives us issues. Fingers crossed.

Sunday we awoke to clear blue skies. While Fran was testing out the USB sticks in the radio, she had a visitor; he was very inquisitive and not shy at all; he watched her through the window and when she got out, she could walk right up to it. When he hung around more than a few minutes she quietly went to get her phone and he was still there so she got this video:

After about 7 minutes with her, he took off and went over to the van about 12 spots away and checked him out.

After a morning chat with Serena, we had a quiet relaxing day taking in the sunshine, walking, reading, and ended up at the beach watching surfers around happy hour with a drink sitting on a towel. Lovely day!

Found on the beach:  a shell covered rock, an urchin and blue bottle jelly fish:

Monday morning after the usual morning routine we worked on a few rig issues: again the bathroom window was causing issues closing but we sorted it and we went around the back of the bridge and taped up gaps where we thought wind blowing into the rig around the fridge.

Then we drove through the cute town of Narooma to the other side of the spit to check out the “Australia Rock” and to get a better view of the Australian fur seals resting on the rocks and frolicking in the tidal water of the channel. It was another perfectly sunny day, not too warm, a bit breezy and perfect for watching the sea.

The Australian fur seal is the largest of eight species of fur seal in the world. They have two layers of fur, a longer outer layer of guard hairs and a fine underfur for warmth. 

All seals belong to a group of mammals called pinnipeds. Fur seals have tiny ears and use both pairs of flippers when ‘walking’ on land, unlike phocids (true seals), which have internal ears and can’t use their rear flippers for ‘walking’.  Although they can breathe on land, Australian fur seals prefer to live in the water and spend weeks feeding at sea. As you can imagine, they’re very good swimmers!

They have excellent underwater vision and can dive to 200m, spending a lot of time feeding on the bottom of the ocean. It is thought they are able to detect vibrations from prey with their sensitive whiskers.  They can hold their breach  underwater for seven and a half minutes! 

Fran took way too many pics and video but she hopes watching the seals play puts a smile on your face too!

And if that’s not enough, here’s  more photos from our time in Narooma.