The journey continues

After leaving Dalmeny we followed down the Eastcoast through Narooma, stopped at Gillards Beach in Mimosa National Park, only a few trees and some sand dunes that separate us from the beach.  Four Kangaroos kept walking around the front of our Motorhome, not in the least afraid, or so it seemed.  When the Ranger came by, to collect the camp fees we were both very surprised that the fee was $20 for one night; had I not had a National Park exemption we would have had to pay $27.  This is quite a high fee when you consider that there are no facilities provided except simple toilets.

Next morning we followed down the coastline through Tathra, Merimbula and Eden and stopped 20km south of Eden at a nice Rest Area for the night.  I collected some firewood and we had a great fire before turning in for the night.  The weather had turned quite cool the further south we got, so next morning, instead of crossing the border into Victoria, we backtracked toward Bega and then headed northwest into the Snowy Mountains, the town of Cooma, a little shopping and then drove up to a Lookout with a fabulous view across the High Country.  We were at 1400m so the night was rather cool.

 The drive across the High Country was great with spectacular scenery, under a seamless blue sky once again.  After some more food shopping at Tumut, we decided to return for about 20km to spend the night on the side of a beautiful lake.  Both of us feeling how fortunate we are to be where we are, to appreciate all the beauty of the land around us.

I had decided to head further west into Central New South Wales, so our drive took us through Wagga Wagga then on to Narrandera where we spent our first night next to a Koala Reserve (unfortunately, without spotting one).  Our Next door neighbor Keith invited us to spend the evening by their campfire, which turned out an interesting (and somewhat smokey) evening.  We both liked the town and decided to spend another night there, moving into a Caravan Park as we urgently needed to do some washing.

After leaving Narrandera the following morning we drove on to the town of Griffith, thriving on various agriculture, in well irrigated country.  Not surprising to see some very large Wineries growing enormous quantities of grapes.  Someone told us that in one of them, this year's production target was to be 200000 tons of grapes.  The wines offered are excellent as well.  Griffith has a very definite European flavour, not surprising when you consider the large Italian content of the local population.  Monika and I, both liked the town very much, spending two nights free camping by the lake.