 Breakfast was a bit of an aerobics session
with mosquitoes landing every time you stayed still. Both of us
are still a bit paranoid about all small biting insects after
our session at Duck creek with the small bitey bugs, which are
still making Jo itchy, mine have gone away.
We got going early enough, crossing a creek
and past some wooden huts. We arri ved at the Adamsfield falls
which were unmarked, with an unofficial track leading up
to them. The falls were tall, but a bit difficult to see as the
track lead to cliff edges that never quite gave a complete
view. We could smell and see the haze of smoke in the air
again, so we didn’t stay too long. We later heard that the
smoke again came from the fires on the East coast a couple of
hundred kilometres away.
Reaching the main sealed road, and through
another keyed gate, I tried to reinflate the tyres. Again the
@#%#%^’n compressor was not working properly, and only inflated
two tyres before it decided to let the tyres down more than it
was pumping them up. A helpful man from Strathgordon drove past
asking if we needed help because the bonnet was up. He
suggested that we could get someone he knew in Strathgordon to
help with a compressor. So we drove painfully slowly to
Strathgordon, which was where we were already heading to see the
big hydro dams.
In Strathgordon I found a local maintenance
worker who was willing to help pump the tyres with the
compressor at the local fire shed. He was a nice bloke and we
chatted with him for a while about power stations, tolerances on
the big hydro power shafts, renewable energy and batteries as he
puffed his cigarettes.
Off we went to the Gordon dam. The wall was
a Huge concrete one about 150 metres high and 200 meters long.
It was quite impressive and even better because we were able to
walk along the top. We could see railings and steps going down
the sides of the mountain side next to the wall and dark tunnels
leading off into the rock. It was hard to imagine someone
actually building it. It’s a shame these massive dams block off
all the water normally running in the river at the base.
We also had a look at the Serpentine dam wall
which was pretty boring in comparison, this one looked to be
made of rocks. We continued back through Maydena where we
stopped in the little general store to get pies for lunch, we
were both hungry as it was mid arvo. We also collected some
bread, cereal and milk; even though the prices were through the
roof, $3 for a litre of milk.
We returned the key to the park ranger at
National Park, and once again headed for Maydena, this time we
found a nice place to stay. It is a little self contained unit
at the Alpaca farm. It’s very neat and clean and has everything
we need. The owner let us use his laundry which was nice, and
gave us some port. It’s nice to stay inside and not get eaten
alive by mosquitoes.
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