Billilingra - Bredbo - Colinton
We woke up at the Cooma Bowling Club, got ready and drove on the Monaro Hwy towards Canberra until we reached the turn off Billilingra Road. I got off, paid my respect to Mother Earth and began walking. After several days of tail wind to assist me in walking, today I faced strong head wind. It was a struggle to walk in a straight line, but I kept walking. I learned it from my Guru Pandit CV Datar who taught me the correct way of pronouncing in Sanskrit the verses of Bhagwad Gita. In the process, I also learned a lot more about life in general and life in Australia in particular. One thing that could be said about Datar ji was that he practiced what he preached. He used to say that the weather should not dictate whether you would go for a walk or not. If it was raining, he would still go for a walk but would carry an umbrella. He would not cancel or change his daily routine because it was cold, windy or raining. I was trying to follow my Guru’s footsteps when I kept walking against a strong headwind.
Our walk is planned from Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) to Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) which is all around the South - Eastern corner of Australia. The 1,100 Kms journey may sound like a huge trip; however, considering the size of Australia, the walk is miniscule. Within this relatively small area, the diversity of landscape is noteworthy. During my walk, I came across fertile land with famers harvesting wheat, dry arid land, rocky area with huge boulders, hundreds of thousands dead trees, tall gumtrees atop hills and slopes, snow laden hilltops, deep gorges and water streams, creeks and rivers. So much difference within a small area. One thing that didn’t change however were the weeds bearing tiny yellow flowers. They were there when we left Melbourne and they were with us throughout Victoria. The same flowers are with us in Southern NSW and I think, they are also going to be with us when we reach Sydney.
We had a break at the Bredbo Centennial Park. It is a small town but has facilities of a mid size town. Its own Bredbo Pie Shop cum Café, a community hall, a public park with spotless clean toilets, and an old pub from the 1830s. We had coffee at the Pie shop. The shop also sells a range of home-made products such as black garlic pickle, onion jam and honey. After a short break, we kept walking. We were looking for a place called Colinton along the Monaro Hwy (B23). There was a rural fire station named Colinton, but no town by this name. So, we kept walking and walking a few Kms past “Colinton”. A huge pile of crushed rock on the right hand side of the hwy became our landmark to mark the end of the day’s walk.
We drove back to Bredbo Pub, the only place available to camp behind the pub with a 24-hour access to toilet. However, you had to pay $5 each time you wanted to have a shower. It still was a good deal considering nothing else was around to stay overnight. Shekhar and I had soft drinks at the pub. After having a shower inside the pub, returned to the van, heated up the frozen dishes and had mixed dinner i.e. Indian food with aussie salad. Subsequently, I wrote a blog and went to sleep.
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