A quick two-day escape to Bournda, where we hadn’t camped for years, with Ange and Rohan. Some things have changed – more camping sites, louder bellbirds and the beach seems to have been reshaped and eroded. But it still rains there, and the lagoon and island are much as we remember them. Ah, memory lane!

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Towards the end of March we joined other members of the extended family for a camping weekend at Porepunkah, near Bright in northeastern Victoria. It’s a beautiful area in autumn, and the weather was kind. On Saturday we explored Mt Buffalo. Magnificent views in all directions, though the Horn track was unfortunately closed for reconstruction. The second full day some of us climbed the Eskdale Spur of Mt Bogong and walked along the ridge to Cleve Cole Hut, before returning the same way – many hundreds of vertical metres in one day, as our knees were keen to let us know! It was cold and windy on the ridges, quite wintry in fact, but beautiful views once again. We returned home the next day via Hume Dam and up the Hume Highway.

I’ve included some historic shots of the same area from the seventies, including the epic trip we did with the two babies just before Christmas in 1979. Don’t we all look young!

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Having visited Norway in July 1975 as part of our big overseas trip, we were keen to travel there again, as it held such strong memories for us. We’d loved the countryside for its spectacular scenery and variety, and its wild, rugged and underpopulated feel. We had met our friends Kym and Sue in Oslo and spent a good two weeks travelling around with them, punctuated by breakdowns of our Commer van (a lemon if ever there was one) and the necessity to all fit into one van – cosy! So this time we vowed we’d have a reliable vehicle at least.

Mike and Meg were happy to join us for the adventure, and we had fun fitting the four of us, plus camping gear and lots of food into the relatively small Renault Megane. It was a red letter day when we could reduce the number of duffel bags in the middle of the back seat from two to one! We set off from Kiel and were able to leave some stuff at Emmy’s, or we would never have fitted. Our route took us through Denmark (stopping only for lunch) and up the Swedish coast. By Day 2 we were at Odda, after a wonderful drive across the southern part of the country through green spring countryside, towns, tunnels, forests, past thundering waterfalls and along half frozen lakes, up into snow country and back down to fjord level. This pattern continued as we explored the fjords and coast. The scenery was often awe-inspiring, and we were impressed by the roads with their numerous tunnels, bridges and ferries tying the country together.  We camped when the weather looked OK, and stayed in a Hytte (cabin) when it looked like rain.

As we headed further north from Trondheim it got colder and starker, less spring-like and more like winter. (We certainly beat the rush, tourist-wise!) The Lofoten islands, past the Arctic circle were our northernmost point,and here we were lucky enough to see the midnight sun -a very special moment! We also brought out the down jackets and woolly hats. On our way back south we headed across to the Swedish Baltic coast and visited the famous High Coast or Hoga Kusten (still rising after being weighed down by huge glaciers in the most recent Ice Age) and then inland past lakes and forest back through Denmark (stopping once again for lunch) to Germany.

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We joined Mum and Stephan and family for a relaxed week’s camping at Marlo, which is roughly equidistant from Melbourne and Canberra. The weather was, to say the least, changeable (ie often rainy, windy, cloudy, occasionally sunny) but we were able to shelter in Mum’s cabin whenever it got too cold and wet and every evening. Cape Conran Coastal Park is just a few kilometres to the east and it has some wonderful coastal scenery, rough rocky capes, long windswept beaches, dense bushland. We loved the bright orange and yellow lichen-covered rocks, the pounding surf and having whole beaches all to ourselves. Interesting to see where the Snowy River flows into the sea – would not be easy to spot from a few miles offshore. We went for quite a few walks, and a longer drive to Bemm River, Pearl Point and Orbost. And most of us learned to play whist – and even got quite good at it!

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The annual family camping weekend this year was a long weekend at Swampy Plain campground, on the Alpine Way. There’d been heaps of rain over the summer and everything was green and lush. The river had clearly flooded not long ago – lots of debris on the banks. We found a lovely grassy private spot by the river. There was some late overnight rain and one morning, but not enough to spoil the weekend, thankfully. Had fun crossing the river to get to Dr Forbes’ Hut – all still looking good there. We had a lovely swim in the (cold) river at Keebles’ Hut, did some walks and drives in the surrounding area. The Main Range occasionally revealed itself through the clouds (1800 vertical metres) and we had one brilliant starry night. No mobile phone reception so the outside world didn’t intrude, very relaxing. We drove home via Khancoban and Cabramurra. Memory lane for some of us!
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It’s been a very wet spring and we thought that  the usually dry or only just trickling creek on Mt Tennent would be flowing for once, so we went to check it out. It was babbling and gushing away, and the surrounding bush was lush and blooming. A lovely spot for lunch – the sun even shone on us! And the view over the countryside below was also delightfully green. A pity Pete and Rohan weren’t there too, and that we didn’t have time to do the full walk to the summit, but it was enough to refresh the spirit!

