PS – one last entry from Tumbarumba!

 

Extreme Weather Events in Tumba

 

Don’t ever believe a blogger when he says the last post is playing! The day after Mal’s funeral it started raining and by Friday it was continual and torrential. Friday afternoon the main road out of Tumbarumba was cut with a car washed off the road. Lots of people trapped in town overnight. Getting in or out needed a four-wheel drive with water a metre deep flowing through the caravan park. A couple of very soggy vans were towed out and another car was under water where the second picture was later taken.

Standing at the foot of the steps behind the shops it’s a long swim to the toilets

This is the public memorial dedicated to all the timber men in the district which includes Malcolm’s name.

It usually stands high and dry by a long way but the Tumbarumba creek by now was 100 instead of 2 metres wide.

 

Less than 12 hours after taking those images the air temperature dropped to less than freezing and Tumbarumba got its biggest dump of snow in at least twenty years – it was 15 cm deep on the roof of my car and caravan, covering the streets, houses, trees and hillsides and lasted until after lunch before eventually thawing except for shady area and snowmen which remained icy until the next day.

A snow-covered Tumbarumba front garden

Snow covered hills behind the Tumbarumba townships

 

An uncommon sight, floodwaters in the foreground and snow-covered hills

Six days later the water still flows with a roar over the Paddy’s River Falls where sometimes over the past years it has been a mere trickle

 

Trip from West to East

A Fast Trip Across a Large Continent

The illness to our brother-in-law Malcolm Stuart meant a dash from Perth to Tumbarumba in the Snowy Mountains in NSW a distance of nearly 3,600 km. We left at Dawn on Tuesday with the intent to drive during the daylight hours as far as possible each day, stay wherever we could and get to Tumbarumba by Saturday afternoon.

The first two nights we free camped on roadside stops at Fraser Range Area, 80 km past the Norseman turnoff (the first picture) and then at the 222 km Peg Camps Rest Area 222 km West of the Eucla border between Western Australia and South Australia (the second picture). Free camping meant that we could drive further and get away earlier in the morning. We will do more of this on any further trips. You can manage a couple of nights with a bucket wash instead of a shower!

 

 

 

At Eucla, fueling after the border quarantine post, we got a mobile call to tell us that Malcolm had died, in Tumbarumba Hospital, with his wife and children with him. This did not change our intention to continue to be there as soon as possible.

 

 

Considering how long we were driving, towing the van, the trip went very smoothly, with stops at the Beautiful Valley Caravan Park at Wilminton (just past Port Augusta, now in South Australia) and at Balranald the next night. Having used all our prepared meals we ate out both nights. On this trip we have travelled through every State and Territory on the Australia mainland – sorry Tasmania, left out again!

We arrived in Tumbarumba on Saturday at 3.30 pm, having travelled via the Hay Plains and Wagga Wagga – our shortest days driving at 550 km.