Only Time for An Overnighter

These holidays we stayed close to home working and holiday programming in order to save a little more for our bigger adventure at the end of the year. We did manage to head off for one night of camping at Cascades Campground, on the banks of the Tuross River in Wadbilliga National Park.

We left at a reasonable hour on Saturday morning driving to Cooma before turning off towards Numeralla. The trip was about 2 hours, with the last 15km or so on dirt road. Dropping Andy and Rob off 10km from the campsite so they could get a mountain bike ride in, Al and I continued on to the Cascades only to discover a large group had apparently booked out the whole campsite. Obviously a double booking mistake by the National Parks people, the camper we were chatting with wasn't ecstatic that we'd arrived, and suggested we camp over at the day area. We checked out the area which looked fine and proceeded to set up out tents.

The kids didn't hang around for long and were off exploring the nearby river. They reappeared to find their swimmers and wetsuits before disappeared once again! It wasn't long before the boys arrived and we all sat down to eat lunch.

Post lunch we were all keen for some rock hopping and walked the short distance to the Cascades. The Tuross River tumbles over massive boulders, eroding the rock to create perfect round potholes and trickles over large rock slabs before creating an ideal swimming hole. Not content with wandering around the base, the kids all clambered upstream and so we followed.

It wasn't long and we were back to our base with a roaring fire going. The kids were all obsessed with poking sticks in the fire with several near misses despite our constant warnings! The embers were perfect in time for toasting marshmallows. I brought a packet of chocolate digestive biscuits for an Australian version of s'mores. We squashed a toasted marshmallow between two biscuits and the results were delicious!