Dad has now been moved to Caulfield Rehab Hospital and he said that he was told that he’d be there for 2 weeks. I take what Dad says at the moment with a grain of salt – he’s on pretty intensive pain meds – but seeing as he can’t yet stand by himself and it’s been a week since the operation, I think he’ll be there for a fair amount of time. This, of course, means that Mum will be staying here until he’s steady enough to look after her. And himself.
Where I’m going: For more travel vaccinations.
Today is 4 weeks since I had the Yellow Fever vaccine, so now I’m free to load up on everything else I’ll need. I need quite a few different shots, seeing as I’m travelling to Africa, China, Vietnam and Borneo, so no doubt I’ll be feeling like a pincushion a couple of hours from now.
Where I’ve been: on very slow walks.
Mum goes for a walk every day, and Scout and I go with her. She uses a walker to keep herself steady, so we trot along beside her until she’s had enough and we turn and head for home. This generally doesn’t take too long.
Then Scout and I head out again for a longer walk to stretch Scout’s legs. She can’t believe it – 2 walks every day????
This novel is terrific! It’s only 200 pages long and I enjoyed every minute of it.
What would living in a world that has legalised cannibalism be like?
This is a thumping good read.
What I’m watching: The Sopranos.
I’m up to the end of season 4. Mum has started watching it with me. She jumped right in, but she’s enjoying settling back after dinner and watching people get whacked.
What I’m listening to: Nothing much.
I can’t really listen to podcasts with Mum around, so they’re gently piling up on my iPad again. My sister came and took Mum out yesterday “to give Frogdancer a break.” I had a whole 2 hours to myself. I knocked over a couple of phone calls with Blogless Sandy and Evan28, and an episode of ‘Casefile’ before they came through the gate again.
What I’m eating: things from the garden.
Finally, the tomatoes, beans and zucchinis are producing enough for me to take them seriously. This morning I harvested rhubarb from both the red and green plants and stewed them with apple. 5 ice cube trays are now waiting to be cool enough for me to put them in the fridge.
What I’m planning: two new quilts for the lounge room.
On my second Little Adventure, I went across town to a quilting shop called Cutting Cloth and bought fabric for a quilt, coordinating with a painting I bought. The design is to use hexagons.
I hated cutting out the hexies so much that I soon put it all away in a drawer, but now I’ve roused myself to action. I’ve finished cutting out all the fabric and I’ve marked each piece with 6 dots to guide where the seams go.
Now all I need is to actually fire up the sewing machine and get started…
Who deserves a ‘thumbs-up’: Scout.
Scout has adopted Mum as one of the pack, and she sits beside her constantly. It helps that Mum likes to sneak her titbits of food. Mum has missed having a dog around, so she loves that Scout comes up for cuddles and greets her every morning when she walks into my end of the house.
What has made me smile:Mum enjoying the remote control.
I don’t watch TV during the day, so Mum has been able to watch any movie or TV show she wants. She reads as well, but so far she’s watched all 3 seasons of ‘Afterlife’, the last season of ‘Bridgerton’, ‘Where The Crawdads Sing’, ‘Memoires of a Geisha’, just to name a few.
Dad controls the remote at home, so she rarely gets to see shows that she’d like to see, particularly if they have a female protagonist.
Last Sunday, Dad was rushing to the back door to get out to the garage when he tripped over Mum’s walker (which was where she always leaves it) and broke his hip.
He’s currently in hospital with a matching pair of hips, as he broke the other one a few years ago. He’s like the bionic man. Mum’s too unsteady on her feet to be left in the house alone, so she’s up here with me. Thank goodness for that guest bedroom!
It’s been an eye-opener how many people are required to keep 2 old people living at home. We’ve had to cancel food deliveries, food shopping, physio, doctors’ appointments and postpone a meeting with their accountant. Their frozen food deliveries for this week have been piling up in the council’s freezer, so a taxi will arrive with it all sometime today. Thank goodness for the huge freezer I have in the laundry!
Mum has turned out to be an easy guest. She absolutely loves having total control of the remote control for the tv during the day and she’s catching up on all the movies that she hasn’t seen because Dad didn’t want to watch them. I’ve been watching ‘The Sopranos’ in the evenings and she happily watches people getting whacked by the New Jersey mafia.
I’m living in fear today that the hospital will want to send him home. He doesn’t sound ready, so I’m hoping that they’ll at least give us the weekend. He’ll be coming here with Mum until he’s steady on his pins. Thank goodness my crazy year of travel doesn’t start until February!
Scout has been an absolute trouper. Mum has missed having a dog around, but since her last dog, Murphy, died, it hasn’t been safe for her to have a tripping hazard running around. Scout is old enough to keep out of the way. She’s been spending most of her days next to Mum on the couch, getting cuddles and food snacks. I think it’s been good for both of them.
At the moment, there’s a shower girl who’s here to give Mum her first shower in nearly a week. She’s from an agency up here near me, so instead of giving Mum her shower and then leaving like her normal shower girls do, we have her for a minimum of 1.5 hours. So she took Mum for a walk around the block and now she’s doing the vacuuming. For some reason, I hate doing the vacuuming, so this makes me happy.
