Back again, to the Snowy Mountains

It all started out fine, but was to get wet and quite inconvenient before things got better. I headed back to the Snowy Mountains for five days of rest, recreation and was hoping for recuperation at the same time. All Dave and I got in our travels was a lot of aggravation at the hands of the useless and over-rated NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service. More on that later in the article.

The five dayer started out as event-free as possible. I left work early so I could avoid the traffic snarls at the start of the Hume Motorway, where the M5 and M7 Motorways merge. Drive South was the order of the day. I'm no mathematician but how the road people expect a two-lane road and a three-lane road to merge into a four-lane road and not expect a log-jam is something I can't work out. To make matters worse, the M7 is being widened to three lanes and this will just make matters worse in the long run, as there doesn't seem to be a plan to make the four-lane Hume any wider to cope. I guess leaving work at 11:00 instead of 13:00 to get out of Sydney may one day become a thing.

Anyway, south I did head and I arrived at Yass for the first night. A stop was made at Goulburn on the way down, for a late lunch and I was quite hungry by the time I got there. Sometimes we stop at Trappers Bakery but this time I was left a bit disappointed in the pie, which was overstocked with grissle. The sausage roll and apple turnover were good though.



Camp was made at Joe O'Connor's Park, where there is a free campground. I set up and then went to the hamburger shop just outside the gate to grab some tea and then went back to wait for Dave to arrive. The first night was peaceful enough and a light breakfast was followed by the drive to where we were supposed to spend the second night - McIntyres Campground in the Brindabella National Park.

However, we would not arrive at our destination, due to the NPWS making an unscheduled (and unannounced) decision to carry out some roadwork, which the road had to be closed down for. Now, whilst it is not unreasonable to expect the Government to maintain roads and we certainly have no issue with it, even if it means changing our plans, in this day and age it is not reasonable to go ahead with it and not tell everyone. There is the Internet, there is the World Wide Web, once known as the Information Superhighway - and on the NPWS website there is an "alerts" section, where things like road closures, floods, fires and vermin culls get announced. Not a word was said, and we wound up doing something like an 80-90km round trip for no good reason. Ever since the change of government two years ago, things have been getting a bit ridiculous with these sudden moves, and also other matters like track closures without a reason and removal of services from campgrounds, such as rubbish removal and I even remember a time when the NPWS provided firewood at many spots, to discourage people from collecting their own and risking fines. I mean, why would a debt-ridden government assist people from coughing up their hard earned and lining a government's pockets...? It just won't happen in this day and age.

We ended up staying at one of the grounds we were thinking of heading to later in the week - Fleas Creek. I am not sure why it is called that name but rest assured, there are no fleas! It is quite the picturesque area. The ground isn't that large and there's lots of trees, and of course the creek, providing some white noise to fall asleep to. We cooked tea and sat by the fire with a few drinks.



Later in the night, the thunder and lightning came. It felt like we were going to cop a serious storm so we battened down the hatches and headed for higher ground - the rooftop tents. When the lightning was at its peak intensity I came back down and sat in the ute for about an hour. Even though the frames of these tents make a good Faraday cage, I wasn't prepared to test out how good or not-so-good it may have been. After the storm had passed, I returned to the first floor for the rest of the night. Quite a lot of rain fell but the tents held up.





The next morning we had a light breakfast before packing and heading to the next spot - Rock Flat. Along the way we'd happen by our next issue with the roads. As we drove toward another spot we ended up not being able to access we found the road getting too narrow for the paint jobs on our trucks to resist and we turned back only to find ourselves (almost) bogged in a patch of red dirt which we came in through with no problems. One at a time, and with several attempts each, we got out of the mire and back on to hard ground, but the rain wasn't done yet. During a dry spell we did stop for lunch next to a written-off Jeep.



Someone did a good job on it too and it looked like it had been rolled. An hour or so later, we were at Rock Flat, and setting up for another wet night. The rain held off until the middle of the night and we were thus able to have tea and sit by the fire until our usual turn-in time of 22:00 to 22:30. We woke the next morning to a big pool of water in the campground and the need to towel down our tents and awnings. That said, at least the thunder and lightning had given us a miss this time and a good sleep was had.



The next morning we headed for Tumut to have brekky, refuel and grab a few things from Woolies, before heading to where we believed there'd be good weather for the rest of the trip - Behrs Flat on the Geehi River.



We have stayed at Behrs Flat before and despite the massive size of this ground, found it fairly peaceful. We opened up our rooftop tents and awnings and let them dry out in the sun. There is nothing like packing up a dry camp I have to say. So, whilst we weren't certain that the good weather would last, we made sure things were as dry as possible.



The final two nights were spent at Behrs Flat and it was fairly relaxing. Someone camped about 100m away did decide it was a good time to start up his generator though it wasn't close enough to be unbearable. It is amazing that people continue to use these things on camps - they are so 2001. With the advent of lithium-iron batteries, DC-DC converters and good wattage solar cells, why would anyone want to bring a generator and have the stench of petrol in the boot of their car, not to mention the fact that they do disturb other campers? It just doesn't make any sense. I own two generators and the larger one has never been on a camp since I have owned it. The smaller one, just 1kVA, has been on a few camps in the dim, dark past but it was only ever used when my group was the only one in camp.

My current electrical setup includes two 200Ah batteries, a Redarc 50A DC-DC converter, and a 350W solar panel. All that together has meant I have never once run out of power and the silence is golden. Since shifting from a station wagon to a ute, I haven't had a chance to shift the solar panel over but I still haven't run out of power, despite putting my 80 litre Waeco fridge into service for this camp. And she uses lots of power. So there you have it - generators are yesterday's news.

The other annoying thing that seems to affect a lot of campgrounds without fire rings these days is the number of people who seem to deliberately set their camps up without first giving thought to where their fire will be. The plot we chose had something like six places where fires had been lit at various times in the past. Seriously, why isn't one enough? We chose an existing one and then built the camp to suit - the way it should be done.





The one downside to Behrs Flat was that there was a lot of horse flies around. These bitches of things just bite, bite and bite again. Fortunately, only the females find this necessary, like mosquitoes, they need blood to feed their eggs. I had three huge bites on one of my feet for more than a week and they itched like hell. In a part of Australia that is home to the second and fourth deadliest snakes in the world, I was more worried about horse flies!



The weather remained warm and sunny for the two nights at Behrs and on the last day we broke camp and headed for Jindabyne for fuel and food. We stopped at the pie shop for a late brekky and then Dave and I parted ways. I had to head back to Sydney to unpack and get ready for work the following week and Dave wanted to spend a night at Thredbo Diggings, which he did.

Will there be a return to the Snowy to sort out unfinished business? The short answer is yes. But who knows when. It could be in a couple of months or towards the end of the year.

Written at 20:33 on 8 April 2025 by Brad.

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