The Trip starts here...
The plan is to head as far west as horsham (simply 'cos I used to live there in a town with the same name in the UK), then south to the coast and back along the Great Ocean Road. We'll pop into Melbourne before heading up into the Snowy Mountains and then back to Sydney. The trip will take two weeks if all goes according to plan.
Today we drove from Sydney out to Wagga Wagga. On the way we passed
through Bowral on Hume's Highway, where Sir Donald Bradman begun
his cricketing career and stopped off in Yass to Visit Hume's house,
called Cooma Cottage.
Hamilton Hume an Aussie and William
Hovell (a POM, or Prisoner Of the Motherland) were famous for major
expeditions to discover more of the country. All 370km of their
most famous in 1824, from around Yass to Albury can still be walked
(if you really want to). The modern day Hume's Highway closely follows
the route taken by the explorers.
Cooma Cottage.
Picture of an old-fasioned
plough lying in a field just away from the cottage.
After Yass, the most famous place that we stopped off in was Gundagai.
"Gunda-where?", I hear you ask. Gundagai is famous for
its dog. The dog that in a 19th century bush ballard (and a poem
by Jack Moses) sat by on its master's tuckerbox generally not doing
very much helpfull while he was trying to get his bullock team out
of a bog. There is a version of the story that he was even worse
than useless in that he shat (poo) in
rather than sat on the tucker (lunch)
box.
Bluey sitting (or straining) on the tucker box.
Click on picture to see full image.
We stayed at a lovely little camp site in Wagga Wagga (picture
of Wagga
main street) later that afternoon. Derived from the aborginal
for 'place of many crows', it's a sweet little country town. The
camp site is right on the edge of the Murrumbidgee
River that runs through the town. a very peaceful location and
a perfect start to the holiday that was finished off nicely by the
tomato pasta that I cooked up tasting really quite nice (even if
I do say so myself!).
Wagga Wagga being sweet.
To tomorrow
|