I don’t know how long Mum and Dad will be here, but it doesn’t really matter. The Best House in Melbourne’s floorplan means that we won’t be tripping over each other, so it should be reasonably trouble-free. Dad won’t be nearly as easy a houseguest as Mum, but the extra lounge room will provide a bit of a buffer if I need it. Haha!
Of course, the best thing about this is that, because of early retirement, I’m able to be here for them. My brother isn’t well enough to take them in and my sister works, so we would have been up the proverbial creek without a paddle if I was still heading off to McKinnon every weekday. As it is, the family, especially Dad, can relax knowing Mum is being looked after.
As this is supposedly, a FIRE blog, even though it’s now a ‘watch how Frogdancer Jones does retirement’ blog, I thought I’d tot up the travel costs for the road trip I made with my friends from Latvia and then when I was on my own.
When Liga first contacted me with the news that she was coming to Australia and we decided to spend some time together, going to Uluru was not on my mind. After all, I’d just booked a trip to Uluru with the Ghan for September 2024, two months before Liga would be there. Why on earth would I go back there again so soon? Obviously, I’d do a road trip with them along the Great Ocean Road, drop them off at Adelaide and they’d either fly or drive to Uluru.
Then Liga told me that the rental car companies would charge them an extra $900 if they left the car at Uluru, because they’d have to hire someone to drive it back to Adelaide. Ouch! There’d be no way to avoid that because after Uluru they were flying over to Cairns.
Coupled with the fact that there are no direct flights from Adelaide to Uluru, which meant that they’d have to fly from Adelaide back to Melbourne or Brisbane before flying over to Uluru, meant that it made much more sense for me to keep driving after Adelaide.
Liga also said she wanted “to drive the car with the desert stretching away on either side.” That sounded pretty good to me too, so despite my qualms about Outback driving, we arranged for the Crazy Road Trip to happen.
I decided to put aside 4K for the whole 3.5 weeks. It was an arbitrary number that wasn’t calculated with any real thought. It seemed like an amount of money that should be adequate, but wasn’t too extravagant. I had a few things organised with the girls that affected my outgoings for this trip.
I was paying for all the petrol, as a “congratulations on your 7th continent” present for Liga.
We were sharing accommodation, which cut down individual costs for each of us.
I’d already paid for my week’s holiday in the Snowy Mountains, as it was part of my timeshare.
I’d just been to Uluru, so I wasn’t anticipating buying many souvenirs at all.
I was intending to take my Vita-Weats and Vegemite for Frogdancer’s sad breakfasts to cut down on costs, as well as taking wine and some groceries/snacks. I also packed the toastie-maker for when I was in the apartment at Lake Crackenvack. We had the car, so I had the space.
As it happened, I bought a couple of souvenirs as well as some Christmas presents. I didn’t include the presents in my final total, as they were things I would have bought anyway.
The girls paid for 3 restaurant/winery meals for me as a thank-you, which was lovely of them.
Petrol in the Outback isn’t cheap. The most I paid was $3/litre, which is far more than we pay in Melbourne.
So how did I go?
I couldn’t believe it!
I actually came home with change from the 4K! Three and a half weeks of holidays and I spent $3,988.
Yep, just squeaked by with $12 to spare! How funny is that? I wasn’t totting the costs up as I went. I only worked out the total after I got back.
The toastie-maker saved me a lot of money because all I had to buy for dinners was a couple of loaves of bread and some fillings. Baked beans, ham and cheese – nothing gourmet. I’d eaten at restaurants with the Ligas and along the way on my own, so I was happy to slum it at Lake Crackenback. It helped that the celebratory lunch I bought at the resort restaurant wasn’t that impressive.
My sad breakfasts cost me around a dollar each time. The Ligas were spending anywhere from $10 – $20 for breakfast each morning, so that saved me a ton. I like vegemite for breakfast, so it wasn’t a hardship, though I couldn’t look a Vita-Weat in the face for a few weeks after I got back home.
I booked the first 3 nights of accommodation on my solo trip when I was still at home, looking for the cheapest motel rooms. After that, I’d search for a room when I entered the town I wanted to stop in for the night. The only time this didn’t work well was a Winton, where I paid $160 for a room for the night. The cheapest was Bourke, where I paid $75/night for 2 nights. It was very basic, with a shared bathroom, but I figured I could suck it up for 2 nights.
I was very happy that I’d inadvertently stayed within budget!
I’m ererging from that foggy week between Christmas and New Years, where everything blurs together and it’s like you’re in suspended animation. Not going to lie – I’ve been enjoying it.
Where I’m going:Absolutely nowhere.
Considering the crazy year of travel I have lined up in front of me, I’m enjoying keeping close to home and doing very little. I have around 10 library books stacked beside me bed, an overgrown veggie garden that needs cleaning up and a sewing room with lots of fabric.
