The Gong to Orange

Pop and Grandson time

With two Sons, two Grandsons, two Granddaughters (one who we had never seen before), and a Daughter-in-law all living in Primbee just south of Wollongong we detoured along the south NSW coast to Primbee staying a night at Bodella State Forest and two nights at Milton Showgrounds on route.  The weather when we were at Primbee was absolutely miserable with gale force winds blowing straight up from Antarctica so there was no fishing in the son’s new boat but we had five great nights with family.  With drinks, darts, family dinners and catch-up time with the Grandies - the five days went quickly.

After leaving Wollongong we headed up Mt. Ousley, out the back of Sydney and up through the Blue Mountains – pretty steep in sections but after our trip through the Snowy Mountains the trusty Pajero hardly flinched at the steep inclines.

My two girls and their three sisters

Noting there was no clouds or mist we decided to do a short detour in Katoomba and head out to Echo Point and do the tourist thing with a photo or two of the most photographed bit of rock in Australia – the “Three Sisters”. Pretty quiet day on a Wednesday only a few thousand overseas tourists, twenty busses and packed walkways.

There's trout in there (apparently)

After the photo shoot we headed to Lake Wallace a great free camp just outside Lithgow – Lakeside camping with clean dunnies, dump point and TV reception – nice spot. I had brought a trout lure to catch one of the stocked Lake Wallace trout but that Antarctic blast had followed us from Wollongong so with a max of 13C and min of 1C overnight we bunkered down with the diesel heater in the van earning its keep.  We thought “it can’t get much colder than this” – WRONG – we were yet to get to Orange!

Magnificent view from Mt. Canobolas - yesterday

Orange is a large inland City a 1000M above sea level - a really pretty place in late autumn with the yellows and reds of the deciduous trees creating a colorful backdrop to the City. We stayed at Linda’s nieces place where her Niece, Husband and Family made us feel welcome and at home.  Molly even had a friend to play with!  We joined the family for Saturday soccer, a kick-boxing match and a nice dinner at the local Bowls Club –  a good day out.

Before wrapping up this blog I have to mention that Lake Wallace was a sauna compared to Orange – maximum temperatures of around 10C and overnight minimums of around 0C had us shivering in our several layers of clothing we wore everyday – not even winter yet!

Made a short movie - link is HERE

The Snowy Mountains

To get from Jingellic on the upper Murray to the coast we had a few options  - the more adventurous  one was up into the Snowy Mountains and down to the coast at Bega via Browns Mountain. 

We checked the weather and saw that they were forecasting storms and snow for the high country from Thursday onwards so we packed up on Monday and spent Monday and Tuesday climbing up onto the Australian Alps and then back down to the coastal plain at Bega.

Day one saw us travelling through the small valleys and ranges to a free camp at Jones Bridge near Tumut.  This is going to be easy!

Day two saw us leaving Tumut and heading up into the Alps. The 8Km climb from Talbingo to Kiandra where we ascended 1200M is the steepest climb we have ever completed towing our van. After an hour of being locked into second gear through what felt like a hundred hair pin bends we finally reached the top – got out and kissed the Pajero on the bonnet!

The next couple of hours were spent travelling across the high plains (max temp around 14C at midday) before descending down Browns Mountain (locked in first gear) 1200M to the coastal plain.  Almost three tons of caravan pushing you down the hill keeps you on your toes!

Car, dog and Crew were all glad to be down the hill - but it was two days spent in some of the most spectacular high country scenery and we were glad we took the alpine route.

If your car and nerves are in good order and you’re in this part of Oz – it’s a bucket list must do.

We took lots of photos but no drone flights so I have put a lot of the photos in the video found HERE

Camp 9 - Jingellic

Jingellic Reserve

When I was sitting in my lounge in Collie mentally planning our trip along the Murray River, Jingellic Reserve looked to be the perfect last camp – as far up towards the headwaters as you could camp with a dog in tow (Kosciusko National Park from there up), grassy bank on the river, reports of Murray Cod, and 100m from the pub.

