Platypus, or not.

Bombala. Isn't that an interesting name? It's a sleepy little town, and our next destination.

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We'd originally planned to go via Eden and up the coast towards Bermagui, stopping somewhere that looked good overnight. But Terry's client, the whole reason for heading to Bermagui, also owns a B&B in Bombala and insisted that we come spend the night with him and his lovely wife. Who was I to argue?

We actually left Orbost pretty early this time and the road was lovely, wide and surrounded by trees, with just enough bends to keep me happy and not stressed. 

We stopped in Cann River for breakfast, passing a pretty cool looking cafe on the way into town.

Unfortunately it didn't quite deliver on it's promise once we got inside.

It did have a few interesting little things on the walls, and there was an antique shop next to it that looked full of interesting stuff, but we didn't have time to go foraging in it, you would need at least a couple of hours I think.

We hit the road again. There were a few more serious twisties along this bit, but not enough to slow me right down like the mountain had. We were still overtaken by a group on faster bikes, who we caught up with in Bombala.

This was our stop for the night, and we'd made it in time to get some lunch and spend the day wandering round.

First we met up with our host for the next few days, Tom.

And he made us coffee .. yay! Tom has restored this old building and turned it into a B&B and put in a restaurant out the back, it still has the bank in the front part though.

This was the building when it was first built, not sure what year it was but there were certainly no cars around eh.

Doesn't look much different today does it, that house next door (you can just see it in the top photo behind the horses) is even still there, it was the managers residence back in the day, and now it's where Tom and his wife live, they've put an extra story on it and redone it after it nearly burnt to the ground about 10 years ago.

Bombala is famous for one thing in particular, besides being a lovely little mountain town.

Platypus!

The town celebrates them, and their image can be found on all sorts of things. There is a sanctuary for them about 10 minutes out of town, but as I was quizzing Tom about the road to it (no more gravel for me if I could avoid it) he said that we didn't need to go all the way out there to see them, there was a family in the river at the end of the street.

Dusk and dawn are the best times to see them, that's when they come out to feed. You have be very quiet, they scare easily, you also have to be very patient. So that evening we went down to the river.

I cant believe how hard it is to be patient sometimes. Terry kept talking, I think he was getting bored. We changed our position a few times too. Then we stared at the river.

Then we stared a bit more.

Then we saw some bubbles that just disappeared, so ...

We sat and stared a bit more.

We moved again to a shallower part.

We found some ducks, but no amount of staring would bring the platypus. Aww.

Then we had dinner with Tom and went to bed pretty early. The next day we got up early and went looking again but alas, still no Platypus. Ah well we had a big days ride ahead of now, over Brown's Mountain and on to Bermagui.