It rained heavily most of the night; a continuation of the miserable Canberra weather we experienced yesterday. At times there were also strong winds. When we turned on the TV this morning they started talking about storm weather warnings from Sydney and further South. Decisions, decisions, decisions! Do we stay or do we go? In the end we decided that the sky seemed to be clearing and that the forecasts further south looked better than Canberra, so we would head off slowly but not attempt to travel too far today. The weather was OK while we packed up and got ready to leave, but as soon as I started the Ute’s engine the drizzle started.
The drizzle and wind continued until we got to the Hume Highway, then the day started to look quite nice. Pity about the wind though. We travel up and down the Hume to visit our daughter Katie in Canberra several times each year, and the Ute pretty well travels the Hume on auto-pilot, so sometimes we tend to take the scenery for granted. It really is varied and interesting when you take the time to actually look at it.
Scenes along the Hume Highway
Morning coffee was at Bookham, which is a rest stop just off the Hume. There is a rest area here with decent facilities and space for off street caravan parking. There is also a very nice café, a very nice looking old church and a worm factory!
Continuing down the Hume from Bookham, we decided to investigate the small village of Jugiong, which is a couple of kilometres off the highway. This is a great looking little place, with a servo, a pub, a B&B, a very nice looking café, a wine merchant and more. A local artist has some interesting equine sculptures on display by the roadside. There is also a freedom camp at the Jugiong Showgrounds which looked quite reasonable on a drive past and which we will add to our list of optional overnight stays for a future trip.
Jugiong
Interesting Equine Sculptures at Jugiong
Scenes of Jugiong
Scenes from the lookout at Jugiong
From Jugiong we made our way back to the Hume Highway and eventually stopped at the Gundagai Tuckerbox stop for lunch. We ate at Bullocky Bill’s which offers a good range of freshly cooked roadhouse style food as well as clean facilities and a wide range of tourist merchandise and gourmet food products. We much prefer to eat here than at the nearby Shell Express food court where we could have Maccas, Subway, KFC, etc. There are various other shops and outlets here, including a place that sells the most amazing fresh Batlow apples.
Dog on the Tuckerbox monument in Gundagai, unveiled in 1932
After lunch we continued down the Hume to Holbrook Motor Village, where we have stayed several times before on our visits to Katie in Canberra. Travellers will probably best remember Holbrook for its full size submarine in the main street, although the highway now bypasses the town. It’s a nice place to stop with a couple of motels, a couple of pubs, a selection of cafes and restaurants and a good variety of other shops and services. Holbrook Motor Village is a smallish caravan park that does a good job catering for the overnight visitor with many long drive through sites so that big rigs can stay hitched up for an overnight stay and walk a short distance into town for a meal at a pub, or whatever. Good amenities including a large camp kitchen/lounge area.
Holbrook Motor Village
Today was a comfortable drive in reasonable weather. We hope that the weather improves even more tomorrow!
Shorty's RV Adventures 