As we are doing Distance Ed through
Sydney, and Tilda was still schooling, we didn't realise until quite
late that Victorian schools were on holidays and accommodation was
at a premium. We left Jindabyne without a real plan of where to stay,
just knowing we were still heading south. When we got to Bega we
started seriously looking into where to stay and found a caravan park
at Merimbula that had vacancies and was reasonably priced. We set up
there as our base for a couple of days.
We did a day trip to Bega to check out
the Heritage Centre. It was OK, not great. Fortunately it was free. I remember going to the
Bega Cheese Factory as a child and having a proper tour of the
factory. You can't do anything of the sort now. The
Information/Heritage Centre has a display of vintage equipment
upstairs but it doesn't even clearly explain how cheese is made, or
if it did, it certainly wasn't clear as I didn't find any information
about it.
That same day we also drove to Tathra to check out the
historic wharf and, primarily, to meet up with our “new friends”
(as Rory calls them). The wharf was interesting in that everywhere
you looked there were big warning signs telling you what you couldn't
do, but no signs saying why the wharf was important. Just as we were
leaving I found a small bronze plaque explaining why the wharf was
important... and in case you are wondering, or visit there and miss
the fairly obscure sign, it is important because it is an example
of the only open sea timber wharf surviving from the coastal steamer era. There are timber cattle races still on the shore-ward side, which is interesting to see.
There was a very cool playground at the
foreshore at Tathra where we spent a couple of hours catching up with
our friends. As always, the kids played so well together. We truly
have been fortunate to meet a family travelling roughly the same way
and pace as us, with all of us getting on very well together.
We also visited the Killer Whale Museum
at Eden. This was quite interesting to visit. There were whale bones
that were bigger than Rory! I know that whales are big but seeing the
bones up close, and in relation to Rory, gave me a new perspective.
Above Tilda's head are the jaw bones of a Blue Whale
Rory standing next to some bones from the Humpback Whale
We moved on to stay a couple of days at
Genoa. This is a great free camp just over the Victorian border. We
could have fires so we got to fire up the OzPig, which was good as we
could cook on it and we also made campfire cones. If you haven't
enjoyed these awesome containers of goodness, I suggest you try it
some time. You fill up a waffle cone with chocolate, lollies and
other goodies that you want to include (if you google it you will see
that people put fruit pieces and all sorts of things in them), wrap
it in foil and cook on the fire coals until it is all melted and
gooey. You need to be careful not to burn the cones but gosh they are
good! I especially like them with caramels in the middle as they melt
so deliciously! The Genoa River is lovely just there. It was very
shallow in most places with lots of sand banks throughout. The kids
had a great time playing there and we spent quite a few hours
enjoying the river. The area was full of Bell Birds and they chimed
almost constantly. I heard some campers complaining that they were
too noisy! Seriously!
We travelled to Mallacoota for a day
trip but given that it was Easter and part of the school holidays,
the place was a zoo! The tourists (and yes, I know we are tourists
but not like these ones) seemed to leave their brains at home and
walked and drove in front of the car. It looked like it would be a
lovely place to explore the water and surrounds but we really didn't
get a good sense of it and it actually made us want to stay away. We
did go to the headland and got to see a pod of dolphins swimming and
playing around not too far offshore, and even though we can see them
quite often at Port Stephens, I still love seeing them playing in the
ocean.
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