Mallacoota Move pt 1

On February 2 we took our cars and a fair bit of stuff down to Mallacoota.  Both cars had to go as we had a trailer load of plants to transport down  Also, the boot of Frances' car was full of more delicate plants.  Here is a photo of the trailer while being unloaded.

 While on the road I had a tarp over the plants and a net and some rope holding the tarp in position.  It stayed in position the whole trip and the plants looked in good condition when we arrived.  Thanks to my friend Anthea for caring for them for the past two weeks of very hot weather.

I had many concerns about this trip:

1. The trailer had never done a trip this long at sustained highway speed.  (Not a problem.)
2. We often seen trailers by the side of the road with a missing wheel.  One of my tyres has a slow leak  - would it last? (Yes.)
3. Taking the laden trailer to Anthea's place the fuel consumption was poor. 
1. Would I run out of fuel somewhere inconvenient?  (No - in fact fuel consumption was 9.7l/100km rather than the 9.0 usually achieved without a trailer.)
2. Was this indicative of some deep seated issue withe the trailer? (No.  See 1)
4. Frances had never driven this far in one go, especially not on a hilly, twisty road such as Imlay Rd..  Would she get too tired?  No. She found it pretty easy.

We drove in convoy to the Bombala turnoff.  I noticed that while she was following me, keeping a reasonable gap so that folk overtaking could pull in.  Unfortunately many of them must have got their licence by clipping a cereal packet, as they were then incapable of overtaking me, unless there was an overtaking lane, even with over 1km of clear road. 

Our ways parted just after Nimmitabel, with Frances continuing via Bombala and Imaly Rd and me going down Brown Mountain to the Bemboka Pie Shop and on to Eden.  The two routes are shown in this image (ignore the one via Cann River - that combines the worst of both worlds).

The issue with my route was the Nimmitabel Show, or at least horse floats coming away from the show.  This one at the top of Brown Mountain was fine as they took a pull-off to people by.

 This one - poor photo - was a totally arrogant shit-head asocial dweet

I don't mind them doing 20kph for 10kms of mountain road, slowing to 10kph on the sharper bends to look after their horses.  In fact I think that is very good, from an animal welfare view.  However in the 10km of the mountain they drove past at least 8 pull-outs where they could have let following traffic pass.  (The first float had caught us up halfway down.)

Grrr.  I recovered most of my equanimity by taking a steak and kidney pie (rating at least 8.5 on the official scale) for lunch at Bemboka.

The reason I had to go through Eden was to pick up the house key from the estate agent's office.  That was not a problem.  I thought it would be amusing if Frances emerged from Imlay Rd as I went by.  As it turned out I got a call from her when I was about 5km from Karbeethong to say she'd arrived so if either:

1. I hadn't been stuck behind the dweet; or
2. I had gone straight back to the car rather than giving Tammie a short walk ...

.... I suspect we would have coincided at that point.  Frances'view is that if she hadn't been stuck behind some dweets - possibly European tourists - in a campervan from Imlay Creek rest area to Gypsy Point she'd have been a few minutes earlier!  Whatever: for a first go at the drive it was very successful.

As I drove down Karbeethong Avenue I could see our house through the trees - see yellow brick and green roof!

 A hyperactive Koala was present.  If a male I hope it dresses to the left.

 We then took off to our house and wandered about checking that all was as expected and unloading the plants.  Here are some of them sheltering from the quite strong wind.  Note the stained glass window!

There was one moment of humour and laughter.  We had decided to leave the Pajero at our house rather than clutter up Karbeethong Avenue.  Unfortunately we overlooked that when I hopped into my car to park it in the garage and Frances took off Angophora Drive.   She came back and collected me!