A trial run - and almost a Trial!



An isolated camp by the Goulburn River

I'm typing this from our camp beside the Goulburn River in New South Wales – in between having a cool breakfast beer (apart from water that's all we've got) and watching a couple of Kangaroos having breakfast on the opposite bank. Although only a few hundred kilometres from Sydney it feels gloriously remote and we are in splendid isolation. We are having a “trial run” before setting out on the main trip – the route of which has yet to be decided. The main purpose is to test out our camping equipment that we left here last time and to try out Johann's spare tent as we sold the

wonderful Oztent we used on our last trip. However, before we got here ….....

Our neighbours at Goulburn

After two week we completed our work on Steven's new house and had renovated two bedrooms. There's still a lot to be done but our time is short and our skills are wanting – I am no architect, builder, electrician, plumber etc. One of the last jobs we did was to renovate the Victorian fireplace in one of the bedrooms. We had toyed with the idea of removing what was a fairly tatty looking affair but decided that doing it up was a better (i.e. much easier!) option.

The almost finished fireplace - all the way from the Carron Iron Works

One of the things that amuses and intrigues me in life is finding connections. During 2013 much of Sandra's spare time was spent working on The Great Tapestry of Scotland – about 160 embroidered panels detailing the history of Scotland from pre-historic times right through to the present. One of the panels Sandra worked on included a depiction of the Carron Iron Works near Falkirk in Scotland. It was a time when Scotland was the engineering powerhouse of the Empire with machinery and steel products being sent from Central Scotland to all corners of the world. We dismantled Steven's fireplace and started to clear off many decades of solid soot and rust to find that it had been manufactured in the same Carron Iron Works that Sandra had been working on last year. I liked that connection.

The other purpose of this trip was to visit my cousin Cath and her husband Alan who live in Toronto near Newcastle (the Australian versions) and our rather convoluted route took us to a place called Wisemans Ferry. We drove slowly through the village and decided to have a look at the ferry then go back to the pub for a refreshment before taking the ferry across the river. We arrived at the ferry and found ourselves in a queue of traffic waiting to cross the river – if only we had decided to give the pub a miss and just get on to the ferry, things might have been a little pleasanter – however.......

Finding ourselves in a queue we didn't want to be in, we did to my mind the only sensible thing and did a U turn. We turned out of the line of stationery traffic onto the other side of the road which was completely clear as the ferry was still on the other side of the river. Then all hell broke loose with blue and red flashing lights and running policemen! Assuming it was nothing to do with me I started to drive off but a look in the mirror decided me to stop – I didn't think the Honda was going to win if it came to a car chase!

Getting out of the car I walked towards one of New South Wales finest, looking as innocent as possible – which wasn't difficult as, as far as I was concerned I had done nothing wrong. I was informed in no uncertain terms that I had committed a traffic violation and was asked to produce my driving licence. Intrigued, I politely inquired what I had done wrong and was informed that in Australia it was against the law to cross a double solid white line and that, as the ferry queue was defined by a double solid white line, I had broken the law by doing a U-turn. Well it's an offence in Scotland to cross a double solid white line but commonsense would normally prevail. I asked him, still politely, what I should have done in the circumstances in which I had found myself and could hardly believe the nonsense he came out with. Apparently all good, law-abiding Australian citizens finding themselves in such a predicament would have sat in their car and waited for the ferry to arrive. When the ferry had unloaded it's vehicles the queue would have started to move forward and, arriving at the end of the double line, the good citizen, instead of going on to the ferry, would have pulled to one side, let the ferry traffic which had built up behind him pass, and only then do a U turn. I know of no Australian or any sensible person who would have done this.

Hearing such a load of obvious drivel I found myself in the almost impossible position of having to bite my tongue as my jaw dropped. Experience has taught me that it is better not to argue in these circumstances however much you feel you are in the right. When I produced my licence he said he was glad to see it was a British one as, if it had been a NSW one I would have been charged – as it was I got off with a caution.

Whilst experience has taught me that it is better not to argue in these circumstances – Sandra has yet to learn and she decided to have a go at him. Culminating in her demanding “Are there any other laws we should be aware of?” To which he replied “Yeah, thousands, but I ain't got time to go through them all with you now!” as he turned menacingly towards another tourist who approached him with a map to ask directions.

The police in Wisemans Ferry are really at the cutting edge of law enforcement.

Eventually crossing the ferry without further mishap – I had a coke in the pub, just in case – all the ferry traffic turned right, so we turned left. We were making for Mangrove Mountain on our way to Toronto and the satnav suggested there was a route which would get us there following minor roads. When the tarred road gave way to dirt we realised why vehicles were few and far between and why all the ferry traffic turned right. Being experienced travellers with a good dose of foolhardiness thrown in, we persevered on our rapidly deteriorating track heartened by the fact the satnav indicated a right turn in about 10k would get us on to the right road. At the 10k mark the “road” duly appeared – a small forest track which, probably fortuitously, had a barrier across it with a Road Closed sign. Closer inspection showed that it had been closed for a couple of years. I suspect the satnav we were using hadn't been updated recently!

Never trust a satnav!

We were tempted to carry on to see if we could find another way through but, as we were expected in Toronto for afternoon tea, we decided to backtrack and continued our journey, even negotiating a mighty river crossing, without further mishap.

Australian Converts

Cath is my second cousin, very into Douglas family history, and is probably the main archivist of this branchbof the family. The weekend was spent amiably getting up to date with family, looking at photos, meeting both old and new friends and, Cath being Cath, assaulted with enormous amounts of food at very frequent intervals – she had even laid on a copious amount of beer just for me. On Sunday morning Linda, Cath's daughter, was having a “crafting morning” and it was all I could do to drag Sandra away.

The Toronto Crafters plus friend

We decided to head from Toronto to camp for a couple of nights in the Goulburn River National Park. Travelling through Cessnock and Jerrys Plains we arrived at Denman for a quick picnic lunch where we discovered that the bag containing “a few leftovers” Cath had insisted we took, contained enough to feed a family of four for a week! A whole chicken, a quiche, pack of tomatoes, a whole lettuce, bottles of beer, pack of butter and a box packed with three different types of cake. If you read this Cath – Thank You.

Needless to say we got lost trying to find the camp site – satnavs should not be relied upon when navigating forests – so I had to fall back on my old-fashioned navigation equipment – Sandra – who proved little better than her electronic counterpart. A confident “Yes, this is the right track” proved to be spectacularly wrong, and even a climb to the top of a lookout to get our bearings didn't help too much. Stumbling on a map of the park next to the lookout was our saviour and we managed the last 30k or so and got our camp set up before dark.

Surveying the countryside looking for somewhere to camp

Finally – a lesson learned (again) – we put our waste bag into the car overnight to thwart nocturnal predators, taking it out in the morning to stop the car smelling of rotting food. We forgot about daytime predators and had to fight off a giant goanna ransacking the place for the remains of last night's Singapore Chicken Stir Fry.

Moving slowly after demolishing the remains of last night's dinner