The last week has been pretty eventful. We went to get into the Prado one morning while we were still in Jingellic and noticed that the rear vision mirror had fallen off the windscreen. After some deliberation we decided that we would need to find some mirror glue to put it back on.
Negative – We had to drive back to sleepy Corryong to get it.
Positive – We got to see the Man From Snowy River Museum while we were there.
The museum wasn’t large but I found it interesting and wasn’t a bad way to spend $5 per head and an hour or so. Ben would have preferred to spend his $5 on beer.
One the way back to Jingellic, we could hear a grinding sound when we hit a bump in the road. ‘That’s strange…’ we thought and so Ben stopped the car, we got out and checked everything and to our surprise everything looked okay. We got back in the car, heard the noise again and then before we knew it the car was jagging to the left hand side of the road and skidding. We got out again, one side of the bull bar had dropped and was rubbing on the tyre. After a couple of attempts to drive carefully, it happened again, this time it had dropped down onto both wheels and had jagged the car onto the wrong side of the road. Luckily Ben is experienced and keeps a calm level head in these sorts of situations. After being stopped by the bull bar a couple of times and then trying a couple of different methods of tying the bull bar back on with tension straps, Ben eventually found a way that held it enough for us to drive slowly back to Jingellic.
Negatives – The bull bar fell off. We had planned to take two days to get to Genoa and do an overnight stop but because we had to fix the bull bar it pushed us back a day and crammed the long trip to Genoa into one day.
Positives – We didn’t get hurt. The tyres survived. We had made friends with Alan the local mechanic who was very good and helped Ben to reattach the bull bar properly. It happened at a time when we weren’t towing the camper. We got to spend one extra night in beautiful Jingellic.
Alan was wonderful and we are very thankful for his help. Our last night in Jingellic was a good one. We went to Nick and Alanna’s house for a barbeque and got to have a few drinks with everyone we’d become friends with in Jingellic before leaving.
The track to Genoa the next day was a long one. We passed over the Snowy Mountains, which was a stunning drive. As we were chatting away Ben happened to say… ‘When I was speaking with the locals they said to watch out for brumby’s up here.” He’d barely finished his sentence when two brumbies appeared on the side of the road. We drove around them carefully then saw a few more as we drove. We drove past Merimbula and Pambula then Eden and finally after around seven and a half hours arrived at Wallanaugh River Retreat.
The river here is really nice but a little bit shallower than we were expecting and we are about a 40 minute drive from Mallacoota. Ben has caught a small black bream and an eel so far. We had a good day yesterday, walking on the pristine Mallacoota beaches and fishing on the jetty. Today, we are enjoying the beautiful town of Eden.
Here’s some pictures of the winery we worked at and our side step puncture and Bluff Falls (read the last post for info on this). I’ll add some new pictures of the broken bull bar and of Mallacoota, Eden and Genoa soon. Merry Christmas all!
We are looking forward to our honey glazed ham and apple crumble at Christmas and seeing our friends Sally and Anthony and their boys for New Year’s.
Food & Fiction 