Author: Mr A
Location: Huskisson, Jervis Bay, NSW
What goes in must come out right? I’m referring to the fact that we had managed to get the Zone RV into a tight spot in our friends’ garden – surely it must be able to come out the same way? It was tight…very tight…and of course the hand held radio Catherine uses to help direct me chose this moment to play up. Finally we managed to back our way down the drive and were on our way, with great memories of a wonderful weekend.
We were soon at our first stop, the Fresh Food Market at Nowra, a pricey but good source for stocking up. Our friends Chris and Karen happened to be down at Bowral on a Porsche club run, so they diverted via Nowra and it was all into the Zone for a catch up. Who needs a coffee shop?
A short drive down the coast took us to Jervis Bay Holiday park, our home for the next three nights. It was a very tight squeeze into the site. I had given our towed length when booking, but somehow this hadn’t been taken into account. However, we had a view of the river and with some careful manoeuvring soon settled in. We decided to check out the ride into Huskisson (Husky to the locals), it was a great little bike path and we were in town within 10 minutes. What a pleasure to have some cycling infrastructure!
We also noticed that the town looked pretty much the same as it did years ago when we last visited. After our shock at how Orange had changed (and not for the better), it was a relief to see at least Husky has not been exploited by developers with a friend on the council.
This morning we launched our sleek sea kayak onto the river right by our camp, so convenient. We headed downstream and were soon in Huskisson again – the second purely person powered visit 🙂 We coasted out into Jervis Bay proper, which even on an overcast day looked simply stunning.
Brunch was calling so we headed park to our launch point and I fired up the Weber. It was our first bacon and eggs of the trip, and won’t be the last I can tell you! Catherine toasted some sweet potato slices instead of having bread…not bad.
Then we decided to head upstream and with the wind briefly behind us hoisted the sail. That’s right, a sail on a kayak. After a 20 minute paddle Catherine said “Oh look some caravans…oh…there’s ours!” We had paddled around an island and come right back! Ah well..time for Google maps assistance…and off we went again this time managing to head up the river.
It really was awesome, massive sting rays were lurking in the water, their blinking eyes the only clue they were there.
After we got past some houses we didn’t see anyone else on the river. Very tranquil, its what we love about kayaking. We saw heaps of water birds, including a kingfisher flashing his bright blue wings as he chased some lunch. Cormorants aired their wings in the sun, an eagle flashed overhead chased by a crow. We felt at peace with the world, remembering that this was a Tuesday morning and how privileged are we to be enjoying this life.
We paddled back to camp and decided to head into Nowra, we wanted to buy a Soda Stream and this would be our last chance. We drink a lot of sparkling water and wanted to be free from picking up our 6/7 bottles a week and then creating all that plastic waste, often in areas with no recycling. We tested it out and were pretty happy with the result.
Yesterday we had picked up our first dozen of south coast oysters, so a glass of Adelaide Hills Chardy just went beautifully with those, sitting in the sun watching the river flow (is that a song?). Dinner was selected from an Asian curry cookbook we had decided to bring along. It was a dish called Kukul Mus Kari, a Sri Lankan chicken curry. Pretty fancy…pretty delicious. Mrs A does it again.
We wandered outside to catch the last light of the day, the river was still flowing, I hope it always does.
We managed to miss our turn off to stay on a cycleway, and ended up on main road for a bit, then found it again and cruised into our destination of Minnamurra. This turned out to be a sleepy little village, with a one platform railway station on the South NSW line. We found the only cafe and ordered some much needed sustenance. One Chicken Club and a Chicken Caesar Salad demolished. 
Time for the return match. My eagle eyed Map Girl saw a faint footpath line on Google so we headed for that and followed a fabulous path right along the cliff tops.
A few more hills and we were soon back in Kiama, with an ice creamery seeming to jump into our path. Wow that went down well. Mrs A with her mango sorbet and me with some English toffee ice cream. Just bliss. 20km ticked off and 1000 calories consumed!
