Talbingo to Canberra ... the long way round via a short cut.

Talbingo to Wee Jasper

Jan 4^th

Early risers at last! Woke to a very still camp area and GVS set off to try to catch some trout. When that didn’t work, we packed up camp and headed into Talbingo for a spot of fishing in the dam. I walked around the small town, spotting a couple of kangaroos on the hill. All houses face the dam and it looked pretty in the morning light. The drive to Tumut took us alongside the Blowering Reservoir, another broad mass of water this summer. Tumut was larger than expected and had prosperous early years, judging from the number of pubs. A visit to the Information Centre provided us with enough printed material to justify the pine plantations that we saw later. An art and craft exhibition displayed some lovely felting and weaving, and then we had lunch on the banks of the Tumut River. We set off on the road to Wee Jasper, wondering whether the ‘not suitable for caravans’ sign also applied to us. The long and windy road up hill and down dale required concentration on the part of the driver but I had some pretty rolling hills and flowering shrubs, trees and small plants in flower to keep me interested, although this degenerated into pine plantations where the only undergrowth was blackberries. Awful! Arrived at the Billy Grace campsite by the Goodradigbee River, where many campers, and their dogs, had set up on the broad, grassy areas along the river. Again, very pretty with a swiftly flowing river but lined with pines rather than native vegetation. Other campers had many inflatable lilos, rafts and boats for kids and adults to play on in the river. Our first paying campsite, $7.50 each, but hot showers made it worthwhile.
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The beautiful river at the Wee Jasper camp site





Flood debris along the riverbanks



Wee Jasper to Canberra

Jan 5th
A little bit of the history of Wee Jasper

On the 19th October 1824, Explorers Hamilton Hume and William Hovell passed through the Yass Plains on their expedition to Port Phillip. That afternoon, the Hume & Hovell party reached the Murrumbidgee River only to find a deep, fast flowing, 40 metre wide river in flood. On the 22nd October 1824, after three days of trying to find a place to cross and the floodwaters had not diminished, a tarpaulin was wrapped around the body of a cart to convert it into a makeshift punt. Accompanied by one of his convicts - Thomas Boyd, Hamilton Hume swam across the river with a rope and used the makeshift punt to transport equipment, provisions and non-swimmers to the other side. Hume and Hovell later crossed the Goodradigbee River ( don't you love the names of places around Canberra!) not far upstream from the modern day location of Wee Jasper village. Afterwards, due to the extremely steep terrain, they were forced to leave their carts and much of their provisions concealed in one of the gullies near the Goodradigbee River. This whole leg of their expedition was of crucial importance to the opening up of the Wee Jasper district.

When gold was discovered at Kiandra in 1859, the track between Yass and Wee Jasper was declared the shortest way to travel from Sydney to the Kiandra goldfields. Thousands of fortune seeking Europeans and Chinese used what must have been a rough bush track. 
http://www.weejasper.org/history.html

Woke early, thanks to the hundreds of cockatoos up at first light and ensuring that we knew about it! Decided to set off for a walk and followed a small creek up to the road then headed up the road, enjoying the views of the rolling plains. Sheep country – rocky, sparsely vegetated low down where it had been cleared but well covered in trees further up hill. A long, winding and, we later discovered, entirely wrong ‘short-cut’ led us through byways but not highways.

Finally sighted the tower on Black Mountain but it kept moving away from us!! Oh Oh. Our scenic tour finally brought us out at the Cotter Dam and we enjoyed lunch and fishing on the Molongolo River before making it into Farrer in mid-afternoon.

Graeme and Ian took the van to order a new house battery while Di and I went down to Tuggernong to see Pam’s business – and enjoy my 1^st cappuccino for a while.