Further Holiday Tales

Our first holiday was in March 1961 when we went in our Volksy with Geoff Phillips in his, following. We stayed in a hotel in Robinvale I think, the first night. The roads were terrible in those days, Victoria had this narrow strip of bitumen where you had to get off into the dirt if you met a car coming the other way. They had been working on the Hay plains road and had some rain and those clay soils are the pits to drive on. The next day we slid and nearly got bogged several times but decided to drive as far as we could. It was dark when we arrived at Adelong and found a little park to camp in. We had no swag with us ,just a couple of blankets and Geoff didn't offer to share part of his swag with us, so we nearly froze to death.

We got to Currango later in the day as of course the Tantangara dam had filled by then, so we had to go via Adaminaby and the long way round over the mountain tops and past the remaining Snowy scheme camps.It was wonderful to meet Mollie and Tom and her sister Gwen. We stayed in the homestead in those days and were very well looked after. Tom couldn't wait to show us the best fishing spots and as the trout were all swimming over fresh ground they grew enormous and 3 pounders were common. We also met Bill Higgs who was instrumental in teaching me how to cast a fly rod and how to retrieve the line in my hand so as it stayed off the mud or water and was easier to control. He directed me to the first fish in the lake and when I hooked it I think he was more excited than I was and waded in with his landing net to make sure I kept it. It was a 5 pounder and who ever started their fly fishing career with such a large rainbow??? We fished in snowstorms a few days later and with frozen hands I did wonder if we were not all mad!