Posh lavatories at Wulgulmerang.

Fancy lavatory paper and name brand liquid soap. The community care for this facility but if Jimmy had any control the paper would have a more sandpaper like feel and would cunningly refill the name brand soap bottle with a generic that does the same job.

Willis.

Here's Olivia at the spot on a map that is called Willis, marking the NSW/Victorian border, here the road changed for us from a washout and pothole ridden ruin to a fairly presentable surface that even had bitumen on some of the trickier parts.

Jacob's Ladder.

Here's a view of part of the descent down to the Snowy river valley from the Wallace Craigie lookout. I've driven it a few times and just find it a normal road but Olivia was scared solid, she hadn't any experience with narrow winding dirt roads on the edge of a chasm.

Telling lies.

I'm waving my arm about so it must be at least an exaggerated tale, hmmm come to thing of it all my talk is exaggerated. Olivia took this shot of me talking to my Dad and two of his brothers Charlie and Nigel after we had arrived at the Wulgulmerang reserve. Naturally it was cold but it least it minimised their usual infernal fly numbers.

A very unlucky tourist.

This tall German chap had broken down not far from the very remote Suggan Buggan in Victoria, only about 15 km or so from our destination. My diagnosis, stripped timing belt, I couldn't do anything much to help him but told my family when I got to our destination and they sent an elderly rescue party down to haul him out. In the meantime he had managed to get a bar of phone signal and had organised a tow truck to get him. The job will cost him a fortune even if my diagnosis is wrong, but I think at least the Camry has a non-interference engine.
Gaining access to things isn't easy on this car but a lot of my diagnosis is based on the car having over 300,000 km on the clock and a sticker proclaiming a belt change way back at 125,000 km, also it still having oil and not smelling cooked, with the engine spinning freely enough on the starter motor.
Being a tourist you can't expect them to do maintenance things like a timing belt change, so that's not really his fault but he sure picked a lonely remote place to break down. I hope I can find a record of his trip on-line in the future, he was a nice friendly chap, made Jimmy look like a midget too.

Lovely countryside.

I took this at the edge of Berridale, NSW on our way to Wulgulmerang. It was a blessing to have an autumn trip and be able to see the lovely yellow colours of the poplars. On the down side the colder weather had masked from me that one of Cubby's air conditioning hoses had sprung a leak, a fact that made life uncomfortable nearer to home on our return.
I usually post in order pics of my journeys but this time I'll just post whatever crops up from my viewing, it could take a while.

My Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather Michael Rourke, or O'Rourke.

We've just returned home from a rather long trip to a gathering of descendants to celebrate 200 years since his arrival. He was an Irish convict who later brought over his wife Jane (who's buried here too) and sons.
I didn't expect to find this grave but someone has put in a lot of effort to repair it so I was very pleased I went to Appin to seek it.

For any seekers the grave is around the pink circle I've drawn, maybe former PM Paul Keating may wish to make a trip as he's also one of Michael's descendants as I've been told.

More trip pics to come after I look through them a bit.