Unfortunately after launching my tinny it became obvious that the fast flowing stream that was the Murray this far upstream wasn’t going to be suitable to our style of fishing as the electric motor had no chance of holding the boats position against the current and most of the river was very shallow. So after one quick foray up the creek the tinny went back on the roof. BUGGER!

View from under our awning

But our stay at Jingellic was still really enjoyable with the crystal clear young Murray River gurgling past, a good meal at the pub and Molly was in dog heaven – two big dogs to play with and the old fella camping down the front supplying a constant supply of chicken wings and dog bones.

Talking about Molly’s friends – one was a border collie that thought my drone was the best thing it had ever seen to play and catch. While I was trying to land my drone and trying to stop the dog leaping a meter up to catch it – yep crashed my drone again – fortunately “eagle eyes” Linda found the bit that broke off and with a bit of glue its seems to be its usual buzzing self.

A sad man and his book

This last photo is taken as we crossed the Murray River for the last time this trip – I had brought a book called “Camping and Caravaning the Murray” which now will be sadly retired to the bookshelf.

We have thoroughly enjoyed our month camping on the Murray – it’s a journey well worth doing if you want to soak up some of the quintessence of Australia’s longest river.

A short video can be found at THIS LINK

Camp 8 - Tallangatta

Shades of autum

I don’t normally do blogs when we stay in Caravan Parks as they are usually short stays only to take a deep breath, get the big items of washing done, fill up with water and head off to our next bush camp.  After a week at Kyffin’s Reserve at Lake Malwala we decided to stay at Lakeside Caravan Park in the small town of Tallangatta for two nights to catch up on the stuff I’ve listed above. The town of Tallangatta Info HERE is famous for being the “Town that Moved” in 1956 when the original town was to be flooded by the new Hume Dam.

As this is the low season for the Caravan Park we were allocated a dam side spot. Wow what a view – although the Hume Dam is only at 30% it’s still an impressive sight for our site.

View from our van

Have been playing with a new program to stitch panoramas together from multiple overlapping photos (my drone has a panorama mode where it automatically takes a series of photos in a 180 degree arc). The program is called Microsoft ICE (no - not a site for Bill Gates to sell drugs), its very easy to use and best of all free to download. The photo to the left of this text was done using my normal DSLR on a tripod and taking five overlapping photos.

Mitta Mitta River Valley

While we were at the Park the forecast for the day we had planned to leave was for 30ml of rain and gale force winds – not a good day for setting up at a free camp so we ended up staying 3 nights.  On the last day we went for a drive to Mitta Mitta – a small town further up in the ranges – a good preview of the beautiful countryside we expect to see on our way up and across the snowy mountains National Park in a week or so.

It’s a well-used cliché but the folk in small towns are definitely more friendly and happy to help out – we really enjoyed our stay in Tallangatta.

Camp 7 - Lake Mulwala

Our camp on the lake

I’ve had Lake Mulwala on my bucket list since some friends told us about the fantastic Murray Cod fishing there some years ago. Lake Mulwala is nestled between the twin towns of Yarrawonga and Mulwala on the Victorian/NSW border and is one of the major irrigation dams on the Murray River below the Hume Dam.

Moon rise on the lake

Mulwala is aboriginal for “lots of dead trees standing in water” – not really - but as the lake is full of thousands of drowned red river gums this would be an appropriate name. We stayed at a free camp called Kyffin’s  Reserve LINK HERE just outside Mulwala township – a little hard to find a level spot but with a little effort we set up within meters of the lake edge next to a little bay for the tinny. For info for fellow campers – there is a dump point and fresh town water tap at Owen Bridges Park only a few kilometers away from camping area on the edge of Mulwala township and firewood was easily found 8-9 K’s out on Tocumwal Road.

