Days 199 to 207 Car shuffle and food drops

NSW Days 57 to 65 (100 to 207) Thursday 9th to Saturday 18th December.

Goulburn Train Station
9 days have passed. I've covered some kilometres. I had to go back to Wallerawang to get my car. First a train from Goulburn to Sydney then up to Lithgow where I got the afternoon school bus that dropped me of in Wallerawang.

For those interested the whole trip cost me $46.00. The train from Goulburn to Lithgow was 42 and the bus 4.

Bimbiri Wilderness Area
I had a good yarn with Mal Keeley at the pub. He is the section coordinator for the Wallerawang area and I missed him on the first pass through.

I drove from Wallerawang south intending to take a break. I stopped for two nights and picked up a couple of buckets for the trek south of Canberra but decided to go home. 

Mark McGowan had different ideas, so I thought a Christmas in Qld.  I had to drop into Jindabyne to get a Covid Test to enter Qld. I was heading north towards Tenterfield and after discussing some of the problems we were having with the borders decided to stop and head south again. 

Dartmouth Dam
Dartmouth Dam
Back to the snowies to drop the food buckets. Bucket 1 was at the Providence Portal which is a cabin camp area on Lake Eucumbene. It's about 5 days out of Canberra. I'm going to pick up the Alpine Walking trail just south of here and head across the top of the Snowies to Thredbo.

NSW Vic border
Hopefully a resupply at Thredbo then another 5 day walk to my second bucket drop at Limestone Flat Camp. The drive there is from Jindabyne south following the Snowy River through Suggan Buggan. The first time I saw the Snowy I was a little disappointed. That was about 20 years ago but it is minor flood. 

Lake Jindabyne is full. The drive is long and slow. I went from there to Omeo to see what is there. The hardware store has the gas I need. Stopped at the top pub. I did go down to the caravan park to see if I could catch up with a couple riding north on the trail but they were not out of bed when I wanted to go in the morning. 

Suggan Buggan school
Lake Jindabyne

If anyone is interested they have a Facebook page Tales of Australia. They have travelled from the South West of WA. The husband rides the wife is the back up with the truck. 

In the distance across Omeo. 3rd lump from 
left Mt Kosciuszko.
The next bucket is up in the hills near Howitt Hut. 300 kilometres and 6 hours driving to get there. This one has 7 days supply in it. The last bucket is near a place called Knockwood. A popular camping area along a river. Took a while to find a spot that I thought might be safe. It's hard close to camping area and private property as people search for firewood. But each spot is close to a bail out spot. So if the bucket is compromised I don't have too far to go to get help. 

From there it's a long drive back out and around to Healesville. Here I will leave the car and take transport back to Canberra. 

Bucket 3. Hope no fire.
Some lovely people are letting me leave the car at their property and gave me access to the shed and hot shower. I swept and raked a little as payment. Their family gather here on boxing day for a couple of days. Saved them a little cleaning I hope. 

Craig Sharp gave me the idea of making a donut type thing to put on the bruised hip. I'm working on that but the 9 days off so far has seem the lump dissipate and the bruising settle down. The heaviest food will be from Mt Howitt with 7 days supply. All others are at 5 days.