It is late afternoon and we are parked up beside the Blowering Reservoir, part of the Snowy Mountain Power Scheme. The sun is shining and I should really change into shorts or even less, however have stubbornly remained in appropriate mountain spring wear; jeans and a ¾ sleeve shirt. Chris is outside washing the caravan with broom and buckets of water from the dam and I have just finished washing a bag of spuds purchased this morning at Woolworths in Gundagai. Picture if you will, a middle aged woman squatting in the shallow waters of the dam, scrubbing spuds with the sandy mud; it is actually more efficient than using a brush. However that is probably as awful as you wish to stretch your imagination for one day so we will leave it at that.
We woke early this morning to the sound of trucks,
the same sound that we had heard on and off all night, and yet despite that, we
both felt relatively rested. For me that could have had something to do with
the fact that I beat Chris resoundingly at Scrabble last night. He has taught
me well. While this rest stop is not without its charm, its proximity to
traffic flowing between the two major cities of this nation does detract from
any pleasure one might otherwise have in the surroundings.
While Chris was outside readying for departure, our
neighbours who had come in later in the afternoon, thus rendering the small
camp full, started conversation. After ten minutes or so, I thought I’d better
go join him, however this was a major mistake. The couple from just out of
Kingaroy were absolutely delightful, chatty, warm and familiar. I remembered
them from the Mildura Country Music Festival because like many of us, have
their oddities, and I have quite a good memory for such. It was well over an
hour before we were able to prise ourselves away and on up the highway to the
“Dog on the Tucker Box”.
 |
| The Dog on the Tucker Box |
Here beside the road is a small statue celebrating
this little working dog who was the subject of first a poem and then many a
song to come after. A whole tourist industry has sprung up about this; a café,
gift shops, craft shops, picnic area. There were busloads of tourists and
school children, several caravanning folk such as ourselves, a group of
motorcyclists and a dozen or so travellers in cars. It really was all a bit too
kitsch but then it is all of this that brings the tourist dollars to Gundagai,
so who am I to say more?
We returned to Gundagai, shopped at the Woolworths
supermarket then headed south east to Tumut on one road through Gocup which is
marked on the map but in reality only a farm building or two.
It is only about forty five kilometres through to
Tumut, 280 metres ASL, across beautiful grazing country becoming steeper by the
mile. And then we were at Tumut and so surprised to find this place, which is
marked in a far smaller font than Gundagai on the map, having more than twice
the population and at least one industry evident by the chimneys and smoke.
While it is a rural service centre and one of the gateways to the Kosciusko
National Park, it also has a substantial timber industry and more particularly,
the Visy Pulp and Paper Mill which employs a number of the population.
After lunch we wandered up the hill from the park,
up and down the main street, and then back down to the Tumut River, quite a
raging torrent. This is of course the same water I have recently washed my
potatoes in and will eventually flow on to the Murrumbidgee and the Murray and
on to the sea in South Australia. What a pretty town Tumut is and as the
council worker we chatted with on the bridge said, only one hour’s drive from
Wagga Wagga and two from Canberra, obviously if you are not towing a caravan.
Satisfied with our exploration of Tumut, we travelled
on toward Cooma, tomorrow’s destination, until we found this most satisfactory
camp beside the reservoir just thirty kilometres from Tumut.
As I finish the day’s instalment, the chap camped up
the slope from us has ventured into the lake for a swim. It is warm; twenty
eight degrees. Perhaps I should do the same?
No comments:
Post a Comment