I won’t be bored. 🙂
Where I’ve been:Megan’s place to help eat leftovers.
Remember Megan from the Canada/Alaska trip? She sent out an SOS after hosting her family for Boxing Day and so a group of us gathered for a barbeque and salad. It was nice.
At last!! I’ve been making my way through the Slough House series, which inspired the excellent series ‘Slow Horses’ on AppleTV. I had all the books except this one. Some selfish person had borrowed it before me. On Monday I raced down to the library because they’d finally handed it in.
I’ll be finished with this series lickety-split now. I’m loving the way Herron wries. His use of metaphor and his wry British humour is very enjoyable.
What I’m watching:The Sopranos.
Georgia put me onto this one. I know I’m very late to the party – and I also know about the very last scene in the whole series – but for some reason or another I’ve never seen it. When Georgia told me that she was watching it and thought it was good, I knew I had to see. She put me onto ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Better Call Saul’, so I take notice of her recommendations.
Thank goodness Binge has it.
What I’m listening to:the blackbird in the front garden moving through the leaves on the ground.
I’d swear that there was a huge animal living under the fruit trees, if I didn’t know better. The avocado trees have huge leaves and they seem to keep dropping them all year round. As I’m sitting here on the couch, I can hear it moving around and making the leaves rustle. It’s pretty loud, but it’s only the blackbird.
What I’m eating: The Christmas Ham.
I love a good Christmas ham. Every year I buy one and then slowly savour the hammy goodness on the days after Christmas. This year is no exception. With only two of us in the house nowadays, the ham lasts a long, long time.
When I get sick of it, I’ll chop and freeze the rest. But so far, we’re loving the cauliflower cheese, pizzas, ham and salad lunches, zucchini slices etc. Long may it last!
What I’m planning:an engagement party.
Tom32 and Sophie are planning a big year. They want to buy a house, buy a dog and get married all in 2025. To save money, they’re planning a very small wedding and they’re having their engagement party at my place.
I have a month to make my place look sparkling. An added impetus to this is that my ex-husband and his wife will more than likely be coming. I haven’t clapped eyes on them for a happy decade, so it will be interesting for us all to see how time has treated us.
Who deserves a ‘thumbs-up’: Mum and Dad.
Remember when I bought them each a ‘Storyworth’ gift for their birthdays last year? Basically, each week they get a question sent to them about their life/memories/attitudes and they write a response. At the end of a year their 52 essays get put into a book.
Because I’ve been travelling so much, this has turned into a series of binge sessions. They refuse to type out their answers, so I’ve been recording their answers on my phone and then typing them up.
They came over for lunch (christmas ham and salad, of course!) and we got through 10 questions. They only have 3 more questions each to finish the project. We’ll knock them over next week and then it’ll all be completed before I start my crazy travelling schedule.
I’ve learned a lot more about their lives as they’ve made their ways through. It’s been interesting.
What has made me smile:Scout.
I’ve been thinking for a while that she was 9 years old, but Facebook memories tells me that she’s only 8.
I’m a lucky person. I love travelling and I love being home. I have the best of both worlds.
Where I’m going: Christmas Shopping.
I only have Mum and Dad yet to buy for.
Georgia is turning 30 a few days after Christmas, and I want to take her shopping for some women’s shoes to fit her. It’s time.
Where I’ve been:to the mechanic.
I’m still salty about the bingle I had, just 4 days after coming back from the Crazy Road Trip. I was happily driving along Nepean Highway, went into the service road to turn left and saw that there were no cars in front of the car before me, so OF COURSE they’d be turning.
I glanced to the right to check if there’d be any cars on the road when I got there, looked back and the silly cow in front of me hadn’t gone… even though there was nothing in front of her. So I ran into her.
It was my fault by the letter of the law, but why wouldn’t you make the turn if there was nothing preventing you from doing so? My poor little car. She drove 8,000 km with no problems, and then this happens.
I will have to leave her at the mechanics for 7 business days at the end of January. They’ll be stripping her right back and replacing lots of panels etc. Thank god for car insurance!
What I’m reading:LOTS of books.
I’m thinking I’ll do a whole post on this, as I read about 12 books on my holiday. There were some cracking good reads among them.
What I’m watching:Alaskan Bush People.
This is a show on Netflix. I didn’t feel like watching anything challenging and this show fits the bill. It’s about a family of 7 kids who are totally under the thumb of their incompetent parents, particularly the father. They live far away from civilisation and exist like settlers in the 1700’s.
Their father is so STUPID. His decisions are questionable most of the time and he thinks he’s the head of “the wolf pack.” Ugh.
It’s drifting down from her room at the end of the house to where Scout and I are in the lounge room.
What I’m eating:Low carb stuff.
*sigh*
What I’m planning:my Vietnamese visa.
I have to get things together. I’ve heard they can be tricky to get right and I know quite a few people who have had to get one at the airport – at a cost of $500 or so. Yikes!
Who deserves a ‘thumbs-up’:Everyone who has commented on the blog this year.
