Back to Paddy's River Dam

If you have been reading the Blog since it's beginning you will have seen that we like the High Country and we like to camp where there is water.  Sometimes for a swim, sometimes for a bit of a fish.  After the trip up north to visit the rellies we set sail south.  Having a few more days before returning to work we decided to load up some fishing gear and the surf ski and head for Paddy's River Dam for a couple of days.  Spot of fishing, a swim and a bit of a paddle around...

Paddy's River Dam was constructed in 1936 to provide a reliable water source for the power house at Tumbarrumba.  These days it ismainly a recreational dam, stocked with trout. This is bush camping at its best; a couple of pit toilets, a picnic table and some fireplaces.  Better than that, being State Forest, it is pet friendly so you can take a dog, or as was the case when we were there a horse.

The drive in is pretty straight foward.  We were in H4 in the Disco, the earlier rains had washed away some of the surfaces and there were ruts.  There was even a tree across the road!

The tree may well be gone by now - it was a couple of months ago...  In any event we found a track around it and continued on our way.  If you have been in there and know please leave a comment...

The last little bit of road in has a small creek crossing and not too far from the turn off to the campsites was a bit of mud.

A little bit of care needed, or there was a chicken track around it!

It didn't take us long to get in to the campsite and get ourselves set up.

With the campfire lit and dinner in the camp oven there was only one thing left to do on the first day...

Some people call this fishing.  I call it standing in water killing time and relaxing.  Didn't have anything to do with fish on the days we were there.  Still as the saying goes, the worst day fishing...

There are other things to do.  Hume and Hovell trekked through here during their 1824 expedition to Port Phillip.  There is a signposted heratige walking trail from Yass to Albury and Paddy's River Dam is one of the few vehicle accessible campsites along the trail.  There are signs around to show you where to go and most of the local visitor information centres nearby have information about the trail and the expedition.

The scenery in the area is fantastic, the tracks through Bago State Forest are well signposted and we had no problem finding our way around using the GPS, all of the trails were on the maps we were using.

Access: It is accessible by 4WD.  It's easy in the dry, but very ordinary in the wet...
Toilets: Yes - long drop.
Showers: No.
Water: Yes.
Shop: No.
Campfires: Yes - subject to firebans.
Pets: Yes.

Cost: Free.

GPS: S35 42.9759, E148 10.0049

Back in business

After a while away doing other stuff I am back in business with some of the camping we have done while we were invisible.  So some pics, some words and some fun along the way...

At Christmas time 2010 we set sail to visit family in northern NSW and had a couple of days in the bush on the way up.

Our site of choice this time, mainly because we didn't have the dog with us, was Warrabah National Park.

Entry to Park

We had a fair sort of tour on the black top to get to the closest main town, Tamworth, which is about 80km away.  Near Manilla we turned on to Namoi River Road and followed that to the picnic area and campground.

Road in to Warrabah NP

It's a nicely set up park with composting toilets and picnic tables in the camping area.  The road in is unsealed but usually in good condition and is an easy drive for a 2WD.

Info sign

The entry sign also has an 'honesty box' set up so you can pay the $5/adult $3/child camping fee.  The signage also shows where you can camp and has the usual interpretive information about the park.

The Namoi was in spectacular flow.  It was a couple of weeks before Christmas in 2010 and there had been some significant rains breaking the droughts and filling up the rivers.

There were a couple of freshwater shrimp to be had in the shallow pools.

There are some 4WD tracks near the campsites

Which are well set up...

They just need someone to set up and enjoy...

We had a couple of very enjoyable days in Warrabah NP.  A little 4WD-ing, lots of eating, sleeping and relaxing.  Even a spot of fishing and swimming.  Do I recommend this one?  Yes and No.  It's a National Park so dogs are not welcome and there is a charge.  I don't like that...  On the up side we seemed to have had the entire park to ourselves.  Didn't catch anything, but enjoyed the couple of days before heading off up the road towards Grafton.

On the way up we decided to take a slightly different way, wanting to see a convict hand cut tunnel.

Impressive huh?

Next week - we returned home and then set off to Paddy's River Dam for a couple of days... Swing back this way for a look.

Still busy

As you can see life has been really busy and I've still not had time to do a decent update...  I will soon - I hope.

We have done a few cool things like a Sydney Harbour Bridge climb, and we are heading back up to Sydney for a 40th again soon.

Part of the reason that I have been busy is I am slowly getting the Land Rover ready for our next big trip.  Recently I have replaced the rear shock absorbers, and a universal joint, rewired part of the fuel gauge, done a quick patch up on the tacho sender and un-jammed the trip meter!

Shortly we are off on holidays to Norfolk Island, and then we are hoping to be able to go on the Lightning Ridge Police Bush Safari ( http://www.lrpbs.org.au ) if you are interested in checking out the details...  Having all these little (and not so little) things fixed up is a good thing, particularly as we are planning that trip!  It's a big enough drive to get to the starting point, much less the going from Lightning Ridge to the Gulf Country.

So, spare me some time and I'll get the November to February pics and stories up soon - promise.  Maybe even some of the trip to Norfolk Island.

We won't be camping ourselves for a couple of months yet - way to cold down here at the moment and a fair number of our favourite campsites are closed until the October long weekend.  Half your luck if you are in a warmer part of the world than I, and are still in camping season.

Making a come back

Other things have overtaken updating the blog recently.  Some good, some bad - all a part of living life I guess.

We haven't been off in the tent for a while now but have been around doing some interesting things outside of camping...  I have had three of my musical fantasies fulfilled recently.

John Williamson and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra late last year was an amazing show and we had fantastic tickets.

Then Jimmy Buffett came to Sydney so another run up the Hume Highway to see what was the most amazing show I have ever experienced...

The Alan Jackson popped into Australia for a visit.  We saw him at CMC Rocks the Hunter - a 6 hour drive for a two day music festival with Mr Jackson headlining.

At the moment the main computer that I use for photos etc is playing up.  I'll get it sorted shortly and share some of the fun.

Hopefully we can get up some posts about the last couple of camps we did in November/December, complete with photos and GPS Coordinates and I'm back on track.

Catch you soon.

Queensland floods 2011

I know that it's been a while since I last posted.  Both personally and professionally it's been a busy time lately.

And we haven't been camping much - rain has slowed things down.

Over the Christmas break we managed to get away and spend some time camping near the small town of Manilla and visited friends and family near Grafton.

Over the past week or so we have watched as Grafton was isolated by flood waters and the surrounding villages and towns were evacuated.  We also watched Rockhampton, Toowoomba and Brisbane severely impacted by floodwaters.

If you have happened across here from those areas please know our thoughts and prayers are with you all.

If you have happened across here from an area that isn't impacted as badly and would like to help there are appeals which you can donate to.  The main one seems to be http://www.qld.gov.au/floods/donate.html If you have a spare few dollars please visit and help out.  We are 1000+ kilometers away so we can't help out physically so the best thing we could do is make a donation and I would encourage you to chip in as well.

If you would like to leave a message of support I have opened up the comment facility on this page.  I'll leave the messages on line for people to have a look at.

I'll get to the camping stuff in my next post, once I have had some time to download the photos!

Stay safe...