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