A REAL TIME UPDATE (18 MAY) AND THEN FAREWELL TO THE HIGH COUNTRY - MYRTLEFORD - JUNEE (20 APRIL 2016)

As must be all too obvious, despite my best endeavours, I am still failing sadly in my efforts to bring these missives and real time into alignment. Despite previous experience, I retain a probably unwarranted optimism that I'll soon catch up (that sound you can hear in the background is Liz snorting.....derisively!) 

So for those who may be interested in where we actually are now, and our immediate plans for the next month or so, a quick brief.

As I type this morning, we are sitting pretty in the Queensland border town of Goondiwindi having left Junee, Cowra, Mudgee, Mendooren and Moree in our wake.

We plan to move on from here on Friday next (20 May) and spend the ensuing four days 'gypsying' our way north-east towards the Queensland coast.  This is to be something of a landmark in our travels......it will be the first time we have left a park with no clear plan for our next overnight stop.  

On Tuesday 24 May we have booked into the Standown Park (developed and run by Vietnam Vets), 25 kms north-east of Gympie where we have arranged to catch up with our good travelling mates, the Pecks, for three nights. 

From there we are heading off to the tiny coastal town of Poona Point which is about 30 kms south-east of Maryborough (about 50 kms south of Hervey Bay as the crow flies). Here we have booked ten days at the Poona Palms Caravan Park which lies on the channel separating the mainland from the bottom end of Fraser Island (sun, swimming, fishing and fun.....hopefully)

At this stage, over the ensuing five weeks or so between Poona Point and our final winter destination of Mission/Kurrimine Beach, we are considering a few resting options, including Childers, Agnes Waters (to take in a recce of 1770), Calliope River free camp, Kinka Beach (near Yepoon) and a definite....Cape Palmerston (south of Mackay).  From here it will be a pretty solid push over the remaining 500 kms or so to Mission Beach (where we'll be staying with friends until we move on to reach Kurrimine Beach on 20 July).

Well, that's the plan anyway......stay tuned, anything could actually happen!

For now, it's back to our departure from Myrtleford and our 250 kms trip to Junee. We dove out past the huge Myrtleford factory of Carter Holt Harvey in the challenging light of an early morning sun. After all this time here, it actually felt quite odd leaving what had become a very familiar place to us.

We knew from previous experience that we would be sharing the highway between Myrtleford and Yackandandah with many milk tankers which use this road in the morning. And, as you can see, there were two other familiar sights......autumn leaves and smoke haze! 

The route to 'Yak' lies along a wide valley where cattle graze in the pastures below the surrounding mountains (those white looking dots in mid picture!)

For the most part it is relatively flat, but there are one or two hilly sections to make things interesting.

Farming properties are dotted right along this first 35 kms of our day's journey out of Victoria and into NSW.   

We soon found ourselves crossing the bridge over the narrow Yackandandah Creek (claimed to be the first site at which gold was discovered in this entire area....a claim which has its detractors!)

and making our way to the junction at the end of the town's main street.  At this point I should include another of my 'mea culpas'...we had visited Yackandandah twice previously, once whilst in Beechworth and later from Myrtleford, but I've just not had time to include it in the blog....other tours have taken priority....later perhaps. 

So we were quite familiar with this junction and did not need the advice of our electronic navigator to know we had to turn right and climb the hill out of town. So with one last look at the 'faux tudor' pub on the intersection

up the hill it was

and out past this stand of colour, which we though may well be the last we would be seeing.

Our next milestone would be the twin River Murray towns of Albury-Wodonga (or in our case Wodonga-Albury). Most of the country on this next 40 kms or so traverses relatively flat, open countryside, with one exception, the unexpected avenue of roadside trees which are the feature of Staghorn Flat. How strange... another milk tanker!

This extraordinary glade, almost a tourist attraction in itself,

harbours another.....a large stone monument dedicated to the exploits of those two early explorers of this region, Hume and Hovell (seen here just beyond the last tree trunk on the right). I've often wondered why it is that only one of this daring duo has been honoured by having a major highway named after him...where did Hovell go astray??

Enough of the whimsy (but it does pass the time)...we had work to do....like making sure we did not take any wrong turns as we skirted Wodonga.

We did evade the suburban sprawl of that town without incident, but soon suffered at the hands of 'Ken' (the voice of our Tom Tom navigator) who, at an ensuing intersection on the outskirts of Albury, misled us into taking an incorrect turn off a major roundabout. We had no desire at this stage to travel back to Melbourne!