Linda's two nice cod

That’s enough for the background information - we were here to catch Murray Cod on spinner baits and hopefully surface lures. Day one saw me out a half hour before dawn (3 degrees) throwing small surface lures at the shallow water packed with sunken logs – and woo hoo – after two splashing hits a 52cm cod hit the landing net. Back home for a leisurely breakfast and then out casting spinner baits at the tree stumps with Linda. Linda caught two beautiful 59cm and 62cm cod and I caught another 53cm undersize cod (legal size is over 55cm and less than 75cm).

Even the old fella caught a cod

Day two saw me land a nice 64cm cod on a spinner bait and that was the last we caught for some days. We spent the next couple of days casting lure after lure with no result. Now for some maths - fishing seven hours a day for five days with a cast every 15 seconds x 2 fishermen equates to around 8000 casts over the 5 days fished. Total score for our visit were six cod with three legal keepers – so a lot of hard work put into those cod but worth every minute.

My "First Mate" Molly

We would recommend Kyffin Reserve as a free camp on beautiful Lake Mulwala – close to everything and you can even catch cod off the bank (if you remember to take a landing net). Gave the drone a few flights (bloody white corolla's tried to attack it) - video is HERE

Camps 5 (Wood Wood) and 6 (Koondrook)

On our way from Gasden’s Bend to Lake Mulwala we did two “one nighters” near Wood Wood and Koondrook.  Our preferences for a one night stop are (if possible):

• to be far enough away from the main highway so we get away from the traffic noise (especially road trains)
• to have a view and plenty of firewood
• to be far enough outside of town so the local hoons don’t think it’s a challenge to do burn outs under our awning.

Both the one nighters met these and were pleasant stop-overs.

Nice spot at Wood Wood

Wood Wood is a small town next to the Nyah State Forest in which we originally planned to stay - but after a drive thru the narrow and rutted tracks with trees scraping our car and van and only finding camps under those deadly River Red Gums we decided to stay closer to town.  Video of our camp is HERE

Another Murray River Sunrise

The Wood Wood Shop/Caravan Park/Bottle Shop/Laundromat/Café sells pretty good hamburgers and hot and spicy chicken so we sampled these for lunch on arrival 😊

Pretty spot at Koondrook

The Koondrook Canoe Trail Campsite is situated on anabranch of the Murray River and as the name implies is a pretty little backwater very popular with canoeists. Like the previous night this was not our planned spot as we were going to stay at the Gunbower Island Reserve but this too proved to have limited spots and most under those widow makers of River Red Gums. On our way out I did notice an Information Bay which probably we should have checked out on the way in! The campsites at Koondrook are mostly waterside, picturesque and well set up. Unfortunately there were millions of bindi’s  and our poor hound was not a happy camper. These burs were probably brought in by campers of the past - so if possible try and not transfer these to the next camping spot your heading for.

Camp 4 - Gasdens Bend State Forest

Our Camp on the "bend"

Gasdens Bend State Forrest is just outside Robinvale in Victoria and is the first camp site we had stayed on the Murray that was new to us and completely isolated from any other campers. Our good friends Steve and Carol from  Morwell in south of Victoria had decided on the spur of the moment to pack up their van and travel 620Km to stay with us for a few nights.

The Girls chilling out

After meeting in Robinvale we headed out into the bush tracks winding narrowly thru the red river gum forest to the river. It’s always a little daunting winding thru the forest on a rutted track not having any idea what you will find at the end. But as luck would have it we found ourselves camped on a clean sandbar well away from those dangerous red gums (infamous for dropping large branches on campers) close to the water and not a single burr of stone.

The River Rats of Gasdens Bend

Apart from one couple parked some distance away we had the place to ourselves – camping Heaven.

Daily dips in the river, followed by lazy afternoons,  before drinks and  the evening board game and dinner around the fire became the daily grind.

What a great days and nights we had on the “bend”.

Short drone video is HERE