Part 5......................

 The last newsfromjude said that we had arrived in Moruya on Thursday afternoon. We were camped at the Moruya Heads Big 4 park, which is about 6km from the town of Moruya, and close to the beach.  

Friday it was time to find the beach and it wasn't far away...................this is the Tasman Sea, part of the South Pacific Ocean. We walked along the sand for a little way, but there was no putting our toes in the water. You can see we had a lovely blue sky, sunny day and in fact most days have been sunny, with a few cold nights, especially in Yass.

                            

Friday also involved some more work time for Barry, and another trip to the supermarket.

That evening there was another planned catchup with a friend I had not seen for ages. I had not met Kerryn's husband Mike before and it was a first meeting with them for Barry. We enjoyed a lovely meal and good conversation with them. Kerryn has been very involved in the SA Quilters for many years and has taught classes at Bordertown and a former, fellow Valuation Panel member.

This is a photo of Kerryn and myself taken in 2019, with Kerryn's quilt (that I had quilted), that won some ribbbons.

Saturday was another quiet morning, with trips to the laundry for washing and drying some clothes. I do have to say that 'domestic duties' for caravan life is pretty easy. An occasional sweep of the floor, minimal washing, and cooking and that's it!! I do spend quite a bit of time sorting and editing photos for blog posts and have done some reading in between the travelling.

Chooky had a zoom session, and I did check in while the clothes were in the dryer. 

We went for a drive around the district, which is lovely and green as they have had good rains here. We drove along the coast from Moruya to Batemans Bay and back again via Princes Highway.

There are many rivers in this area.

This is the Malua Bay club, where we had eaten the previous evening.

I went searching on the internet and found this info

Malua Bay, a coastal enclave popular with retirees just south of Batemans Bay, lost 150 homes to a catastrophic bushfire on New Year’s Eve 2019.

........And I found this photo of the Malua Bay club where we had eaten the previous evening. Apparently this was a casualty of the 2019 bushfires, but has now been rebuilt as in the photo above.

.......you can see evidence in the trees of the bushfires and I was surprised that some trunks are black but others alongside don't appear burnt........

..........and these trees right at the back of homes show just how close to the town the fire was............

The towns population spent the night on the beach as the fire burnt through the trees directly behind the town and burnt 150 homes.

From Malua Bay we drove to Bateman's Bay.................

..................and then back to Moruya and another evening with Kerryn and Mike for a BBQ at their home. This was followed by a great discussion and it was midnight before we returned to the van.

Sunday it was packup time again and we were on the road by 9.30am. We followed the Princes Highway south along the coast for awhile. We went through the little town of Bodalla and I noted some good photo points, but was not quick enough with the camera ready. So I went to the internet and found a couple of pics that I would have taken if I had been more organised...............

Loved this store and the name.........

...and these cows were out the front of the Cheese Factory!!!

Further south we went through the town of Narooma which was very hilly...........

............and the road was bordered by trees and ferny vegetation...........

............In the distance we could see the mountains that we would soon be crossing.............

We turned off the Princes Highway just before Bega, which is dairy country and the place where they make Bega cheese......... seeing paddocks of friesian and jersey cows did take me back a 'few' years to our dairy days............

Awhile after turning off, we crossed the mountain by going up Brown Mountain. This is a vital transport link between the NSW coast, Canberra and Cooma. At 1,243m high, it is a 10km long mountain pass with many twists and turns and hairpins and descending 1000m. It was quite hard to get a good photo of the steepness as we were driving.

We stopped to make lunch in the van at a park in the little town of Nimmitabel.

Once we reached the top we were surprised to see a lack of trees and wondered about the reason why??

And our questions were answered by reading this info at the park.............

About 2.30 we arrived at our destination of Cooma where we are to spend the next 2 nights. The sky was a beautiful blue with sunshine, but the night is expected to very chilly and we have the heater going in the van as I write this post.

This is a map of our travels today...........

That's all the newsfromjude re the last few days, and I will be back to report on what we find in the mountains.

Blessings, From Jude

Part 4..... Days 11 and 12 and 13...........

Tuesday it was pack up day and time to move to the next destination................We left Wodonga soon after 7am, which was an early start for us.

We were heading for the coast of NSW, and on the way were stopping for a catchup with a quilting friend that moved from South Australia a few years ago and now lives in Yass. On the way we passed this sign pointing to Cooma and Tumut, and the Snowy Mountain areas........

A stop over point before Yass was at Gundagai to check out the Dog on the Tuckerbox statue.

This sign gives a background to the Dog for those who may not know of it's fame....

                         

.........and a couple of the poems written about the dog. A part of Australian early history.

After checking in at the Yass caravan park for 2 nights,......

................... we enjoyed an evening meal with Gay and a good catchup. It was also a chance for Gay to meet Barry. It has been so special to meet up with old friends from years ago on this trip, and we have another quilting friend to meet up with in the next few days. 

Wednesday was a work day for Barry and he is set up in the van with his laptop, printer and scanner and the internet. I took the opportunity to get some washing done, and sit in the sunshine and make some phone calls to friends and family, and even had a snooze.

Later in the afternoon we went for a drive around town and 'caught up' with Banjo Patterson in the park named after him.......

The town of Yass has a lot of history and there are many 'old' buildings still in use in the main street...............

.............and I thought this building which is the Court House, was  very imposing looking for a country town.

This, the Yass River Railway Bridge is heritage listed and now disused bridge that carried the Yass Town Tramway across the Yass River and built in 1892.

We filled the car with fuel ready for the next part of our journey in the morning, and then drove around the town for awhile. I snapped the sunset on the way back to the van.

Thursday morning it was time to head further east, and after hooking up had left by 9am. The map below shows the first part of our trip, from Yass to Bungedore................

While in Bungedore we visited a store that sold beautiful wood items and here you can see Barry checking out a clock, and being impressed with the workings................ 

............and after looking at the price, decided that perhaps it could stay in the shop!!!

After our stopover in Bungedore, we were heading to our next stop of Moruya. You might see below the blue line that went out from Bungedore and then came back again.....perhaps the "navigation person" was not concentrating and directed the driver onto the wrong road. So after a U turn we managed to head the right way and onto Braidwood......

.....which was another historic town with lovely old buildings, and some autumn trees with their leaves changing colour..........Braidwood is also where they have a "hanging of the quilts" from these buildings each year. We were a tad early in the year for this as it is in November. 

After Braidwood we travelled through very hilly country and the road came through Clyde Mountain which was very steep and slow going...........

........and sorry for the blur, but you can see a landslide almost onto the road.

We travelled to Bateman's Bay and I snapped this of the Clyde river where it meets the sea. We were at the coast now, and only had a few kms to go where we are booked into a park at Moruya Heads beach.

Barry has more work to do here and we also plan to meet up with another quilting friend. After this we have no set plans about the way home, so stay tuned for more newsfromjude to come.

Blessings From Jude