my new passport has arrived at last !
Some more photos of rural Roadside Mail Boxes:
Mail pig
I think the house owner saw me taking this photo, and probably wondered what the hell I was doing !
Robomail
Rustic mailbox
Mail duck
What to do with an unwanted motorcycle helmet:
I had to check this was actually for mail !
Storm clouds over Blowering dam
Well, it’s going to be a dark and stormy night by the look of things outside my tent. There has been lightning, thunder, rain and storm gusts that howled down the valley, it looks like I am going to have my first wet night camping in 2 months on the road. I guess I cannot really complain about that, can I ?
A lightning strike earlier this afternoon has started a bush fire in the forest at the other end of the lake, and there a couple of helicopters water bombing the fire now. I was hoping they would refill the buckets closer to me so I could get some action shots but no such luck.
The weather has not put off the local anglers, there are some tinnies still out there, and a couple more have just arrived and are sorting out their gear. I enjoy casting a line on a warm evening, but no way would I be trolling up and down the lake in a small dinghy on a night like this !
I suppose tonight’s weather is just karma, after the last couple of days lazing in a hammock on the banks of the Murrumbidgee:
Beach campsite on the Murrumbidgee
Over the past few weeks I have criss-crossed the Snowy River, hiking over it as a mere stream on the Main Range, following it south down it’s valley, crossing high above it at McKillop’s Bridge and finally where it meets the sea at Marlo, in Victoria:
Headwaters of the Snowy
Here it is just a gentle stream, about to plunge down into the valley below and through the Main range:
First stages of it’s journey to the sea
I’m not really a fan of HDR images, but I thought I would give it a go here, as there was just too much dynamic range in the scene, even using a graduated filter to darken the sky.
And finally it meets the sea at Marlo:
Journey’s end, the river mouth at Marlo
MacKillop’s Bridge stands well above the Snowy River now, but it was not always so.
How would you feel if you built a bridge well above flood height, then watched it get washed away by a record flood only days before the official opening?
I’ve driven down to the NSW South Coast, via the Barry Way and Snowy River Way, then across MacKillop’s Bridge. Nowadays the bridge stands well above the Snowy River, as most of the river flow is diverted through the Snowy Mountains Scheme to flow inland for irrigation, but when this bridge was built in 1935 the river ran wild.
The builder constructed it to be 10 feet (3 metres) above the record flood height, thinking that was safe margin. But only a few days before it was to be officially opened along came a flood well over that margin, and washed the roadway away !
They rebuilt the roadway, adding another 5 metres on to the pylons “just in case”. Looking at it now, it is hard to imagine all that extra water coming down the valley. I rafted down the river from here about 20 years ago, and in the 50+ years since the river was dammed at Jindabyne vegetation has grown over what would have been the river banks and are now high above the river.
On a side note, the Victorian section of the Barry Way/Snowy River Way must rank high among the scariest roads in Australia. It is narrow, only just over 1 lane wide, twisting it’s way up and down the hill sides with a rockface on the “safe” side and a vertical drop on the other side, way down into the valley below. I was dreading another vehicle coming the other way, and having to find someway of getting past !
So now I am down in Eden, on the south coast, heading towards Victoria. I’ve never been down here before, so it is all new to me. The last 2 nights I’ve camped in National Parks, and once again I am confounded by their pricing policy. At Mimosa Rocks they charged $10 for a small campsite with pit toilets, yet at Bournda they charged the same for one with hot showers and a laundry ! I did get a lecture from the ranger at Bournda for not prebooking online, but the leaflet in the local tourist office said that was only necessary at Christmas and Easter holidays. I pointed out that out to the ranger, and that they were hardly overcrowded, as there was only 3 or 4 other campsites in use, but he still wanted me to get online and book ! I also noticed that quite a few people came in late and left early, I bet they did not prebook or even pay …..
Well, the festival is over for another year, ending on a rather wet and dismal note which sent many people home a day early. Luckily the bad weather held off until after the Parade and the Australia Day events.
Can you tell it was Australia Day ?
a couple of the usual promo girls….
I went to see Lee kernaghan do his charity concert on the Friday night, unlike Kasey Chambers he had no problems about people taking photos, as you can see :
It was not the best show I’ve ever seen him do though, and other people seemed to agree with me. Perhaps the highlight was his duet with a 13 year old busker he met earlier in a local radio station. She joined him onstage playing banjo in his hit “Boys from the bush” and more than held her own !
13yo banjo busker Taylor Pfeiffer duets with Lee Kernaghan
Also in the concert were The McClymonts :
The McClymonts on stage at Tamworth
In a previous post I mentioned that I was still waiting for the certificate of citizenship ….would n’t you know it, but on Friday I got a message on my phone saying that the info was at the govt printers, and I should get it within 10 days ! Uhmmm, I’ll wait and see about that…..more to come?
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Designing and building an Eco House in Thailand
Follow the Blonde Coyote and see more of the world!
Trying to live a creative life
a camping trip of ridiculous proportions
Changes in latitude, changes in attitude 