Back at the Zone, Tassie seemed to greet us rather grumpily, after all she only just had a 4 hour nap, apparently not quite enough.
Dinner tonight was Cambodian fish amok. We both loved the food when we visited the country and Mrs A has added a couple of cracking dishes from their cuisine into her extensive repertoire. The fresh veggies from the farmers market yesterday just added to the flavours.
Casting doubts aside we drew away and headed through reasonable (for Sydney) morning traffic. Tassie was a little restless (for new readers she’s our other family member – the Burmese camping cat), but some serious brushing from Mrs A sorted her out.
So here’s the plan in summary.
It is truly a beautiful coastline and we look forward to exploring some more over the coming weeks.
Thankfully once you are in the Canobolas Caravan Park the aspect brightens up…a little. We decide to only pay for one night and see what we think.
All packed and ready to go – or so we thought – until I try to level the van – the air suspension had sprung a leak again. Not thinking it was Saturday I called the service line at Zone and immediately got a perky voice on the line asking how they could help. Now that is super service for a manufacturer to provide weekend service cover as well. Warms your heart it does.
The hosts Keira and Glenn were so helpful and welcoming, nothing too much trouble for them. Now why can’t every park be like this? A real cracker.
We then went on to the POW camp itself. Not much was left to see, the info boards again though told a harrowing story of several thousand POWs crammed in to the camp, with the last prisoners not being repatriated until 1954!
The Hay Plain drive was a lot more scenic than we remembered, or perhaps we’re getting more attuned to the subtle variations in the Australian landscape. We stopped for a couple of quick breaks, and by mid afternoon we are pulling up at our camp for the night at the Weethalle Showgrounds – home to the country club (a tennis court, bowling green and a makeshift golf course) and three or four horses. 
This is Tassie’s expression after spotting the horses – she’s such a city slicker:
We called the caretaker and she came to open up the power box and the toilets, all for $10! She was so welcoming, and after walking around the small settlement of Weethalle, indicative of the friendliness of this isolated little place, and typical of what we have experienced in all these country towns (since leaving the tourist spots in the Kimberley!).
Clearly times are tough here, boarded up shops and run down property, but looking in the window of the local café (The Road Kill Grillz!), there is lots of effort being made to organise community activities.
Let me explain in my defence, I had been wondering, in idle movements (of which there had been a few), if I could get my bike on the packraft, thereby opening up more route possibilities. I’m not convinced yet.
We were immediately immersed in the forest, towering river red gums dominated the landscape. Small flocks of parrots scattered as we rode through this magnificent scenery. We were heading into Yanga National Park to see a historic woolshed, and had a short bit of deserted tarmac to ride down on the way.
We explored the woolshed buildings which operated until 2005 and are now a museum. These buildings hosted a number of B&S balls in their time (bachelor and spinster parties), and employed numerous locals involved in shearing the 5,000 sheep here three weeks each year.
I was particularly intrigued by the explanation of how Balranold was at the heart of such an extensive river transport network reaching right across the southern part of Australia. Apparently 5,300km of navigable river was utilised when the water was up.
Now the rivers are so quiet, in four days camped by the Murray we saw three tinnies and a houseboat.
We arrived back at camp to find Miss Tasmania enjoying the sun and ready for another sniff around the campsite. She had a big walk this morning with Catherine again. It just makes me smile every day to see how willing she is to explore the bushier camps like this one.
I’m loving a book by a Dutch historian Rutger Brekman, who we had heard on a podcast and both really enjoyed. He has collected together a bunch of research on social experiments that were tried in the US, Canada and the UK to see what would happen if we just gave money to the poor (with no strings attached) rather than set up an elaborate system of welfare with all the costs that go with overseeing and managing that bureaucracy. It’s fascinating and counter intuitive in some ways. All of the initiatives paid for themselves because when given money, and left to their own devices, the “poor” didn’t just quit work and spend it on booze and gambling, as many on the political right would think, but instead mostly carried on working, but changed jobs to follow their passion, spent more time with their kids, and generally made better decisions about their lives. Their health improved, their children’s educational success increased, crime went down, these social experiments showed incredible ROI.
