Bago, Tumbarumba, Deniliquin (NSW)

Hello Pack,

Welcome to the final installment for NSW! For now.

We are keen to move into a different state, so we are just going to bite the bullet and do it. We’ve run into more problems than we expected this early on, so we’re hoping that we have better luck in a different state. We are dying to get to Tasmania (one of our key destinations in this trip) so we’ll be heading through Vic for a few weeks to get to the Spirit of Tasmania … well, fingers crossed, this is the plan but our plans never work and as always, we haven't actually booked anything so anything could happen!

We started this trip with a longer drive than we’d like – what should only take about 5 hours, with towing and breaks takes us 8 hours or more. We aren’t in a rush, but it makes for a long day - we stopped in Goulburn to break up the day. We also ended up on the Hume Highway, Loki’s worst nightmare!

I was SO very excited to have finally made it to Gundegai!! We have been before, but I’ve always wanted a photo of our doggos with the Dog on the Tuckerbox. Impeccable weather, not many people – this was a dream come true :D

It was around here that I realised our destination of Blowering Dam (Talbingo/Batlow) was still closed from the bushfires - at this point, it's just the State Forest side of the Dam - the National Park side is still open because it was fairly unaffected, but you can't camp there with doggos. We needed a quick Plan B and we were losing reception quickly, so ended up heading the same direction and found Henry Angel Flats.

*BREAKDOWN*

Facilities: Henry Angel Flats, Burra

Cost: Free

Reception: Very Limited

Electricity: No

Drop Point: No

Toilets/ Showers: Flushable toilets and hot water, no showers. Sink for dishwashing

View: Yes, surrounded by paddocks and bush

Noise: Fairly quiet, some road noise during the day from logging trucks

Dog Friendly: Yes

Long Stay : No more than 5 days unless you apply for a permit from Council

Close To ...: Tumbarumba and Bago State Forest, also close to another place to stay – Paddy’s River Reserve??

Notes : Close to Paddy’s River Falls. This is wheelchair accessible and dog friendly, great for a picnic or a quick visit. You can swim in the River at Paddy’s River Reserve just down the road, which is also another great camping spot with a toilet block.

We really wanted to do a long stay camp, so sussed out Bago State Forest on a rainy day and found the perfect spot to camp! We packed up the next day and headed in.

The views in this forest are vast and spectacular. There are plenty of 4x4 drives, more scenic drives that don’t really require a 4x4, great tracks to bike ride, plenty of tracks to walk – just lots and lots to do, and lots and lots of places to camp that all have drop toilets.

Our most favourite day was probably heading out the Powerline Road, Bull and Damper Road, Bog Hut, 2 Mile Creek Road and generally exploring as many roads on that side of the State Forest as we could. Jared flexed his 4x4 muscles and went offroad for a bit around the powerlines on a service road. We had ended up here because we wanted to head out to the Falls, only to find out that the last 3kms are in National Park (with a sign saying no domestic animals) and also that they were closed anyway.

Our least favourite day was clearly the Friday we went exploring the other side of the Forest; for anyone who follows our Facebook page, you know that we went down a road with lots of sticks - "Logging Lookout Road" (and for the record, we never made it to the lookout!)

We now can’t look at the sticks the same. Within minutes, a stick had taken out some electrics in the car (lights to the canopy, nothing major,) sliced through the rock tamers and taken out the side wall in our tyre. Jared changed the tyre and we crept back out towards one of the “main roads” in the Forest that would lead to Tumbarumba, only to have another tyre blow out with a stick through the side wall.

I honestly don’t think we could have done anything differently; this road was nothing special in terms of not being a challenging 4x4 road, it was just littered in sticks. We had been on what we thought was a worse road for sticks when we went down Bull and Damper with absolutely no issues; even if we had walked this track originally, we would have still done it. There is no way we would have moved the sticks that took us out because they weren’t anything special. It was just really unlucky.

The way we got ourselves out of this situation was that the back tyre blew out much more slowly than the front wheel – the front wheel was flat within minutes, the back wheel had some steam so we were going to try to get to town (12kms away) as quick as possible. When we tried to patch it on the road to keep going, I called town to see if they even had tyres (they did not) so we made the decision to get back to camp ASAP; we couldn’t glue the tyre because the tear was too large, so we filled it with foam and pumped it with air. We had to keep filling it with air about half a dozen times to get back to camp. When we got here, we could swap the camper trailer tyres with the back two tyres (they are slightly different sizes to the BT, so we put them at the back so that we could adjust the inflation in the suspension to compensate.) This meant that we could get ourselves to town on Monday to get it sorted!

That day was quite stressful, but it taught us how we resilient we are in these situations. We now know how to get the spare tyre out from under the BT. We realised the lift kit on the BT meant that the standard jack was not useful in this situation and needed the Max Trax to act as a block. Would we love this to happen again? No, absolutely not, but there needs to be a silver lining in each situation.

Other highlights from this trip were definitely the Brumbies. They really made my day. We were also surrounded by domestic horses, but brumbies really are just a carefree, spirited animal that just made me so happy to see them (even when they woke us up at midnight because they were literally in our camp sussing us out, or at 2am playing and doing laps.)

