Sunrise 15 - EDEN to BERMAGUI
There were a number of planned photo shoots for today but again Mother Nature and her singular attitude put the mocker on them all. Slightly deflated, we reluctantly turned north for the first time since leaving home and headed to our next planned stop of Bermagui.
With only 100km to cover, Bega was a natural, if not planned side trip given the inclement conditions. Persistent rain made the progress slow, however as we weren’t in a hurry and pretty much wound down as low as we could be after 2 weeks on holiday, nothing at this point was going to phase us. Until we actually made it to Bega.
Famed for it cheeses, we googled directions to a local factory well known for its tours and tastings. Excited by the thought, we were quickly disappointed on arrival having learnt the CEO also sits on the board of The Cobar Tourist Commission. Consequently, as our now avid readers would suspect, the facility was closed! Onward we persisted, with the Bega regional art gallery next on the agenda. But taking a leaf out of Pro Hart’s book, this establishment similarly was closed. So with weather conditions and tourist attractions working against us for most of our trip, we laughed and made a sharp left turn.
This is where Bega served the biggest slice of up-yours cake to date. We have jokingly mocked the little obstacles encountered along our way, but sadly Bega was under flood with virtually every street in every direction of the town centre closed to traffic. After drought, fire, pandemic and now flood, our tribulations pale insignificant compared to what these struggling communities endure on an almost yearly basis.
We walked the town grabbing a quick lunch and coffee before continuing northward to Bermagui. Having taken thousands of photographs in the opening stanza of this trip, we felt somewhat disheartened with our level of output in the past few days. However, putting expectations aside, this is what life as a photographer is about. Things close. Things change. Light doesn’t always happen. We all have a banger image where everything lined up perfectly - but how many more have we missed when they don’t? That’s how it works. If there are things in a town or region exciting enough to get you there in the first place, well when they don’t materialise, that magic should be enough to make you want to return. And that’s what we’ll be doing sometime soon. Eden and Bega are beautiful parts of the world and we will return shorty to capture some of their secrets.
The rain rarely eased as we continued up the coast, and by the time we reached Bermagui we’d seen enough of the wet. This coastal section of our tour was always loosely planned and dependent on what towns peaked our interest and the weather. Given the shit conditions, and the unlikely event of them becoming less shit, we decided to stay 2 nights in Bermagui and upgraded ourselves to an ensuite site within walking distance of Woolworths, the beach, and the pub!
We hunkered down for the afternoon playing some cards, editing photos and catching up on some youtube while we rocked along with Morrison being buffeted by the howling southerly winds. We raided his cupboards for dinner and scratched together a meal of leftovers - which actually wasn’t that bad - to clean out the larder and reduce our repacking requirements.
That night the outside conditions persisted in being painful, so we watched the 4th and last instalment of the Mad Max series to complete this iconic Australian franchise 35 years in the making. They progressively got worse, but secretly knew that, however we did enjoy the opportunity of watching all 4 movies back to back.