Free at last

 This covers our drive back to Canberra after the border opened at midnight on 22 November.  (Service NSW had sent an email on 21 Nov. saying it was open then, but fortunately I checked before driving up there on the 22nd.)  

The first item to report was that the road block at Wallagaraugh had completely vanished.  Not a single roadworks sign, no tents, no witches hats ... nothing.  I think they must have started the pack up on the 22nd and possibly just had a couple of cars there for the last shift.

There was more traffic on the road than there has been in the past but generally it wasn't an issue.  I will make an exception for the first caravan in this queue.

They plodded along at about 80 kph in a 100 kph zone and showed no signs of helping people to get by.  The second in line pulled over to let the cars (there were at least 2 more behind me) get by.  We made it by eventually.  Fortunately everyone else headed towards Eden rather than Imlay Rd.

Frances noticed the 'interesting' sky.  as we came along the Imlay.  This is about the 20 km marker.
Then it started to rain at the 30 km marker, about 1045. And I mean bucket down, possibly the heaviest rain I have driven through. I had to slow down but didn't quite get bad enough to stop. That showed up on radar (when I checked at Bombala) as a long line of storm activity, which I think pretty much lined up along The Imlay.  The Bombala AWS site (close to the Western end of Imlay Rd) reported 10.6 mm of rain.

Once on to the Monaro Hwy things calmed down through Bombala and Cooma. Life got interesting again from Bredbo Northwards with pouring rain and huge deep puddles: aquaplane city!   I asked Frances to get a snap at one point and unfortunately the windscreen wiper interfered.
On trying again she got this, which shows the soggy bitumen and spray going up from the truck in front.  Occasionally when it hit a puddle the spray went up higher than the roof of the truck.
Calm returned at Tuggeranong but there was lots of standing water beside the road (most noticeable at the Fyshwick Turf Farm.

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