Do Terracans Float?

It has been a long time coming, but it was with unbridled joy that we headed out of town last Friday with the camper in tow, destination Shoalhaven River.  We were aiming for a camp we had spotted on our last adventure to the coast, and we now had it on good authority that there was an all weather access road from the west that would get us there.

With all the rain recently, we had heard that Oallen Ford had been up to 1.6 metres underwater.  Our camp was a little further upstream, and we weren't sure what to expect.  It was evident however that some large amounts of water had been over the road in places... and a few kilometres short of our destination we came across our first crossing.  It turned out that this was the easy one!

Thankfully a wade across confirmed there was a concrete base, and even more importantly the approaches were still in place.  The boy's were excited and I had to make a second trip with The Little Fisherman on my shoulders to take photos of our splash.

The two boys provided plenty of advice...

Before we sailed through... Mr Six and a Half taking the photo

We then ambled along into our camp... and what a camp we found.


The Shoalhaven River had obviously been in flood not long before our visit... and the net result was the wide sandy beach was freshly swept clean.... with no footprints to be seen.  It was fantastic to see, and the boys were simply beside themselves with excitement.



The Sandy Beach - those are all our own footprints!

Loving the sand

Too good to be true

And so we settled in to a wonderful couple days at the river.  Of course the Little Fisherman was determined to wet a line - even encouraging his little brother to give it a go.  Alas there was no result... or was that just because we didn't put any bait on the line...



No bait... but hey, I wasn't here to catch fish!

In all we enjoyed two glorious nights before we had to leave, but the adventure was far from over.  I had a meeting down the coast on the Sunday afternoon... and between us and the coast was the Shoalhaven River. To head either north via Oallen Ford or south via Braidwood was going to add a good hour to our journey.  There was a short cut... but I wasn't too confident about our ability to ford the river.

So it was time to wade it:

The pooch bailed after it got too deep for her (just in from the edge)

The Little Fisherman and I waded across, and found the base was another concrete culvert.  The approach was fine, but the departure a little washed out.  The main trick was to stay on the concrete base, and as it couldn't be seen, it was important to get the line right.  How deep was it?  Well the sign said 90cm, but I can officially vouch for the depth being what a seamstress might call my "inner leg measurement"!

Would we make it.... Well I was pretty confident we would get across... but if things wen't wrong we would end up with a car full of water at best, and at wost if the current pushed us off the culvert... well that wasn't worth contemplating.

So we did what anyone else would do and watched someone else give it a go.  That didn't inspire confidence as the Navara mised his entry line and ended up with water up to the windscreen.  Thankfully he got back onto the culvert, but was blowing a lot of white smoke as he spluttered up to his camp.  A little while later all was dried out and no lasting damage done.

After getting back onto the culvert

We packed up and jumped in the car.  I was still undecided and as I pointed the car back on the road I paused.  Left and across the river was going to save us an hour, but came at a risk.  Right was going to get us to the coast a little slower and safer- but we would miss out on being able to sneak a treat at the Huskisson Bakery.  Decisions....

Regretfully I pulled out to the right, and a little voice beside me said one word...

"Chicken"

The same little voice that had said "Get Us Out" when we got stuck near Dingo Dell.  The same little voice that said nothing near Cann River.  Perhaps she was right.

It was good enough for me....  I quickly turned the car around and pointed towards the river... game on.

2nd gear low range selected - Deep breath - and in we go

Nice Bow Wave

Almost out!

 And we made it!  All of us were mightly pleased to pull up on the opposite bank and watch the water drain from the car and camper.  We had the slightest seepage around one of the back doors, but it didn't even wet the carpet.  It was a great result.  Terry had pulled us all through without a hitch.

The extra time saved was rewarded with a visit to the Huskisson Bakery and then we quickly settled into the pet friendly Jervis Bay Caravan Park and broke out the fishing rods for some more of that great relaxing :)

Fishing from our campsite - Jervis Bay Caravan Park

 

Our morning view

As usual, more photos of our weekend can be found here: