We’ve finally, finally, only just begun.  Six months after ignominious return to Sydney, four months after ATGANI’s charitable return (huge thanks to Marlies and Uri), two months after a fabulous Tanzanian trek and one month after caravan vandals derailed us yet again (bring back capital punishment, I say), we’ve said goodbye to Sinney and crossed the border into Victoria. 

We’d meandered down south through Canberra, staying at the Truffle Farm near Mt Majura where it isn’t truffle season so everything was closed.  But we were the winners because we camped in solitary splendour above the dam, watched the ducks, walked up the very steep mountain, charged our batteries every day thanks to now-working and upgraded solar equipment and generally felt pleased with ourselves.

Cultural activities centred on the National Gallery and Old Parliament House (thanks Gill and Ian).  Cressida Campbell, whose art is mostly still life, plants and flowers with some seascapes thrown in, was fascinating.  Her technique means making two of every picture by first completing a watercolour painting on plywood, then incising around all the edges of the (say) flowers, then covering the plywood with a sheet of paper, squeegee-ing it all over and peeling back the paper to reveal a reverse “print”.  Then, lots of re-touching and ta-da!  Hard to see the point but she says it’s what she enjoys and so it’s also hard to argue with that.  Gives new meaning to “don’t colour outside the lines”.

Old Parliament House, or as we now know it Provisional Parliament House, has been turned into the Museum of Australian Democracy, and very good it is too.  Lots of information, a fair bit of it new to us, presented in an all-ages manner with interactive games for the kids through to “how it used to work” montages and newsreel videos for the rest.  Much of the re-creation centred around the Hawke era, probably because he was more interesting than lots of the others but maybe just ‘cause he was more fun.  Lesley was particularly taken by a temporary exhibition of 2022 political cartoons from various newspapers – nobody came out of it very well!  Typically, my favourite piece was in the Howard Library where there’s a video of a pompous Little Johnny giving 30 word personal assessments of a dozen past PMs.  Unsurprisingly, no self-reflection. All highly recommended and for both places 👍👍

Anxious to test our possibly-forgotten driving skills we headed down the page and right a bit to Tathra via Cooma.  Lots of hills and corners, plenty of braking, but no drama at all!  We stayed off-grid at Bournda NP, under lots of tree shade which taught us that we need to have a fair bit of sun to get the batteries fully charged – who knew?  After a good long walk to Bournda trig (no views), a meal at the beautifully sited Tathra Pub, and a few wildlife sightings, we cheerfully broke for the border.

I’d wanted to see Mallacoota since we saw all those people tragically marooned on the beach during their bushfires, waiting to be carted off to HMAS Choules.  The one thing that sticks out like a sore thumb is that all, I mean all, the bush around here has burned.  Some of the burn has been so hot that the re-growth is minimal but most of it is all fluffy gum trees fighting their way back.  Looks green and lush…now.  We drove another 100km west from here.  Guess what?  All burned.  Incredible.   

Equally incredible was that entering Victoria felt like this trip had now genuinely begun.  Up until now, we’d been to and seen all these places before.  Finally it felt like adventure!  Weird but wonderful.

Mallacoota today is pretty small, clearly beautiful and all about tourism – mostly camping tourism.  We had a look at the Council-run Foreshore Caravan Park.  Aptly named as it is right on the river and a handful of sites have lovely views.  The problem is that there are 700 sites, many not all that level.  Sardines come to mind.   We met a man who comes here every year, has the same site (to be fair, a good one) every year and is showing no sign of changing.  I bet there’s skulduggery involved to get the spot you want – we decided we didn’t want, and pushed on to sleepy-sounding Bremm River.

Bremm River is on Sydenham Inlet, has a population approaching 20, boasts a caravan park and a pub, so that sounded good.  And given our recent successes we headed in that direction, asking for the first time in a long time, “What could possibly go wrong?”