12 October 2012 - Albury All Seasons Tourist Park, Lavington, New South Wales

By the time we emerged this morning, the skies were clear and the sun doing its utmost to warm the day. And as I write this much later in the day, it would seem we were fortunate not to be buried in snow because if you were to listen to the weather forecasts on the national ABC News television, you might be forgiven for thinking we are all under a blanket of snow. I suspect that settlements on our planned route ahead did cop a sprinkling and perhaps we shall be delighted by snow covered mountains as we cross the Great Divide in the ensuing week?

We popped down to the Centro Shopping Centre at Lamington, a northern suburb of Albury, this morning to do some shopping. We had been told where to turn into the shopping centre but were distracted by the Tomtom who had suddenly become mute and ended up turning into oncoming traffic at a rather convoluted intersection. Needless to say there was dismay from everyone else attempting to pass through in a lawful manner and ourselves who drove up over a traffic light island curb to arrive in the right place. I imagine there were some irate drivers who told those at their destination about the “idiot driver” from Queensland. There should be better signage, such as, “No Right Turn”.

We returned uneventfully to camp for lunch and then set off once more, this time to the lookout on Memorial Hill. As we passed through the suburbs of Albury we were delighted to see the fresh buds appearing on the huge number of deciduous trees lining the streets. Alas, the lookout was like so many, a fine place to catch glimpses of the city below but not a place “to appreciate  the stunning visual aspect of Albury and Wodonga and the beauty of their setting in the foothills adjacent to the Murray River”, as is advertised in the Official Visitor Guide. The arborists have been most successful in planting and nurturing trees that have grown to obscure most of the views. The monument itself is a tall monolith visible from all around the twin cities, built and completed in 1925 and celebrated as one of the best World War I monuments in Australia.

We descended to the CBD and parked up before wandering up and down and round about the main streets of the city. There are some absolutely lovely old buildings in the city and the ambiance is very relaxed, not the rush and bustle of places of a similar size. We called into the Art Gallery to view exhibitions of aboriginal art from Arnheim Land in the Northern Territory collected before 1950, another of portraits of artists and another of Japanese block cuts; all worth the effort of calling in however, for us, none of it particularly memorable.

By the time we returned to camp, the wind had come up however the clouds are still few and I doubt the rain will be back today.