Anyone who has been blogging as long as I have would know that people used to comment a lot more on blogs back in the day. Nowadays it seems that people just consume the posts and move right along.
I appreciate every comment and they make my day. So thanks, commenters!
What has made me smile:Avocadoes!
I planted a couple of avocado trees 3 years ago. I was watering the front yard a couple of days ago when I noticed something.
Yes, one of the trees is finally sprouting avocadoes. I was so thrilled!
Surprisingly, I didn’t wake up too stiff and sore from my mountaineering adventure the day before, but I decided to forego any more arduous activities on my last day here. I read my 11th or 12th book on the holiday, and then I took a gentle walk beside the creek in the afternoon.
On the map, it’s called the Thredbo River, but it was just creek-sized here.
It was nice, though the flies were a little annoying. I walked all the way to the Bushman’s Hut, which sounded a lot more interesting than it ended up being.
The sound of the water was lovely. I also heard kookaburras from the bushland on the other side of the creek.
I bumped into these characters on the way back.
“Be careful – there’s a snake to the right,” their owner said. “That’s why these two are on leads,”
I kept an eye out but didn’t see a thing.
This was a nice little “goodbye” from the Snowy Mountains.
The next day I was on the road by 8:30. I had a 7.5-hour drive ahead of me, but I was stopping in Lakes Entrance for lunch with my cousin Lynette. Apart from her Mum’s funeral, I haven’t seen her for years, so I was looking forward to the catch-up.
The country on the NSW side of the border was cattle grazing country.
Farms, farms everywhere.
Then woo hoo! Victoria! My nose was firmly pointed towards home now.
The drive between the border and Lakes Entrance was beautiful, but the closer I got towards home, the less inclined I was to stop the car for photos.
I spent a couple of hours wth my cousin and we didn’t stop talking the whole time. She grows fruit and veggies, like me, and she also travels!! When I told her about the Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar trip, she said, “I’ve done that!”
It was so interesting to hear about what I was going to see, particularly in Zanzibar.
When I got home, Scout MOANED at me for ages. Her tail was wagging, but she was letting me know the anguish she’d suffered in giving me up for dead. After a while, I looked over her head to Georgia and said, “I’m going away again in February…”
I gave her a squeaky toy I’d bought in Barkly Homestead. It lasted 5 minutes before she started pulling the stuffing out.
Screenshot
Here is the final map of the trip. My trusty Golf and I travelled 8,000 km and I had a fantastic time. The Golf didn’t miss a beat and I saw so much. I’ve definitely pencilled in the Nullabor Plain for a future adventure.
On Saturday I spent time with Tom31 and Sophie, and then on Sunday I saw these two for lunch. David31 and Izzy are living in a caravan, preparing to build their first house – can you believe that were married over 18 months ago? Time flies.
On Monday, I got the Yellow Fever vaccination for my Africa trip in April.
And then four days after I got back, this happened:
Windblown, sunburned and happy. This is me at the top of Australia’s tallest mountain.
But this was one of the toughest things that I’ve ever done. Climbing Mt Kosciuszko is not a job for the faint-hearted. Or chubby and unfit.
You start by going up a chairlift. Awesome! Go up a chairlift and then you’re there!
I wish.
There’s a ‘gentle’ walk from the top of the chairlift to the summit. They have provided a path that makes this walk idiot-proof. There’s no way you could miss the way unless you were actively trying to get lost.
It all sounds great, doesn’t it?
A walk of around 7 km – going UP. Then there’s another walk of 7 km – going DOWN. That’s a lot of km. The ones going up are brutal. I’m not kidding.
Add the wind which was blowing at such a hard rate that I had to take my sunhat and stuff it under my jacket. I never would have been able to keep it on.
Incidentally, look at all the water here. Remember the country I’ve been driving through that was so parched? Water is here in every direction.
It was a stark landscape, just rocks and grasses.
I was trying to put as much distance as I could between myself and a school group from Firbank Secondary College that had around 50 screaming teenage girls in it. I knew it’d take them a while to get them all up the chairlift, so I set off briskly (at first) so that I could hear just the wind and the birds.
And here’s where I have to apologise to the US, Canadian and European readers. I know I’ve posted shots of snow in these countries during their summers and laughed at them. Well – it was December 4 – summer. And here are snow patches in Australia.
These were the only ones and they were way up high…
But still. I apologise for saying that snow in summer is ridiculous.
This sign made me sad. I’d been walking for around 2 hours at this point. SURELY the summit was around the next corner?
Actually, when I said I’d been “walking” for 2 hours, that’s polishing a turd. I was walking a little way… stopping to get my breath back… walking a little more… stopping to say, “Fuck me!” and breathing hard and contemplating turning back… then I’d walk a little more and repeat. I was not enjoying myself.
It was AWFUL.
HORRIBLE.
There were two reasons why I didn’t give up and turn back.
I told the kids I was doing it.
I know how stubborn I am. If I turned back, I know that I’d drive up here and try again at some stage. Since I was here now, I may as well save the time and energy and keep going.
