Hill End, NSW - Gone wrong

Well, I guess it had to happen sooner or later, though this camp would not go the full stretch and mostly due to matters that wouldn't have bothered me much soemthing like 30 years ago when modern conveniences weren't to be had by most.

The plan was to spend two nights at the Glendora campground at Hill End. It was going to be a hot one, 42°C on Saturday, 40°C on Sunday and 43°C to finish things off on Monday. Monday is/was Australia Day, the day the British landed in Port Jackson with the First Fleet on the 26th January, 1788. So there was a bit to celebrate, even though I would be on my own for this one.

I decided to go to Hill End via Mudgee so I could do some shopping and get a bite to eat before heading into camp. A stop at the Mudgee Bakery is always tempting.

The camp started well enough, considering how hot it was, and my arrival at lunch time allowed camp to be set up, and making sure there were enough fluids in the fridge to ensure dehydration would not become an issue. At that time the official temperature, from the Weather Bureau, stated that it was 34°C with a humidity of 24%, you could taste how dry it was, and just remembering that the temperature sensor from the Weather Bureau was not out in the open getting scorched like I was. The only good thing was, as there was no wind to speak of, that meant no fire bans in the area, so it was safe to have a small campfire as night came and the temperature fell to about 17°C.



Anyway, as night came, so did my chance to cook tea and prepare to relax by the fire for a couple of hours and ponder on my immediate future, as I don't think things are going that well at work at the moment. I've been at the same place for just over 11 years now and I am thinking it may be time for a change. More on that at some other time though. Tea was a couple of home-made hamburgers - beef, bacon, egg, onions, barbeque sauce x 2. Boy did I need all that protein and it kinda prepared me for what would have come on Monday at lunch time - the biggest mixed grille I would eat in years with a bit of everything thrown in.



After tea I did my washing up and sat by the fire. I didn't have to walk far to get some wood. Across from the campground there is a patch of Crown land, no fences, no signs, nothing. So in I went and out I came with a few sticks. I don't know whether that piece of land was subject to firewood collection restrictions or not and in this time, where rivers are drying up and the risk of bushfire is increasing I don't particularly care that much either way. The government allows fuel build up on the ground and that is the chief underlying cause of bushfire in Australia. I just did my bit to help prevent it and kept the mozzies out of my camp in the process.



It would be close to 22:00 when I decided to retreat to a much cooler tent and spent some time on this fantastic airbed that I have and these are getting quite popular now. It stands about 400mm high, maybe slightly more, is 3/4 of a double bed wide and the usual 2,000mm length, allowing my 6 foot 3 inch frame to just fit. At the foot end of this mattress is a 240V air pump, used for both pumping the bed up and sucking the air out when packing.

I got a drink, headed into the tent with my laptop to watch a bit of Youtube and laid on the bed. Life was grand, until the Starlink dropped out. I thought to myself, it'll come back in a sec and waited...

And, waited...

And, the signal didn't come back. I got up to reboot the Starlink and decided that I'd give the mattress one last pump up before retiring for the night and found that wasn't working. I headed out to the car to see if I could find out what was going on and as it turns out, the batteries that were there to make all my camping dreams come true were not only flat but dead, with only 0.8V across the terminals.

Now, I did test these batteries after bulk-charging them through the week prior and everything seemed fine. However it has been a few years since using them and they were getting a bit old anyway. But with no way of keeping the food in the fridge cold (mostly meat, eggs and dairy) and no way of keeping my mobile phone connected to the world (my job requires me to be on call and I need the Starlink for this at Hill End, where useless Telstra doesn't provide meaningful coverage) I would unfortunately need to end the camp early.

The next morning, Sunday, 25th January, I didn't bother with breakfast. Instead I just got up, got dressed and started to break camp and I wanted this done by 08:30 so it could be done before the heat arrived. During this process, the batteries I mentioned before would be called on just one last time. I started the engine to charge them up a bit so I could use the remaning power in them to suck the air out of the mattress. I also plugged the fridges into the car's cigarette lighter sockets so I could have a cool drink on leaving the campground.

With the mattress down, there was no further barrier to breaking camp, so this got done and I then headed to the tip to dump my rubbish and dispose of two now-useless 100Ah batteries. By that stage it was just on 08:30 and time to hit the dusty track back to Sydney, via the Razorback Road.

I'd arrive at the causeway at the Turon River just before the start of Razorback Road to find that the once-mighty Turon River has all but dried up. The photo tells the story. It would only be a year ago that saw around half a metre of water flowing over this causeway. Times have changed and the time of plenty is about over for the time being. I reckon we have a drought coming our way and it will be long and dry, just as the last five years or so have been wet and the landscape lush and green. This is Australia - a land of extremes.



A quick stop in Blackheath on the way home for some grub and the trip would soon be over - more than a full day early, just because we now rely on electricity for so many things. Whilst this is most certainly by choice and with some of the careful planning we once did to survive in the bush without Internet connections and electric fridges, I suppose it is fair to say that as we age, proving that we can tough it doesn't seem that important anymore. And as mentioned earlier, my job as a building manager requires me to be contactable. So I don't have the luxury of just going off grid when it suits me. But who knows, that may change in the near future.

It is now time to prepare for the next camp. I do have a day of catching up to do! I have to book my 4x4 in for a timing belt replacement as I do not know how old the current one is. Whilst it may be the case that it could have been done just before I bought it, it is a case of not knowing and I need to know. These things have to be replaced typically at 100,000km intervals and I've done more than 20,000km since owning it. So it is time to do it and then not have a belt snap wreck my day.

Written at 17:01 on 26 January 2026 by Brad.

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