The Importance of Having a Kettle
This is a blog about the second day of my road trip to the north of Australia and back to the south via the outback.
I stayed in Wodonga Caravan and Cabin Park ($15 for an unpowered site) for the night. The lady at the reception was kind and told me there wasn’t any check out time in the morning. Contrary to Benalla Showgrounds where I stayed on the first night of my trip, Wodonga Caravan and Cabin Park had a camp kitchen with a fridge and an extra kettle that the caretaker asked me to take when he saw me using it. He said it had a label ‘free to take’ a couple of weeks ago. The size was perfect for me, and it became my trusty tea maker along the way. The kettle is going to the op-shop soon.
Tip: you can plug in your kettle in laundry rooms when there are no camp kitchens.
Wodonga Caravan and Cabin Park is generally fine with clean showers, but there is a catch. There was a constant noise from the factory behind the park in the day and surprisingly all through the night in addition to the noise of heavy vehicles passing by all night on the highway close to the park.
The entrance to the town looks industrial, but the town centre is pretty. And there is a good library in the town.
The following day, I passed through Albury, NSW, on my way to Young. When I was still in Victoria, I put the address of the camera store in Albury in the Google Maps – I wanted to buy a dead cat (windshield) for my audio recorder. I got a warning that I should check border Covid restrictions. I had checked them online, but when I stopped at the information centre in Albury, I double checked in case there were still some restrictions in place. The young man at the information centre was very friendly, and he shared with me their frustrations with the border restrictions during the pandemic. He said Wodonga and Albury rely on each other. All operations are done at the hospital in Albury while the maternity hospital both towns use is in Wodonga. Some children live in one city and go to school in the other.
On my way out, the young man assured me there were no restrictions in place, but he also warned me that the situation was still volatile.
It was exhilarating to pass the border between the states. It felt like an achievement. I was onto the next phase of my trip.