I gritted my teeth and kept walking. It was somewhere at this stage that I realised I could hear my waterproof jacket “Swish-swishing” as I walked. Remember Ming in Antarctica who never took off her Gortex jacket?
I laughed to myself and after a while I stopped hearing it.
People were starting to come down the path from the top.
Nearly there now!” they’d say cheerily.
But I kept turning corner after corner and it was obvious that they were toying with me.
The clouds were starting to get thicker, too.
Then there it was.
Holy hell – I did it!
It’s funny. Climbing Mt Kosciuszko has never been on my bucket list.
But I felt terrific, even with a sunhat stuffed under my jacket.
If I didn’t do this, I would have always felt it was a missed opportunity, seeing as I was staying in the neighbourhood. A bit like how I felt about going on the solo part of this Crazy Road Trip 2 weeks ago, or doing the Rim Walk in Kings’s Canyon a couple of months ago.
Incidentally – both walks are hard. But this one was way harder than the Rim Walk. I think it was because with the Rim Walk you know going in that once you get past the first 500 steps of absolute hell, then the rest of the walk is fine.
With Mt Kosciuszko, the steep incline keeps going on and on with very little respite. It’s prolonged agony instead of a short, sharp agony and then it’s over.
Fortunate Frogdancer strikes again. I was at the summit for 10 minutes, enjoying the clear views, then just as that loud school group showed up – yes, I beat them there! – the cloud began to roll in.
But the side where Perisher was? All clear.
I sat down, ate a nut bar and drank from my Antarctica Pee Bottle, enjoying the view and the sense of satisfaction. I had no idea which direction Melbourne was, or I would’ve waved to the kids.
After a while I got sick of the chatter from the school group, so I began to make my way down.
Every now and then, I’d been sending texts to Tom32’s fiancee Sophie. She grew up on the slopes of Mt Buller and I knew she’d like the views from here. She’s a mountain girl.
I told her that I HATED the walk on the way up, but I was looking forward to the views coming down.
I’m not kidding you – this rolled in just when I was around the other side of the summit. Have you ever seen anything like it?
I was uncomfortably reminded of the Stephen King story ‘The Mist.’ If hungry creatures were hiding here, there was absolutely nowhere to hide.
I decided to pick up the pace a bit, just in case.
Luckily, the clouds held off and I could still enjoy the vistas on the way down.
I took this shot because I was struck with the bright colours of the coats against the grass.
When they came up next to me on the path, the little kids were running. I gaped at their Mum and said, “They’re running???”
She laughed and said, “Yep. They’ll be exhausted tonight though!”
I wish I could show you shots of the huge views sweeping down from the path, but you know how cameras don’t pick up how vast landscapes can be.
It was a walk full of the spectacular. I wasn’t wrong when I said I’d enjoy the walk coming down far more than I did the walk coming up.
Water again. I liked the symmetry of this.
This nearly killed me. It’s pretty much the only part of the way down where the path looks like it did all the way up. See where it angles up the hill? I swear I had to pause 4 times up that bit to catch my breath.
However, much further along the way back, I saw something which made me feel like I’m doing the right thing with all this travel I’ve planned.
It was around 20 minutes from the end of the trek. I was idly watching a middle-aged couple coming up the mountain in front of me, when they stopped, gave each other a kiss and then the wife turned and began heading down the path towards the chairlift.
It was obvious that she’d realised that this walk was far harder than she knew (and I could definitely relate to that!) and she’d given up.
I don’t want to have to be the one who gives up. I want to see it all.
I walked behind her for a while before I overtook her. She wasn’t that much bigger than I am. I was surprised. She probably could have done it.
My last shot before I reached the chairlift!
All up, it took me 4.5 hours to get here and back, not counting the time I spent at the summit. They say that it takes between 3 – 6 hours for people to do it, so I was happy with my time, particularly as I’m unfit.
But it nearly killed me. I was DEPLETED by the time I hit the ground. My face was sunburned, especially my poor nose, and I had nothing left in the tank.
I texted Sophie and told her I was back down on the ground, then said, “It wouldn’t have killed them to make that chairlift end further up the mountain!!!”
It took everything I had to get to the car, go home, get up the stairs and fall on the bed to take a 2 hour nap. I was DONE.
I’m very glad I walked to the summit of Mt Kosciuszko, but this is one of those things that I only have to do ONCE.
I have a week at the resort, so I thought I’d spend 3 days lazing around, 3 days racing around to see the mountains and then I’d go home. So naturally, I woke up to pouring rain on the first day of my intended racing around.
But you know? I didn’t care. Retirement has given me the gift of time. I still had more days where I could go and climb Mt Kosciuszko, which I have definitely decided to do. I can’t be in the neighbourhood and not do it!
So I spent the morning reading another book – I’ve run out of the actual books that I brought with me and I’m so glad that I loaded up my iPad with 10 more library books when I last had wifi. This holiday would NOT be a happy one if I didn’t have enough books to read. This resort may be lovely but it lacks wifi.
