 1 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there We're ready to go and I'm really looking forward to the trip. What a wonderful country Australia is. The south coast of NSW is undeveloped compared with northern NSW, the scenery is superb and pretty much the same as it was when the British invaded. |
 2 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there We wait until 10'ish thinking that traffic on Pennant Hills Road may have settled a little. We get to the end of the M1 at Hornsby and join the queue waiting to get onto P.H. Rd. The traffic is hopeless mainly because of the WestConnex tunnel construction; bloody trucks everywhere. It takes maybe ¾ of an hour to travel 9kms to the M2. |
 3 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there The car is packed with all of our essential gear like 12v to 240v inverter, three 12v batteries, our iPads and iPhones, the laptop, and my two cameras plus their batteries. Jenni intends taking all of her pictures with her new iPhone 7. We're on the Hume Freeway heading south, having cleared the last of Sydney's motorways at Liverpool, and finally we can relax. |
 4 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there We've gone through Goulburn and we're now heading south on Braidwood Rd. We're heading for Braidwood to call in and see Jenni's brother Steve and his wife Sam. |
 5 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there At the end of Braidwood Rd, we turn East and join the B52 which takes us into Braidwood. |
 6 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there The countryside around here is distinctly rural and quite green for early Spring. |
 7 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there These are the first pictures taken with Jenni's new i7 and they're not too bad. The new i8 is available but she wants a bigger screen and concludes that the "old" i7 is better value. The iPhone X had just been announced with a price of $US1500. This phone is deliberately priced to be a status symbol for people with more money than sense. |
 8 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there We arrive at Steve and Sam's place which for the past 25 years has been a work-in-progress. Steve made the concrete plastered walls with its rusted iron inserts. |
 9 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there As an artistic thing, they intend leaving leaving the fence in its rusted state. I would have had them sandblasted and powder coated, but this is what differentiates an artist from an engineer. |
 10 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there Sky, Steve and Sam's daughter, is visiting with her twins Oskar and Kassia. It comes as a shock to realise that Sky is nearly forty. |
 11 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there Sam has planted a lot of stuff since we last visited 10-15 years ago. |
 12 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there Why such a long time between visits? Well, families often have long periods of war that resolve themselves when someone dies. |
 13 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there They are attracted to statues without heads that will one day adorn the garden somewhere. |
 14 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there This fencing won't be finished but left in this state. |
 15 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there I don't know if Steve intends re-attaching her head one day. I would hope that he covers those naked bazooms though because whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. |
 16 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there This is from India and is made from a very interesting piece of stone. It's sedimentary and twisted into curls; it's beautiful. |
 17 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there They live in an old church which is still in its original state. There are abondoned churches all across the state and they make excellent, robust homes. |
 18 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there We leave Steve and Sam's and head further east towards Batemans Bay on the B4. The car and the heavy trailer are going well. This road is mostly downhill as it heads towards the coast so I make sure to take care of the brakes. |
 19 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there After Batemans Bay we head north for some unknown kms and then head east again to our destination at Depot Beach. |
 20 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there Depot Beach is located in an old-growth eucalypt forest that has been set aside as a National Park. A large ant-hill on the right welcomes us. |
 21 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there There are three beaches within the Murramarang National Park. Park fees do not apply to us because, as pensioners, we have free entry to all National Parks in NSW except for the Snowy Mountains N.P. |
 22 Thursday 19-10-2017 The trip there The air smells different here. |
 23 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach We arrive at our reserved, paid for in advance camping spot and erect the tent for the first time. |
 24 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach The best part is that it's only $24/night and it has flush toilets, hot showers ($1 for 4 minutes) and it's right at the beach. |
 25 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach We chose a time of year when kids are at school. This means hardly anyone is here because the punters are at work. |
 26 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach So here we are, camping on the edge of an old-growth forest with the beach just 100 metres away. Is this paradise or what? |
 27 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach The tent comes together pretty well considering that this is the first time. |
 28 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach I foolishly think, " Let it rain, let in pour. I don't care." Oh dear. |
 29 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach No one joins us on either side for now or the next two nights. |
 30 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach We decide to walk 100 metres to the beach. |
 31 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach i7 shot. There's no difference between the i7 and my Pentax as far as picture quality goes. Jenni took only her i6 on her last trip to France and she intends taking only the i7 on her next trip. |
