A Day Trip South

After five days of hard work fencing, Stirls and I decided to have a day off and drove with the co-driver down to Moruya which is about 90 minutes south on a nice river and did some touristy things. Lovely old buildings have been preserved there although their functions are different now eg. a solid granite bank building is now a cafe, the old post office is now a B&B.

There was a gold rush in the area in the mid 1800s so there was plenty of money about in those days.
It’s also the place that they mined the huge granite blocks for the pylons of the Sydney Harbour bridge.
We had coffee at a cafe and it was the first time I had sat in an enclosed commercial place for 7 months. Felt a bit strange at first. But they had the Covid rules in place ie. sign in with phone number and tables spaced well apart, so it was comfortable

Then we headed for Broulee on the coast and dropped the co-driver off at the newly relocated quilt store, Stephs. 

I knew this area from my surfing days in the 1960s and holidays in the 80s but Stirls had never been there so I gave him a bit of a guided tour of the beaches. It was a lovely day and the water was very blue and clear. Not much surf around however which must have frustrated about 10 guys sitting out at one of the points waiting for waves that hardly ever came.

We picked up the co-driver loaded down, not surprisingly, with parcels and drove the coastal road to Batemans Bay for lunch. This area was hit badly by the fires with people having to evacuate to the beaches. It hasn’t recovered as well as our area so far.
Lunch was fish and chips at our favourite, Innes Boatshed, on the balcony that sits over the water.

This is an institution in the Bay and is very popular. Best fresh fried fish, chips and potato scallops ever. Our fish was flake (shark), which used to be the normal fish and chips fare way back when, but you hardly see it anymore so we grabbed it. Delicious!
They are building a huge new bridge across the Clyde River there. The old one is a lift bridge which causes all sorts of traffic delays when it opens and especially when it gets stuck, which was happening more and more. 

It’s on the second main route from Melbourne to Sydney so they had to do something. I was first at the Bay in 1956, when the family moved from Melbourne to Brisbane and we drove pulling a caravan for four weeks holiday on the way. There was no bridge then, just a punt you drove onto. So I have seen a few changes in this area over the decades.
So that was our day.
Very laidback and relaxing.