Fortunately we had travelled to Albury a few days previously to have the charming young nurse at the Terry White chemists jab us both with our very necessary flu shots for this year, and I did have some idea as to how to extricate ourselves from this jam without too much fuss, or more to the point, having to negotiate peak hour Albury traffic (it is a big place).

So after a few minutes of highway hijinks, we were back on track and crossing the River Murray into New South Wales

and had another brief flirt with the Hume Highway before turning left on the much less imposing Olympic Highway which would take us all the way through to Junee.

By now we had been on the road for less than an hour and a half and were already into the grazing plains of the southern Riverina. After so long in the high country, this was almost like culture shock. What a country Australia is!

As we were tootling along merrily readjusting to our surrounds, we soon had even more opportunity to do do...an enforced rest stop of some time at roadworks. I had to chuckle at Liz's comment, "this is just getting us ready for The Bruce (highway)".

In the general scheme of things this was a long delay. It was over fifteen minutes before our friendly flagman flipped his metal flag and, with a nod and a wave, invited us to move on through, 'slowly'.

Then another highway surprise......the town of Culcairn, 50 kms north of Albury, 

well, to be more precise, the main building of the town of Culcairn which loomed large in Liz's lens.

The facade of this incredible building was too much for me to pass up with but a mobile glimpse. Culcairn became a rest stop whilst I sauntered off to get a better look, starting back at the intersection through which we had just driven (looking back at the buildings on the opposite side to the biggie)

As we discovered on our way out, there is not much to Culcairn, but this great lump of a building, 

which occupies the street fronts of two roads at this main intersection, more than makes up for that. The staff at the corner bakery know their stuff if the level of patronage was any guide.  But what about the pub!

At the far end of this most unexpected edifice is the imposing facade and corner tower of the Culcairn Hotel, which has dominated the local streetscape since 1891. 







Apart from its visual attraction, this hotel boasts of having 'The Best Beer Garden in the Riverina'. I cannot comment on that claim....time was of the essence. But I but I have no difficulty accepting another assertion, namely that this was the largest pub between Melbourne and Sydney for a long period. In fact, it was extended in 1910, and apart from extra rooms and large gardens, the additions included stables and a coach house. This was a shrewd move. Culcairn was a railway hub with lines through to Wagga Wagga, Albury, Holbrook and Cowra and beyond to Melbourne and Sydney. So now local gentry could drive their coaches or ride their horses to the Culcairn Hotel where they could be safely accommodated whilst their owners took the train to either metropolis. 

Rooms these days are modest by comparison but I have heard since that the food is excellent. What a surprise package this was. Culcairn is on our list for a return visit at some stage.






But push on we must. Another railway town, Junee, awaits our arrival. Beyond Culcairn we passed through the quaintly named Uranquinty











before our approach to Wagga Wagga was heralded by some massive road works where it appears the entire highway is being redirected.








This is all we saw of Wagga on this trip. We have travelled through this large town on many occasions and were not the slighest bit dismayed that today the Olympic Highway took us left

and over the Murrumbidgee River across this (impossibly named) bridge before we hit the main street through town. It is always crowded.

Junee was now well within our sights as was Temora, home to the extraordinary collection of old war planes I planned to visit during our Junee stay.

The Jail Brake Inn cafe (I still haven't quite worked out why 'Brake' is spelt as it is...one would have thought 'break' made more sense) sits opposite 












a sharp right hand bend in the Olympic Highway 












which took us the remaining eight kilometres or so through the undulating grazing and cropping land which surrounds Junee.

As we breasted a reasonably large hill, we caught our first glimpse across a sheep paddock of what was to be our temporary home for the next four days.

At the bottom of this hill our route took us left at the junction

and here we were. The town sign, which features a photo of its famed railway station was, we were to discover, most appropriate. This was and is a railway town through and through. 

As we made our way towards the town's main street I could not believe my eyes.....more autumn colour, somewhat scrappy, but there nevertheless.

The roads and highways in Junee go in all directions as I shall try to demonstrate later. Today all we had to do was turn left here at the junction in front of us














and make our way along 'Broadway' ( a reminder of home!) for less than a kilometre (more colour) 











and we found oursleves at the entrance to the Junee Caravan Park.

No matter the fact that we have now stayed in virtually dozens and dozens of parks throughout Australia, there is always that slight niggle on arrival at a new one......will it be as good as we hope it is? Were the web shots anywhere near accurate? Will our site be comfortable or are we going to have to become creative to make our stay livable? The Junee park came up trumps.