Into the Snowy Mountains

Time to hit the road again, we left Mallacoota

 and drove back up to the Princes Hwy, continuing East, into New South Wales (I'm sure it's not just us, the roads are better!  Wider, less potholes and much better, firmer road edges.)
We arrived in Eden around 10.30am and went straight to one the best named caravan parks - it's in the town of Eden, it's called 'The Garden' and is therefore  The Garden of Eden Caravan Park.

They are not affiliated with any of the group, chain parks but offer a discount for seniors, anyone who is affiliated with a park group; pretty much anyone really.

After lunch we walked back into town - why are so many towns built on top of hills?!? Eden has to be one of the hilliest towns ever, there is no way to avoid walking up a hill. Our knees certainly had a work out today.I went into the visitor centre to see if there was an option to walk into town and the lady suggested using the boardwalk next to the beach.
Whilst in there I couldn't resist a photo of this splendid sofa - too nice to sit on.

The next day was another of those splendid 'do nothing' days. Just sitting around reading and drinking coffee - oh I did do some washing.
Another day in Eden and I gave the old knees another work out and walked into town. This time I followed the boardwalk along the seashore, it was a very pleasant stroll but it didn't avoid any hills.

The next day, as the rain returned, we moved on from Eden;

 

 As we left Eden the mist and rain blanketed the ocean, we couldn't see across the Bay at all. We had a quick drive around before rejoining the Highway and driving through some FOG we headed north to the nice looking town of Pambula and on to Merrimbula.
We stopped in Merrimbula to stretch our legs and check out a few shops - the bakery, a couple of Op shops and a great second hand book shop. (I know we were avoiding buying books after the last time - 40kgs of books when we got home - but these 2 were on the wanted list.)
Then we continued northwards, stopping just 8kms out of town, at - Potoroo Palace, a Native Animal Educational Sanctuary.
They had pretty much every Aussie animal - we didn't see the wombats though, they were fast asleep underground. We only saw the feet of a couple of sugar gliders as they were curled up asleep in their hollows but we eventually spotted a couple of koalas backsides as they slept in their cosy tree branches.

The Eclectus parrots were beautiful and the Emu was friendly, the Frogmouths were noisy, and I was delighted to see a pair of Gang Gangs close up but we didn't get too close to the Dingoes.

The wallabies were well fed, fat and lazy so we didn't get mobbed for food but we had a lovely walk around the sanctuary before pressing on to the town of Bega.

Bega is famous for its cheese. The information centre is in one of the old buildings of the cheese factory and they have a 'factory direct' cheese shop so we made that our first port of call.
 As we drove into town we had spotted a big blue - 'RV Friendly' sign, so asked in the info centre what they provided, specifically if there was an RV parking spot. The lady admitted to not really knowing what 'RV Friendly' was about "you can't just park in the street and stay you know! We have a caravan park and the showgrounds." She added that it probably meant that there was a dump point in town. Behind her, on the wall there was a typed notice listing free camping areas, all in towns out of Bega - we still can't think why Bega got it's RV Friendly status.  Michael tasted a couple of the cheeses - but he wasn't impressed so despite it's apparent 'Friendly' status we didn't spend a cent in Bega.

We drove on out of town and then turned on to the Snowy Mountains Highway.

The road was a good surface but very twisting and steep.
We didn't stop at the lookout as it was still overcast and once we had momentum we pressed on upwards.

It was quite a spectacular drive, well for the passenger. Michael didn't get to see more than the next bend. We drove through Bemboka and then joined the Monaro Highway heading towards Cooma.
We stopped in the old town on Nimmitabel and had a drive around town.
The old flour mill had an interesting history.

We checked out the caravan park - no manager in residence, a very old, cold looking ablution block and one even older static caravan. For this they were asking $26 a night. No thank you.
We carried on along one of my favourite highways - the Monaro - it's a good surface, plenty of overtaking opportunities for those following and fantastic long views over the country.