At around 2 PM I looked out of the window and the rain had stopped. I studied a helpful little booklet about the local area and noticed that there was a gin distillery about a 10-minute drive away. Remember the wonderful distillery that I visited on Kangaroo Island?
I jumped in the car and went to visit the Wild Brumby Distillery. Just the thing for a rainy day!
This turned out to be a lovely place, where someone had decided to put sculptures everywhere – just like me! It’s a gorgeous place, set like a jewel in the hills.
Most of the sculptures are huge. I’m not going to show you all of them, because you might want to visit one day and I don’t want to spoil it for you.
The tasting/gift shop was warm and welcoming. Being a Tuesday, I was the only one there. This is a Christmas tree full of schnapps – which turned out to be what the owners made their name from.
On Google Maps, it was referred to as a schnapps place, so I wasn’t surprised when I asked my hostess what they specialised in and she replied “Schnapps.”
I enjoyed their gin – they even make a ‘navy strength’ one at 50% proof (or so).
What can. say? I came for the gin but left with the schnapps. The butterscotch one was amazing, and I also liked the sour apple with lemon. It’s made from Granny Smith apples – my favourite.
This is the backside of a beautiful little foxie called Cosi. I was walking around the lawns, looking at the artworks, when she came barrelling over to me for a pat. She sat at my feet and wouldn’t leave, even when her owner called her name twice. He had to whistle before she ran back to him.
I miss Scout so much. It’s probably because I’m nearly home and I know I’ll be seeing her in a few days. I can’t wait to cuddle that long little body again.
Imagine having the space to have life-sized pieces like this?
I can’t resist a well-laid-out veggie garden. This one was all berries. I’m assuming juniper for the gin.
I preferred this one from the back angle.
I thought I’d take this shot of a typical country road leading out to the highway. Everyone puts their mailboxes here to make life easy for the postie.
And if Liga’s reading this, then yes. Aussies call their postman a ‘postie.’
Such beautiful, serene countryside. I can understand why people might like to live here.
Not me, though. I’m too leery of bushfires.
But look at these happy cows. They’re surrounded by food and water, so different to the cattle that I saw just a few days ago in the Outback.
This brought home to me just how vast this country is.
On this trip I’ve seen so many differing climates. So many places where people, cattle and crows survive. We are lucky to live in a time where anyone can simply hop in a car and go and explore them all.
If I hadn’t had this booking here at Lake Crackenback, I probably would have wandered around more and seen more of the country in detail. But I’m glad that it has ended up the way it has.
I’ve been able to recharge the batteries before heading home to Life As Usual.
And I’ve looked at the weather forecast. Tomorrow is the day when I’ll stand on the highest point in Australia!
I was planning to take myself out to the restaurant here on the night I arrived, but once I’d unpacked the car in the rain and sat on the couch with a glass of wine, I wasn’t going to set foot outside again. I was at one with the couch.
So this shot is from lunch the next day. It was still pouring rain, so I grabbed a book I’d been saving for this moment and took myself out to the restaurant to celebrate having completed the Crazy Road Trip part of this holiday.
Now that I’ve done it – time to come clean.
Parts of me were nervous about doing this trip.
The first part, where I took the Ligas from my place to Adelaide, was no sweat. I’d done it before, after all. I was taking them to well-established places with major tourist attractions and I knew that the roads would be fine and there’d be no troubles with anything.
My kids, my family and friends were leery about the next part of the trip. The one where we head off into the Outback. We’ve all heard the warnings about travelling out there. I even had one friend, who shall remain nameless, call me and beg me not to do it after she read my itinerary on one of the blogs.
“You’ll kill yourself!!!” she said. Not really the sort of thing you want to hear when you’re days away from making a big trip. I crossed my fingers and vowed to prove her wrong.
Carry plenty of water. (The only time we used the extra water in the whole trip was to fill Liga’s water bottle before she went on her solo hike in the Grampians.)
Fill up at every petrol station you come across, in case the next one has run out of fuel and you’re stuck. (I did this because I had no intention of ruining the Ligas’ experience in Australia. I noticed some browsers with ’empty’ signs on them, but we always had enough premium petrol for my trusty little Golf.)
Take cash with you, in case you need to pay for something at a remote place with no internet. (Again, I made sure I had plenty of cash because I didn’t want to ruin the Ligas’ adventure. The only time I had to use it was when I was at Barkly Homestead, right in the middle of the Outback, when I handed over a $5 note to get coins for the washing machine.)
Lock your doors in (various places) because the crime rate is high. (This was a tough one. It was hard to convey to the girls that they had to be careful in some places without sounding like a paranoid Karen. The fact remains that some of the places we visited have high petty crime rates and I wanted to keep them safe. They went home without anything bad happening, so that was a win.)
You should only drive in the Outback with a large 4WD car. (When I was here in September, I kept an eye on the roads. Sure, most cars were big, but there were some smaller cars like mine. I figured, with a bit of luck, I’d be ok. I trust in the German workmanship of the Golf.)
