A bitterly cold, raining morning as we packup. By the time we drive out I can hardly feel my fingers. There is this small creek that runs along the road out of the van park and it is in full flow, such an interesting sight.
Just outside of Beechworth a Victorian General Duties van has a NSW plated car pulled over. Just waiting for our time.
Here we are with two of Australia’s biggest cities locked down, and the country feels like a series of colonies, more like Ned’s time than it does like a single country, federations certainly are strange beasts.
It’s only about 40km to Wodonga then we hit the freeway and cross over into NSW, no returning now. I was expecting to see some police activity here, but there’s nothing that I can see. We speculate they may be further south to get away from the border zone. I guess there’s not much point pulling over all these people who are border residents.
It’s a pretty easy drive and the winds must be in our favour as we can happily sit on 100-110kph without needing the foot planted. The road is really quiet, eerily so. There are a few trucks, but hardly any cars in either directions. I’ve never seen the Hume so quiet.
All along the side of the road many of the paddocks are flooded and the streams are all flowing, so it seems they’ve had more rain the 4-5mm that the BOM report.
Fuel at Tarcutta, as I’m trying to avoid the main highway service centres as these have been listed as contact points in the past. The only café in town is closed. So we stop in at Gundagai, again avoiding the service centre. Lunch at a great café and the B&E, and BLTs are yummy. The town here is pretty quiet too. Justine jumped into a craft shop and the lady said it was snowing over in Batlow (can we go? No…unfortunately).
On into Yass. We take a look at the RV freecamp by the river, pretty, but a bit muddy and give it’s only about 5° currently and as the diesel heater seems to have gone on strike we cut our losses and head to the local, very basic caravan park.
Damn it’s cold! So Pizza’s in the oven so I don’t need to go outside and the oven can warm things up.
We could/should have made it home tonight, but the idea of another 3 hours driving and arriving home in the dark and cold just isn’t appealing. Ideally we’ll be home early afternoon tomorrow.
After watching “Avengers End Game”, which seems kinda fitting, we talk to the kids about what they’ve seen over the last few weeks. Interestingly Caitlin recalls the Horse Ride and reminds us of the Seals back in Port Elliot. Liam’s favourite, besides his birthday is Sovereign Hill, a bit of a highlight for all of us.
It will be interesting what the next five weeks have install for us.
Welcome Home….
Pauly x