Redneck wallaby with joey, Honeysuckle Creek

Well, it’s the weekend again and I haven’t had a chance to write about last weekend yet! Those of us in Sydney had a long weekend because there was an attempt to basically shut down the city while APEC was on. Andrew and I decided to head out of the city, and we dragged Iris along for the ride. So Iris spent Thursday night at our place, and the aim was to leave at 7 am on Friday morning. Needless to say we were running a tad late (situation normal) and we left at 7:30, only to find that we couldn’t turn out of our street because it was being blocked for the Russian president’s motorcade. So 7:45 and we were allowed to be on our way.

The plan had been to be in Canberra around 10 am because Andrew had to do a quick job there, so that was the first stop when we got to Canberra. Then we did some shopping to top up our food stores and grabbed some lunch from one of Andrew’s favourite cafes in Canberra. And then we headed to Namadgi National Park.

It had rained off and on the entire way, and naturally it was raining when we got to our campsite. It was late afternoon, grey and starting to get cold, so while Iris and I set up the tents Andrew got the billy boiling, set up our “kitchen” in the shelter (as we were the only ones there that evening), and started looking for some wood to burn. Last time we camped here, there was a wood pile that was available for making a fire in the shelter where there was a fire place, but apparently the rangers used to spend all day chopping wood so now they don’t supply it. The visitors centre had bags of wood for $12, but we didn’t realise we needed any when we booked into our campsite. So, the scrounge was on to find wood before it got dark and cold.

It did get cold, and we were very happy to have the fire. We showed Iris how to toast marshmellows on a stick, had a BBQ for dinner, and taught Iris how to play the child’s card game Uno (Andrew and I take a pack of Uno with us everywhere we go!).

Saturday morning it was still raining, so we spent most of the day just relaxing in the shelter. The camera came out to photograph the wallabies and birds that were around. In particular we were excited to see a couple of male bower birds hanging around with several females (or there might have been some immature males as well, since they look similar to the females). I hadn’t seen the male before, so we had great fun trying to entice the male closer by putting some blue things around and hoping he’d come to investigate. Iris and I went to buy a bag of wood from the visitor’s centre for the evening’s fire, and by the time we got back there were lots of people at the campground. Most were heading off for a day of walking, as the weather had improved a bit, but there were 4 rowdy guys who were spending the night at the campsite. Andrew and I were disappointed that we had to share with these noisy guys who couldn’t stop talking about their drinking feats and wondering whether it was too early (at lunch time) to start drinking, and if they did they’d be passed out by 6:30. I wasn’t impressed, we’d gone there to have a nice relaxing and quite time, and these boys didn’t fit those plans! But in the end they were fine, they weren’t so loud when they got back in the evening, and they’d even bought a bag of wood to help keep the fire going. One of the guys even ended up playing Uno with us that evening. It was a very cold night, and we were very glad that we bought the wood!

We went for a short drive that afternoon along a dirt road that goes to the ridge of the hill we were on. There were some nice views over a valley when we got there, and then Andrew and I went for a bit of a walk on another track while Iris stayed warm in the car. That track didn’t seem to go anywhere, but it was nice to wander along it anyway. We drove back to the campsite and then Andrew and I walked up to the old tracking station (Honeysuckle Creek tracking station) that no longer exists. The foundations are there and there are information boards around describing what used to happen there.

There was a frost on Sunday morning. I love frosts and I miss them, as living in a city and close to the ocean we don’t see frosts sitting on the ground. Unfortunately we had to leave that day, even though it was perfect for walking. We’d promised Iris a day in Canberra, showing her the sights, and so we packed up and drove back to Canberra. We went to a lookout over the city, and then went to Old Parliament House where we joined an interesting tour. Afterwards we had lunch and then headed to the War Memorial where we were until it closed at 5 pm. I’d never been there when it closed before, and there was a sort of closing ceremony with a lone person playing bagpipes.

We drove back to Sydney, making only one stop on the way to show Iris the Big Merino (a sheep) at Goulburn and another for petrol. It was quite a relaxing weekend, just a pity that it rained so much which restricted our options in the national park.

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