Our plan today is to head to Stockinbingal to spend a few days with Katrina's parents. If the weather allows, we'll then head to Tumut to camp for a few days.
From Cobar we headed South along the Kidman Way. I then realised that we would pass relatively close to West Wyalong, and got Katrina to look in the White Pages to find Keatley. While the address was wrong, the GPS had a Keatley road, so I thought we'd try that.
We turned off, after passing through a few "one pub" towns like Mount Hope, then onto Lachlan Valley Way. The map on the HEMA indicated it would be unsealed part of the way, but it turned out to be sealed the whole way.
We filled up at Lake Cargellico, checked out the lake, which was obviously higher than usual, found a crack in the windscreen which was probably caused by rocks thrown up by a road train near Coober Pedy, then headed to Ungarie.
Uncle Kerry's address in the phone book was Kurrajong Farm Lane, which wasn't listed in the GPS, fortunately while searching for streets, K brought up Keatley Lane, so I took a punt and aimed at that. The GPS tried to take us through a swollen creek crossing, before changing its mind and sending us through the town past sand bagged fences and buildings.
We found the road and drove up it, turning right past a sign saying K & W Keatley. The farm looked familiar, so we drove in past another sign saying we should ring first. No reception so we continued along. There was no Valiant under a tree either. It didn't look lived in so we decided to back track to the sign and try another direction when a land cruiser pulled up at the gate. Uncle Kerry didn't recognise me until I identified myself, then we went back to the house for a yarn and some raisin toast.
He showed us his awesome outdoor fireplace, "saddle" beer stools, a photo dad took of him when he was 21 and we had a talk about family.
After a while it was time to leave for Stockinbingal, Kerry advised that the most direct route was most likely closed due to flooding, so we went down the Newell Highway towards Narranderra before turning onto Burley Griffin way to Stockinbingal.
On the way we stopped at Temora for some beer and ran into a guy on a bike. Turns out he was heading towards Mount Dare to cross the Simpson. His name was Egbert and he lives in Beaumont near Cambewarra. This is his third attempt, being turned back by punctures and bad weather before.
Got to Stockinbingal around 17:00.
No comments:
Post a Comment