THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY…

A Just north of Yarrawonga is Lake Mulwala, a very surreal looking stretch of water containing many tall dead trees. We camped here for the night along with the thousands of cockies who reside in the trees and seem to have endless arguments with each other at the tops of their voices. I imagine you would get sick of it after a while but their incessant screeching just makes me smile. We like to go for a walk when we arrive at a new place to get a feel for it and just generally suss out the surroundings. On this occasion Rennie and I met Trevor who was camping in his caravan up the road. He and his wife Pat had eyes that look like they are always squinting into the sun, even when in the shade. There are many of these camping areas which are free of charge and there are often some fairly “permanent” residents who look like they are well embedded to the spot. We also saw some amazing patterns of bark on the trunks of a few gum trees by the track, one looked like it had been twisted around like a corkscrew. While preparing the dinner, roast chook and veg, Helen was off on a walk with the kids and my phone rang. I grabbed the hands free and answered. It was Daniel from Optus, wanting to chat to me about better deals etc. Normally I would have got off quickly but this time I was quite in the mood for a chat and kept him on Morman style, it was good fun doing something a bit different. There were about six different groups of people camping at Kyffens Reserve, all men with boats, I am beginning to question my manlihood as I am presently boatless, although we are trying to find a canoe to take along with us. Jarra woke up at 6am when the cocky alarm clock went off we went for a walk and every one of these groups were up and ready for the morning’s fishing. Have been seeing some excellent letterboxes. Particularly interesting are the groups of them, bunched together at the end of a dirt road so the posty doesn’t have to travel all the extra kms to the properties. Unfortunately I am having trouble getting photos of these as it takes so long to get the bus going once she is wound up I am reluctant to stop in the middle of nowhere and start the long haul back again. There are many converted 44 gallon drums on pipe legs, popular is the box on an old crankshaft post, and of course in the dairy areas it is hard to go past a milk can, usually with black spots. As we left Mulwala Helen commented about the many properties that had a caravan with an annex attached, we were discussing the hows and whys of this when we passed a farm which had three caravans in a U shape together under a roof. Instead of building a house they just extended their original van with two more. 25kms north is the town (blink and you miss it) of Rennie!! We had always planned to go there and it did disappoint…!! Two houses and an unused pub, the Rennie Hotel. It was a good place to park up for some morning tea of Nachos followed by watermelon. Is a very quiet road, the only car that we saw stopped for a chat as they passed. They were a couple of shearers on their way to their next job, cans of Melbourne Bitter in hand at 11am, they reminisced about some great times they’d had at the Rennie Hotel . The roads being as quiet as they were, I had to feel sorry for the two pieces of roadkill I saw, the chances of them meeting a vehicle on that road were probably comparable to winning the lottery, but with extremely different results. The road north from there changed width often, at times it was as narrow as the bus and sometimes there would be room for two cars to pass comfortably, but it probably averaged at one and a half vehicles wide. We normally win the game of chicken if playing with cars though. The edges of the tarmac look like it has been torn off a roll, very rough, worn and uneven. There was not a lot of variety in the scenery today, very flat and if possible, drier than where we have come from, the long grass is a whitish yellow now, not golden, and the wind that we were driving into and which kept our speed down a bit was blowing these tall grasses over to the east. Some fields are being burnt, I presume for preparation for crops, and you can normally smell them before you see them. A great feat of engineering are the huge rows of sprinklers all joined together, some must be 120 metres in length, 6 sections of steel pipe trusswork with wheels every 20 metres or so. It moves in one long line and waters the crops beneath, incredible. We made it to Oaklands for lunch, found a nice park for a play while Helen made some turkey, cranberry, cheese and lettuce rolls. An old fella, Ron, stopped his blue ute and came over for a chat, he had seen us drive past his place and thought we were his mate who has the same type of bus as ours. Learnt a lot about the motor and a couple of ideas to play around with in regards to getting a bit better performance out of it. And finally, the one that got away. Mate, it was this big, you should have seen it….. After passing through Goorabin, Urana and Morundah we made it to our destination just over the Murrumbidgee River in Narrandera, a campsite called Brewery Flats, named after the five storey orange brick building that is now gutted, which is just next to us. A lovely big river beckoned us and we got ourselves set up to fish. Dug for some worms without success so got some frozen corn from the freezer and some cheese. Phoned up and bought a month’s fishing license over the phone and were all set. Rennie has decided that she really likes fishing so we all went down the steepish slope to the muddy banks and cast in while Helen prepared dinner in the bus. Had to constantly stop Jarra from eating all our bait as we waited patiently for the strike. We are not the most patient of families and soon the kids were wandering off, I was chasing after Jarra here and there and I ended up chatting to a guy who was walking his dogs about the bus and our trip blah, blah, blah. I said I better go and check our rods to make sure a fish didn’t drag them in ha, ha, and as we walked down to the spot Tal started shouting, “Dad, Dad, quick you’ve got one”. My rod was actually being dragged along the bank and into the water. Well, you should have seen me move. Action Manning down the slope, leaping into the mud and just got hold of the rod as it was about to be lost for good. Started reeling it in, it was pulling like mad, a flash of yellow, fighting and reeling in, handle difficult to turn as the reel was caked in mud from being dragged through it, heart and adrenalin racing. Here it comes, almost there now, the three kids shouting and whooping, then SNAP!! A metre from the bank the line broke and it was gone. Couldn’t believe it. Boots covered in mud, dangly line hanging from the rod, I thought, Oh well, at least it is good material for the blog!! PS. Sheila, might throw a shrimp on the barby this arvo, fair dinkum, crikey, yawithme?