Kangaroos, camels and cattle can run onto the road and wreck your car. (THIS was the one I was most afraid of. If a large animal appeared out of nowhere and there was no way to avoid hitting it, then yes. The holiday would be ruined. My beautiful little car would be ruined. And I (and the Ligas, maybe) might be ruined.This was one I had no control of and I decided to go with the odds.)
Overseas tourists can forget to drive on the left and can hit you.(This actually happened to a woman on the Simple Savings forum. She lived in the Northern Territory and a car driven by a French tourist ploughed into her. She was trapped and if it wasn’t for a truck driver who happened to come along and saw that her car was alight and pulled her out, she’d be dead. Her feet were mangled in the crash, so she has life-long consequences from that. She wrote a post warning me to think carefully about doing this trip. This shook me for a while,until I realised that the chances of something like this happening to TWO members of a small online forum were probably pretty minuscule. Still, I kept an eye on every single car or truck on the other side of the road, just in case.)
Take a first-aid kit with you. You may be a first responder in a place with no internet.(Thank goodness this didn’t happen. I bought a kit, but I forgot to put it in the car.)
So before I dived into my book, I ordered a glass of bubbly and raised it to myself. Sometimes we have to do things that scare us to grow.
I allowed myself to feel a little bit proud of myself.
I honestly don’t think the Ligas could have had a better holiday with me, apart from the weather on a few days, but that was out of my control. They saw so much, particularly the wildlife. As my sister Kate said a few days ago, not too many tourists come away from Australia having done a full-on road trip into the outback. They have seen a huge swathe of this country.
I’m also proud that, despite my qualms, I swung the wheel and turned left instead of right. I’ve booked so many tours for 2025, so it’s good to be reminded that I AM a capable traveller on my own.
Keep in mind that I still have a 6-hour drive to get back home again. So far, though, I’ve driven around 7,400 km.
It’s hard to process what that means until you see it on a map. It’s crazy.
But now I’m here on the LAZY part of the road trip.
Back in 2007, when I was just clawing my way out of poverty, dragging the kids with me, I bought into a timeshare. I wanted to guarantee that the boys and I would have at least one holiday a year.
This timeshare wasn’t tied to a single property, but instead uses points, which you can use on properties around Australia, New Zealand, Bali and other places around the world with partners of the timeshare. I used this partner feature when I took the kids to Phuket and when I went to Kangaroo Island this year.
Lake Crackenback, right from the start, has always been fully booked. People absolutely love it and as soon as time becomes available, it’s taken. It’s great for the snow season, but it has the lake and bushwalks etc in the warmer months as well.
Imagine my surprise when I logged on a few months ago, just to idly look for something that might be available in Nov/Dec, when I saw a week available right at this time. I grabbed it.
This created an endpoint after I decided to do the long, solo road trip. Instead of coming home for a few days, I’d arrive straight at the resort. Poor Scout. But from what Georgia says, she’s adjusting to life as a single dog. I can’t wait for her welcome when I get home, though!
There are a lot of people who own homes here, but these apartments over the water appear to be for people like me.
Poor people, in other words. Haha!
Look at these ducks. You know how most ducks glide across the water? These ones jerk their necks as they swim, making it obvious that they’re making an effort underneath the water. They also duck dive a lot. I like that.
I decided to keep the first 3 days as R & R days. During that time, I napped twice a day, read 4 books and learned that if I walked briskly around the lake 3 times, I could close all the rings on my Apple watch. That’s what I’ll be doing once I finish this post. I need to be a bit fitter than I am at present.
I was delighted to find that the path around the lake has sculptures along it. I was trying to work out what this one was all about until I read what it was called.
“The Bird Watchers.”
Here’s the bird.
The bird watchers were pointing their binoculars everywhere except where the bird actually was.
This was a hefty one, but when I was on my third round of the lake, it was swinging in the wind.
I liked this one. She could also move, but it must take a VERY strong wind to swing her around.
People can hire bikes, and use canoes and kayaks on the lake – there’s a gym, spa, pool and sauna.
I was so pleased to see this little fella. We don’t get rosellas where I live.
We have Little Ravens though. This one is very used to being fed by the people in these apartments. He isn’t afraid to get very close, particularly when people are feeding ducks and he swoops in for a share.
I love all the different shades on his feathers. His eyes also reminded me of the Bald eagles that I saw in Canada and Alaska.
I felt bad when I walked around a corner and the ducks all scuttled straight into the water. They looked as if they were getting warm, sunning themselves on the path.
If I was in England, I would’ve thought this was meant to be a mole. Maybe it’s a platypus?
Finally, do you remember the bear scat I saw on the path when I was walking on my own in Canada?
Here’s some kangaroo scat. Not nearly as fearsome, I know, but I liked how it flew my mind back to a place so far away. How incredibly lucky am I to have visited both places within 5 months of each other?
Here’s how I’m choosing to eat a meal a day. A fellow forum member from Simple Savings who does a lot of caravanning with her husband put me onto this. A toasty maker. I love a baked bean toasty. Or a cheese and ham one.
