I had a really weird dream last night.
I dreamt that we were with another family (but I don’t know who) and they had a young daughter that saw something (but I don’t know what). We all ended up in witness protection and they put us into a very angular secret house that was built on the side of a hill with stunning views over the city (but I don’t know which city).
It was one of those dreams that just kept going, even after I woke up several times. Don’t you just hate that?
If there are any dream whisperers out that that can tell me what it means, I’d love to know.
We had a day in Albury today. A chance to wash out our smalls, catch up on some sleep and see the sights. I could tell you that after a recent Wikicamps upgrade we seem to have lost all of our saved places, and the latest version of Wikicamps is such a dog that it won’t even load. But I won’t bother, because if you have a look at the Wikicamps reviews, it seems that everyone is burning up about the same problem. It’s not just us.
So we had to make plans the old-fashioned way.
Using Google.
We had a lovely sleep-in and by the time we’d had our ablutions, breakfast, coffee, and done the dishes it must have been about 10.00am. So with a song in our hearts and a spring in our steps we stepped out into … the Albury Showgrounds Mud Flats, that were even muddier that last night because it was raining ever so gently.
There were a few things that we decided that we wanted to see around Albury, so we dropped some pins in Google Maps, and decided to look and see what else there is to see surrounding Albury.
Here is a quiz for you. When you have been driving solid for the last 4 or 5 days and you have a quiet day to explore, what do you do? You go for a drive. Of course. We wanted to see the monument, the Hume Dam, some wetlands, and some nearby townships.
It looked like there were a couple of places nearby that were worth exploring, so we packed up Elsie, said goodbye to Percy and headed off.
Left turn, right turn take the third exit, recalculating route … blah, blah, blah.
Good roads, but complicated by the rain, trucks and road-trains on the road, and the spray coming off their wheels. We headed out of NSW and into Victoria.
Our first destination was Beechworth, Victoria (population 3,290). What a pretty and picturesque little town 62km southwest of Albury. It is an historical township that has its roots in the gold rush from the mid-1850. Many of the old buildings are very beautifully restored, and the whole place had a very quaint, old-fashioned vibe about it.
You might notice in one of the photos above that a little cafe in the main street had a blanket hung over the back of every chair – for patrons to use, presumably. That’s how cold it was.
MBW bought herself a beautiful woollen scarf, then we found the local bakery and indulged in coffee, a beesting and an apple turnover.
Across the road was an Op Shop, and we do love Op Shops. MBW is on a mission to buy an “old-fashioned ice-cream scoop”. I’m not quite sure what that is, but I go along with the game. I’m sure that we will find one eventually, but in the meantime I use the opportunity to look at the books and see if I can find any biographies or autobiographies that interest me.
It turns out that I found a very-hard-to-find Nelson DeMille novel that I have been looking for. MBW bought me book #2 in a series some time ago and I really enjoyed it, but I can’t even get book #1 at the local library.
But I found it. In Beechworth!! For $2.00 (plus about $700 in fuel … but let’s not think about that). ”The Gold Coast” by Nelson DeMille, and I am the proud owner of a copy.
But here is an interesting thing about Op Shops – specifically the one in Holbrook that we visited yesterday. Amongst the ladies clothing, I noticed that they had a selection of lingerie.
That raises two quite concerning questions for me:
- In what universe would some lady think to herself “I don’t need this lingerie any longer, so I’ll donate it to Lifeline”?
- Even more concerning is that someone would think “I need to get myself some lingerie, so maybe I’ll pop down to Lifeline and see what selection they have available this week”
Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
The other curious thing about the Holbrook Op Shop is that their books are sorted in alphabetical order (allegedly).
- Lee Child
- Michael Connelly
- Danielle Steel
- Nelson DeMille
Can you see what I did there? Do you understand it? Nope, me neither. Someone needs to explain to them that sorting in alphabetical order means by surname.
But they have bigger problems … the lingerie, for example.
After Beechworth, we loaded up our purchases into Elsie and headed off to Wangaratta, about 40km due west. By Beechworth standards, Wangaratta is a thriving metropolis with a population of 29,087.
But it was a bust. You can’t get a parking space in the main street within cooee of anything worth seeing, and if you could you have to pay for the privilege of parking. But there was nothing of interest to see other than the trees in the main street that look like they had been trimmed by someone who failed bonsai school.
A pretty little township to be sure, but nothing compared to Beechworth. So we got back into Elsie for the trip home.
Back to Percy by about 2.30pm for a late lunch of a ham and cheese toastie and coffee/tea, then we both had a brief nap. We wanted to look at the local Harris Farmer’s Market to see what there was to see, but from my (possibly ignorant) perspective it was a whole bunch of Alburians ooing and ahing over some ridiculously overpriced organic produce that you could buy for half the price in Coles (albeit not organic, and probably not as fresh).
Home to Percy for dinner. MBW has done a fine job of putting aside some leftovers from meals that we have consumed over the last few weeks and frozen for this trip’s dinners. Nothing beats a tub of satay chicken and rice on a cold, wet, miserable evening.
I’ve decided that we must be a bit of a freak show.
Every time we walk into a shop, people stare at us and ask one of four questions:
- “WHAT have you done?”
- “What HAVE you done?”
- “What have YOU done?” I always feel like that one is directed at me.
- “What have you DONE?” Ditto
They get a quick, dumbed down explanation that “I broke my foot and needed surgery”, because “I have a lisfranc fracture” just prompts more questions. Inevitably they – or someone they know – has ALSO had a broken foot and they are ever so keen to share the details and compare injuries and recovery times.
Better that than hearing about their difficulty with childbirth, I suppose 🙁
This is what today looks like. Just a drive in the country, really.
The more observant amongst you have probably picked up that we never actually visited any of the local attractions in Albury – the dam, or the monument, or the wetlands. We were too cold and wet to be bothered.
C’est la vie.
Ciao.
#RoadTripNSW2023