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…in bloom. Yes,we have had one of the wettest Octobers for ages and the countryside is green and lush. Mt Taylor has transformed from its usual seared dry look to a verdant grassy woodland and the native plants have been flowering as never before. There’s even been water flowing in the creeks and gullies, mossy marshy areas and the happy sound of frogs! So, here are some photos of the blaze of colour that greeted walkers this spring.
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For a quick winter getaway, we headed north for ten days, rediscovering some old favourite places and finding some new ones. The weather wasn’t terrific, but definitely warmer than at home! Highlights were the Wollomombi and Ebor Falls on Waterfall Way east of Armidale, the Border Ranges National Park near Murwillumbah with its magnificent Antarctic beech trees (Mt Warning, alas, stayed in cloud on the days we were available to climb it!), catching up with cousins Bronwyn and Kacey and Kacey  and Rob’s two lovely children, the wonderful hospitality of Trev and Pirjo in Brisbane, and the Yuraygir National Park south of Yamba where we did a lovely walk along the coast. After driving south along the coast for a whole day of pouring rain we decided to cut the trip a little short and come home to sunny (but still pretty cold) Canberra and wish our gorgeous nephew a happy first birthday.

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We spent a lovely weekend with Peter, Mandy, Geoff and Jen at Mandy’s place in early June. Saturday was a lovely day, so we had a good look at the large garden and then went for a walk at Nowra, along the Shoalhaven and up a side creek through lush bushland, below magnificent sandstone outcrops. The weekend included many other highlights. It’s a beautiful area and the hospitality was greatly appreciated!

On a subsequent weekend we did a walk along the cliff edge at Fitzroy Falls – what a stunning waterfall ! The cloud in the valley below made it even more interesting, we thought.

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Brothers Peter and Stephan have been going up to Mt. Bogong for a week’s cross-country skiing every winter for over 20 years. They have told tales of climbing up steep spurs laden with equipment, crawling along the exposed icy summit ridge in howling winds, magnificent long ski runs down through the trees, the steep climb back out of these chutes, the cosy hut at the end of the day, and lots more, so we thought it was about time we visited the mountain to see it for ourselves. The perfect occasion came up when Peter asked us to join them for the annual “taking up of supplies”  prior to the winter snows setting in.

There were six of us: Peter, Nadia, Stephan, Katrina and we two. We stayed at Eskdale Pub on Friday night and drove into the start of the walk (an hour and a half’s drive) the next morning. The weather was beautiful, sunny and quite warm. We left the car in a clearing and readied our packs. It’s been a while since we carried full packs but it came back to us!  The first bit was the hardest, a steep ascent from the clearing up to join the Australian Alps walking track, which we then followed along Long Spur, before climbing up to Bogong itself. There are other access tracks to Mt Bogong at Staircase Spur and Eskdale Spur but they are much steeper, and we were glad we weren’t struggling up those!

It is a magnificent mountain, massive and formidable – we were glad the weather was being kind. Many of the trees were burnt in the 2003 fires, but there is good regrowth and there was lots of lush vegetation and water flowing in the streams. We stopped quite a few times for a breather, snacks and lunch, and finally had the hut in our sights at about 3.15pm – very welcoming! Even better, four other hikers were already there and had a lovely fire going, ready for the cold night ahead. Some of us went to look at the sunset from the ridge above the treeline, others stayed in the warm hut and rested their legs.

We enjoyed a hearty dinner and cosy evening. It was a cold frosty night outside and we woke to a glorious golden sunrise, which turned the whole frosted landscape a vivid orange. Most of us walked to the summit after breakfast – a long but gently undulating walk once we were above the treeline. (Katrina did her homework in the meantime – very impressive!) The summit itself at 1,986 m is near the northern end of the mountain but the views are wonderful all along the summit ridge in all directions. The ground was sparkling with the thick frost and some of the valleys way below us were beneath the clouds. We could see the main range, Mt Pilot, Mt Feathertop, Mt Buffalo, to name just a few (Peter and Stephan know them all. They also pointed out some of their favourite ski runs -very steep!)

We returned to the hut and prepared for the hike out, retracing our route back down Long Spur. On the way we side-tracked to Howman’s Falls, the creek plunging over ice-covered rocks into a steep gorge – we’ll have to do some more exploring there next time. We had lunch on the grassy slopes before Long Spur once more led us away from the mountain and back to our cars.

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