A week before I left on this trip, I saw a handy hint to help with cleaning it – to use baking paper. OMG. Game changer!
Well HOLY SHIT!!!!!
I went for that walk.
I was walking around the lake, minding my own business, when I LITERALLY almost stepped on a Red Bellied Black Snake.
My foot was millimetres from landing on it when it suddenly started moving.
I desperately tried my best to hover in mid-air while it wended its way of the way of my feet.
Honestly, it scared the living daylights out of me.
Locals said, “Yeah, it’ll kill you, but they’re very non-aggressive. “
Seems typical though. I do my best to avoid being out of doors, then when I do, it tries to kill me!!
However, I was thwarted. I found the Lookout, which gives a nice view of the city, but the track was one that you had to pick out for yourself, by the looks of things. I was there on my own, so if I injured myself I’d be toast.
The only people nearby were 3 dodgy-looking people in a car near where I parked mine, which also made me nervous. I decided, after walking a little way down the track, to stop when it became steep and tricky to descend. I didn’t want to screw up the Crazy Road Trip now, when I was so close to getting to the final destination before I headed home.
So I walked back to the car, disappointed. Still, maybe one day I’ll come back and try again, this time with a better map.
I found another silo. It seems that the rural communities have absolutely embraced the trend of decorating silos. Everywhere you turn around, there’s one.
Anyway, time to hit the road. This was another driving day to get to the resort at Lake Crackenback – which is probably how my back will feel after 16 days behind the wheel!
Sometimes I stopped to take pictures when I saw something pretty and it was safe to park the car.
I love this one. I stopped, got out and walked back to take this.
I love the one white face staring back at me from the mob. She was intent on monitoring what I was doing. They other cows couldn’t care less.
Google Maps sent me down more back roads.
One shot I didn’t stop for was one of a bull, alone in his paddock. He had the biggest set of testicles I’ve ever seen, but since this is a family-friendly space, I decided to keep driving.
Hay bales were dotted everywhere. Aren’t they pretty, close-up?
So many grasses.
In the afternoon I began to see the mountains I was heading for.
There were also some ominous clouds forming.
As I was driving along, I got stuck behind a ute. This turned out to be fortunate, as out of nowhere a kangaroo bounded out of nowhere onto the road, saw the ute and backtracked as quickly as it arrived, while the ute was braking and weaving.
It was certainly exciting to see, but I’m glad that someone else, presumably more experienced than me, was the one actually avoiding it.
I had lunch in my car, but by Tumbarumba (what a great name!) I needed a pit stop.
This tree was near the public restrooms. I walked over for a closer look.
People leave gnomes here.
From all over the world.
You can see through the smears of dead bugs on the windscreen what the countryside looks like here, in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains.
Apologies for the thumb in the corner. I was so excited that I didn’t realise it was there.
I was driving along, minding my own business when I saw this sign… with the last three names on it.
Have any of you read ‘The Silver Brumby’ books by Elyne Mitchell when you were kids?
It’s a funny thing when reality comes crashing into your imaginative world. I read all of the Silver Brumby books when I was young, even the last few which were all a bit too airy-fairy. The first 4 or 5 were cracking good reads, though!
These names were mentioned all the time, especially the Cascades, where the brumbies used to go in Spring when the grass was plentiful after winter.
I mean, I knew that the books were set up here in the Snowy Mountains. But in my mind, they were still in fiction-land. It gave me such a thrill to see those names.
I stopped the car, as you can see, and walked back to take a photo. To the left of me was a young woman, leaning on a gate. We said hi to each other, then I explained that I was taking a photo of the sign because of the books I’d read when I was a kid.
She laughed, “Looks like it’s turned into a good day for you, then!”
She wasn’t wrong.
There have been bushfires here. It will take a little time for the trees to regenerate, but as long as another fire doesn’t come through here too soon, the bush will go back to normal.
I stopped to take a photo of the sign, but then thought I’d show you what this place sounds like. It was going to rain very shortly, but the cicadas were out in force.
You can even see the smears from the bugs who lost their lives on my windscreen. They were shortly to be washed away by the rain, saving me the trouble of doing it.
See the sign? Also part of the novels.
I was thrilled.
The Pilot!
Thowra climbs up there a few times. It’s the peak sticking up behind the other hill.
Look at this photo! The eerie blurriness of those hills is EXACTLY what it looked like. I was standing there at the Cascades, longing to go for a quick walk and really see it, but the rain was coming.
Time to jump into my trusty Golf and race to the resort.
I drove through a tremendous downpour, which is always fun when you’re driving along the sides of a mountain. I got here unscathed, collected my room key from Reception and walked into my apartment, where I’ll be for the next week.
Look at my balcony. It’s directly over the lake. It reminded me of my Alaskan cruise with our balcony, but with this one the water is close.
So are the ducks. This is going to be a lovely place to rest, recuperate and then explore. After all, the tallest mountain in Australia is here!