Now…we are in the middle of the Riverina, one of the great wine producing regions of Australia. But apparently “the locals” don’t bother with wine much. Interestingly though, out of the four tables having dinner in the restaurant tonight, three were drinking wine. So don’t they really want a choice of good wine? Or is it that someone can’t be bothered to offer it?
So we decided to head off on the bikes into Renmark. We picked a route to avoid the main road, and regretted it, sinking deep into clinging, stinky mud. I managed to wrap a piece of wire around my chain and break a spoke. After some fiddling around, and the odd expletive, we were off again and made it to the car wash on the edge of Renmark. Even the high pressure jet shifted the mud with some difficulty. Stickier than an English toffee that stuff.
Making back into camp with a wobbly wheel, we cheered ourselves up with home made pumpkin soup. Absolutely delicious. Our neighbour then knocked on the door to show us two European carp that he had caught. Apparently they aren’t a good eating fish, very bony, so the pelican got an unexpected Sunday feast.
The wind continues to howl along the water, so there is no sitting outside for drinks tonight, instead we are cosied up (again!) in the Zone sipping a lovely Adelaide Hills Shiraz and tucking into a spag bol. Perfect…we’ve really loved this camp…in those words made famous in our favourite Aussie movie The Castle, “Ah…the serenity”.
It wasn’t a long day behind the wheel though, and by early afternoon we were pulling up. It was a great location on a bend of the Murray, with only a few other vans here.
It was good to get in the bush again after our caravan park. Tas was happy to see a bit of greenery she could sniff around in, and didn’t seem phased by us being right next to such a large body of water. She really is developing a higher tolerance for new things!
I had been looking forward to getting the Packrafts out on the water, but with drizzle and wind it wasnt too appealing. Our neighbours also wandered over to warn us about a large brown snake that had driven off the previous occupants of our pitch. Ah well, better keep our eyes peeled.
After a cuppa we headed out for a quick explore, with half an eye on the gathering storm clouds. We really have landed in a beautiful spot, a giant grey kanagaroo bounded off when he saw us, more cormorants were splashing in and out of a backwater of the Murray. We really like this location – it’s free to camp here too!
I supervised….
We got chatting, and sadly an all too familiar story emerged. After 18 months of getting the shop set up he was throwing in the towel at Christmas. Just not enough business. He told me that cycling participation in Adelaide and its surrounds is down by 20% this year. A similar story to Sydney. We both mused over the cause. I shared with him a little bit of research I had done this week. If you’ve read my Facebook post skip this bit. After reading about another cyclist being killed in Sydney I Googled on the phrase “cyclist dies” and set my search parameters to Australia and the last month. Eight deaths and another two left ‘fighting for their lives’. In three of the cases the driver didn’t stop but just left the cyclist in the road. As Evan said, there’s not much good news reported on cycling in Australia. Instead it is often tales of road rage from either the motorist or the rider, or reporting on these terrible accidents.
Catherine then got pulled over by the police for not wearing a helmet. Oh dear…more bad news for cyclists, you can’t just potter around the shops wearing a hat. You have to wear a helmet for every type of ride, including wandering along a cycle path to pick up an ice cream. So guess what, another reason people give for not taking their bike out for that quick trip to the shops.
Everywhere is kept so spick and span, it is a real treat to see after these struggling outback towns we have spent so many months travelling through. 
The scenery surrounding the town is just gorgeous, rolling hills frame the vineyards. Who needs the Loire Valley?!
A quick stop at the shops for some more supplies for dinner (so easy on a bike!) and we headed back for another fab meal, and the peace and quiet of no evening construction works, oh and no wine 🙁