What a fabulous place....natural, unspoilt and you are almost alone in the world.
Cape Conran Coastal Park located between Marlo and Bemm River about 400 km from Melbourne. The area actually includes two capes: East Cape Conran and West Cape Conran.Wikipedia
Leaving Bega, we travelled south 40 kms over the Victoria border (I expected some sort of checkpoint - but nothing!). A small town and we pulled in to book a site with the council run caravan park - which looked quant and right on the water. What we didn’t realise was that it went over blocks including public roads. We ended up in the back blocks with hundreds of other campers ....just one of a line of caravans. We were a little disappointed to be on the the coast and yet camping ‘in the bush’. That said, the amenities were good - it was just that we were amongst hundreds of others.
There were however a number of wonderful gems to be found. The views are to die for and there is a fabulous noodle house called ‘Lucy’s’ in the Main Street.
Winding in the awning, disconnecting the water and power were amongst the first duties this morning. The guy from the caravan park came to say his ‘goodbyes’ letting us know we had missed the ‘4pm meet and greet’ during our time at HIS park - I suspect this might have been some sort of insult (not sure to us or him). He was then pleasant when we told him how much we had enjoyed our time in Wagga Wagga - telling us the town had everything you needed - if it wasn’t there it wasn’t needed. We both had to agree with him to be honest - it is extremely pleasant on the eye and well served with infrastructure.
Given the Victorian border had opened we had a change of plan and decided to head east to the coast.
Setting the GPS to Tumut, we headed east toward Bega. The changing landscape was astounding, from open plain to snowy tundra. Lunch in Cooma saw us take the recommendation of a local to go into the Pub - biggest and best - were the words he used. Well...not sure we would agree on that - he was 50% correct. My chicken schnitzel was great, while V1s seafood basket left a lot to be desired - perhaps they though the extra fry time would make it edible given we were not in a sea town! I had been to Cooma before on the way to the snow but can’t recall any other time. It strikes me as a little sad and mean - I can’t put my finger on why - perhaps it’s the correctional centre - however that logic doesn’t hold as there are plenty of other towns that have one but don’t feel as mean!
We used our ‘Camps 10’ book to alert us to places we might like to stop for the night. One of the stops was at Nimmetabel (a name I struggle to pronounce!). One point off for the book - it was a sports ground metres from the road with a very stern sign “You stay you MUST pay” on the toilet block. “$20 for unpowered and $25 for powered. Ring caretakers for Keys”. We decided we did not want to pay to be woken by trucks or the soccer crowd at 7 am, so kept travelling. Eventually we pulled into Bega Showground.
We arrived in Wagga Wagga from Temora - needing to get something to get the Weber working, so arrived late in the afternoon and went straight to Wagga Webber!. That didn’t leave a lot of time to research where to stay that night and we ended up at the Wagga Wagga Showground. Our experiences of other showground camps are that they are usually quiet and a little sleepy, well this one wasn’t. A six foot high fence behind the caravan hid a major rail freight line and we experience what felt like the sonic boom of an oncoming training several times! When things seemed to quieter, the railway freight depot on the other side of the tracks started with the excavator. Needless to say we didn’t stay a second night.
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| The great Murrumbidgee River winding through Wagga Wagga |
We met up with my friend Karen for a spot of breakfast before she headed off to work for the day - all of us enjoying our smashed avo on sourdough with poached eggs or eggs Benedict. Thoroughly recommend Trail Street Coffee for a good breakfast.
We moved the van during the day to a caravan park on the north side of Wagga and then went exploring. We found the ‘Made in Wagga’ exhibition at the Museum of the Riverina very interesting - they it showed the ingenuity of early settlers out of necessity to create and make life easier in their own ways. A great history of the local department store ‘Huthwaites’ - great footage from the fifties and sixties both reminded us of our childhood experiences in the supermarkets of the day.
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| Botanic Gardens and Zoo |
A terrific car tour with Karen topped off the day - to have a local show you and put context on things. While the population is similar to Bathurst, the scale of facilities and infrastructure is far far bigger - we were both seriously impressed! We visited Lake Albert, The Beach (#9 in top Australian Beaches) and saw some great newer suburbs. Needless to say after the sleep (or lack of) , it was back to the van for an early night.
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| The Beach |
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| There is a great walk/cycle way all around Wagga Wagga - the Wiradjuri Walk |
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| ‘Get around Back’. Iron Sculpture in Main Street Lockhart |
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| Lockhart the ‘Verandah’ town. |
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| Wheat country - plains and straight roads on the way to Lockhart |
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| Lockhart Council - the painted water tower was beautiful - ducks, magpies and more. |
