2019/11 Australia trip - Travel to Sydney |
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Friday November 8th
We had a clear and cool morning as we set off for family in the Sydney area. John had thought we’d take a scenic route through the Snowy Mountains, but even the shortest route involved eight hours of driving, so that’s what we chose. Sandie was still not allowed to drive, and there was some doubt about whether John’s insurance would cover me as an elderly foreigner so neither of us drove. I wasn’t keen to anyway as eyes and reactions aren’t as good as they were, but John ended up doing a lot of driving.
We had come away without any maps for anywhere except the state of Victoria but the family found us an old map of New South Wales and I spent a few hours on the NSW Fire Service web site going down the list of active fires and closed roads and marking their location on the map. It looked like we’d have to give up the coastal route and possibly find an inland route up the Thunderbolt Highway and through Glen Innes, but the situation seemed to be getting worse.
We continued along the Princes Highway and crossed the Snowy River, famous for the movie,
though that was set in the mountainous area, further north. We turned north at McCann River and climbed into the hills and crossed into New South Wales. We found these skinks living in their log condo and surveying us from their balconies.
We stopped at the Bombala platypus reserve, but it was probably too late in the morning for platypus to be about, and the wind was stirring up the water too. It was a great spot for birds though and we got this view of a tawny frogmouth, an unusual owl-like bird. We’d probably have stayed longer if it hadn’t been so cold and windy.
As we climbed into the hills, the scenery looked similar to parts of Wyoming; South Pass, though not as high, about 3000 feet. We had lunch in Cooma, in a little bakery by the roundabout, and then plugged on towards Sydney, sometimes slowly because of Friday afternoon traffic