The River/ Dam is also a bonus. Not only is it beautiful, fresh and clean (so a great source for additional water instead of using your reserves on washing up, etc) but we enjoyed many swims in it, the boys loved it and it is full of “glitter.” People often go goldmining in these parts and I can see why. It looks like there is also granite in the water, as the mountains here have granite in them (in fact, one of our favourite places to go was Granite Mountain.)

Tumbarumba is also amazing. We loved the hospitality there. Everyone we met was friendly. We spent a lot of money at IGA because we ended up staying so long, there is no Woolies or Coles from what we could see so stock up on food if you’re doing a longstay or happy to pay IGA prices. The bakery at Tumba is also amazing; I had the freshest cupcake I’ve ever eaten in my life, so we went back to get a “selection box” of other cupcakes, merengues, hedgehog, etc.)

We also highly recommend a visit to the Park; it’s beautiful, with another body of water and bridges as well as a little history walk.

*BREAKDOWN*

Facilities: Paddy’s River Reserve (Bago State Forest)

Cost: Free

Reception: Absolutely none, satellite phone only

Electricity: None, you must be self sufficient

Drop Point: No, but there is one in Tumbarumba

Toilets/ Showers: Drop toilets only, no showers. Access to clean water at the River

View: Stunning. Fields and river everywhere, with brumbies and rabbits

Noise: None, just wildlife. Perfect for those who love “authentic camping.”

Dog Friendly: Very. Lots of room to explore and run

Long Stay : Yes

Close To ...: Tumbarumba, about a half hour drive back into town from here

Notes : So many places to explore! There is the Hume Hovell Walking Track, closed roads, 4x4 tracks, service roads. We have had a ball 4x4ing, walking and bike riding. We had the camp to ourselves during the week thanks to a vast amount of camping areas (this is not the only camping area in the forest and just within this one spot there are at least half a dozen other secluded places to camp, with their own drop toilet or close to one.) This is also close to a boat ramp. There are tables everywhere. Beautiful spot.

*BREAKDOWN*

Facilities: Daysdale Football Club Grounds

Cost: $2 for a hot shower, or $5 overnight stay and shower (donation box)

Reception: Yes, good reception

Electricity: No – must be self-contained

Drop Point: No

Toilets/ Showers: Yes to both. Showers were clean with new tapware. I found it nice and hot, but Jared who went next had intermittent heat (so get in first :P )

View: Countryside all around and the grounds

Noise: Pretty quiet, some truck noise occasionally but overall it was weirdly quiet

Dog Friendly: Yes, plenty of room to run and also pretty fenced in so very safe

Long Stay : Not designed for long stay, moreso an overnighter or a few days stay

Close To ...: Nothing, really – so come prepared. This was a halfway stop between Tumba and Deni for us

Notes :

Deniliquin has been wonderful as well. This is a great place to go if you need supplies, as it’s a fairly large town. We managed to get our replacement tyres sorted properly here, do a full food shop at Coles and get some other supplies for the 4x4 in town.

There is SO much to see here as well. The town is absolutely gorgeous and just oozing history and character. We really should have stayed here longer, but where we are camping is a 48 hour spot and we decided to move on. We spent a day in town just walking around and exploring, starting our day by the River opposite Macleans Beach. We drove through the Memorial Park to get to Willoughbys Beach (which, by the way, didn’t say on Wiki that you could camp here with doggos but it looks like you can, right by the water! Maybe it’s because I have my settings to also include a loo of some sort.) We of course enjoyed seeing all the utes on poles and ute sculptures. There is the Beach to Beach walk, which we drove, and there is also a lovely Lagoon walk all through town. There Park is also absolutely stunning; I’m devastated we didn’t quite make it there, but it looks fabulous for a picnic. We also seen a vintage car and memorabilia museum next to a vintage diner. There is also a good car wash designed for trucks and campers.

*BREAKDOWN*

Facilities: Pretty Pine Hotel

Cost: Free

Reception: Limited

Electricity: Yes, 240V

Drop Point: No, but a drop point in Deniliquin

Toilets/ Showers: Yes, both. Showers are delectably hot

View: Countryside all around

Noise: Yes, pub noise (patrons and a generator that goes off and on but you adjust to it. There is also some truck noise, but overall it’s pretty quiet.)

Dog Friendly: Yes, plenty of room for them to run if there’s not a lot of people. Denise, the

owner of the pub, allows doggos into the beer garden and the undercover back room. We had a really lovely afternoon in the back area listening to music, chilling with some drinks and dinner for literally 4+ hours. We left when the regulars came in.

Long Stay : No, 48 hour limit

Close To ...: Deniliquin

Notes : Access to water as well. This is a really lovely place to stay. The pub is well cared for, the food is delicious and Denise is a wonderful host.

We had planned from here to head to Broken Hill, but after our brand new Batwing breaking after a random slight gust of wind and me losing my Apple Beats Pro headphones on the side of the road somewhere (seriously, I don’t even know how they fell out of the car without me noticing them drop or when I got back in) so we decided to just bugger off to a different state and hope things are better!

At the time of drafting this blog (limited internet) we haven’t actually left for Victoria yet so let’s just hope there’s no issues crossing the border tomorrow or getting tickets for the Spirit of Tasmania!

Keep on adventuring, Pack.

The Adventure Woofpack,

Pack Mumma (Amanda,) Dog Dad (Jared) and fur babies, Kai and Loki.