 32 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach The forest goes right to the edge of the sand and is called a riparian forest. More on that later. |
 33 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach Depot Beach is one of three beaches in the Murramarang N.P. To the north is Pebbly Beach and to the south is North and South Durras. |
 34 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach This is our first look at Depot Beach and one can't help but be impressed. I often wonder what coastlines like this would look like if we were a country of 100-200 million people. |
 35 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach I could find no information about why this is called Depot Beach. But historically, Captain Cook claimed this country as Terra Nullius for England and named many of the bays, harbours and other landmarks. Other British explorers who followed him did the same. Whatever the reason, we're overwhelmed by the unspoiled beauty of this place. |
 36 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach Perhaps this was a bay at which they left supplies at one time. |
 37 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach Anyway, it is now as it was then in the time of the early European explorers: completely unspoiled. |
 38 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach We talk to the only other couple on the beach, a British couple who had arrived from Singapore just this morning and are driving around the coast to Melbourne. |
 39 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach One of Depot Beach's interesting features is Kangaroos inhabiting the beach and its foreshores. |
 40 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach Another interesting feature of the beach is these Blue Bottles. They are related to the Portuguese Man o' war and sting like crazy. Some people react badly and go into anaphylactic shock after contact. According to wikipedia, a bluebottle is not a single multicellular organism, but a colonial organism made up of specialised individual animals of the same species called zooids or polyps. These polyps are attached to one another and they are unable to survive independently, and therefore have to work together and function like an individual animal. |
 41 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach There are signs everywhere warning visitors that these Kangaroos are, in reality, wild animals. Just because they look spaced out the whole time doesn't mean that they can't inflict painful damage. |
 42 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach Everyone treats the wild life respectfully. |
 43 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach One of the highlights of Murramarang NP is the forest of spotted gums. This forest is one of the biggest continuous stands in NSW and it has an understorey of Burrawang palms. There are some healthy examples of these palms behind our trailer at the camp site. |
 44 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach The spotted gums have a smooth, dimpled bark that is shed in summer to produce a mottled cream and grey ‘spotted’ appearance. |
 45 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach It's really hard to find useful or interesting information about Depot Beach. It's usually along the lines of accommodation, how to get there or real estate. This is a shame because I'm sure this area has an interesting history about exploration, whaling, logging and settlement. |
 46 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach Maybe that's why it is such a beautiful spot: it hasn't been trashed by commercial intetests. |
 47 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach Murramarang is part of the Ulladulla to Merimbula Important Bird Area identified by BirdLife International because of its importance for the Swift Parrot. |
 48 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach We drive around to the Durras North beach. This area is reasonably intact and has wild kangaroos as well. |
 49 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach A little to the south of us is South Durras. It is home to a few up-market resorts but is largely unspoiled. Funny isn't it? Going to a luxury resort in a wilderness area to enjoy the wilderness. |
 50 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach I'm going to jump ahead a little in time because the events of our evening in Bateman's Bay and our first night in the tent are tales worth telling. |
 51 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach Later today, we go into Bateman's and stop outside a pub. We decide this is as good a place as any to have dinner so we order meals and drinks. |
 52 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach The girl behind the bar sees my Doctor Who T-shirt and it turns out that she is quite a fan. She loved and cried in the episode about the Doctor and Vincent van Gough; it is my favourite episode as well. I have a hamburger and Jenni has fish and chips which we consume in the warm and dry outside area. It is a bit less noisy than inside. |
 53 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach It is dark as we return to the camp site and, in the car on the way back, Jenni asks if the noise we can hear is rain. I think it is bugs coming out at night but it is rain. Nah, it's heavy rain. |
 54 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach We're quite excited about snuggling up cosy and warm in our tent while the rain pelts down outside. Well, the rain pelts down outside but it is neither cosy, dry nor warm inside. |
 55 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach The rain leaks down into Jenni's side of the mattress and soaks it. The rain also gets into the lower part of the tent. That is because the rain is forming a huge dish in the middle of the roof and water is seeping in through the unseasoned roofing material. I push the pool of water skywards to get rid of it and that completes the flooding of the lower area of the tent. |
 56 Thursday 19-10-2017 At Depot Beach The rain eases off a bit during the night and then rains heavily again later. This time, I collapse a rear tent support leg so that the roof slopes down and the water can run off. So passes the night: cold, wet and miserable. Despite that, we still sleep in until 8:30'ish. |
