FriendlyBrooks

Sunrise golf on the Murray hard to beat

Lance Brooks, proving David wrong, January 2026

By the time Lance completed his morning routine and I started my book club book -The Granddaughter- it was already 8.30.  We are starting to get into the slower routine of road travel already and its only day 3!

We had a quick swim in the mountain stream and breakfast before we began our first on the road pack up.  I should note here that we put out both extra awnings and got out all the gear, so we had a lot to put away. We set the clock at 10am and it was 12 noon before we were hitched and ready to drive. We had a couple of little snafus with zippers and folding but even accounting for these errors we have a lot to learn before we can achieve a quick getaway. At least we didn’t forget anything, thanks to my friend Karen’s comprehensive checklist. Needless to say I decided to change our booking for the night before we catch the ferry to Tasmania to a cabin because I am concerned that we won’t make the 8.30 departure time.

After another swim in the creek, of course, we did some practice reversing with the trailer. We are getting better but it still requires some better communication skills. I don’t give clear enough instructions and Lance second guesses everything I say.  Mind you it has only been 3 days for us novice towers (3 days plus a professional towing course).

We finally drove off to Khancoban, a place I had only ever read of on sign posts to Thredbo. The road past Tom Groggin was even more beautiful than the road leading in, if that’s possible. The grass plains of Geehi have a gorgeous campground that we will try at some stage in the future. The road into Khancoban is steep, rocky and spectacular.

Khancoban itself is nothing to write home about. It was now 4pm and we hadn’t decided where we would stay for the night. Most of the roads were blocked because of the recent devestating bushfires. The nice lady at the petrol station suggested we go to Jingellic. Funnily enough I had marked this as a possibility in my trip planning research so we proceeded down the ditt road for 30 odd kilometres. We soon met the Murray River and the beautiful farmland countryside adjoining it.

Jingellic turned out to be just what we were looking for. There are 2 free camping spots – one next to the pub on the river, that was quite crowded, and one across the bridge and down a dirt track behind the golf coursr on a secluded pebbly beach. Guess which one we chose?

It took us exactly 1 hour to set up, made longer because I broke the knob off a pole that supports the bed head. I was pretty upset by this turn of events but my genius husband used skills he didn’t realise he had (actually neither of us realised he had) and fixed it!!!

Just then a spectacular rainbow came out so all really was right with the  world. Time for drinks, snacks then dinner and bed – early for us at 10.30pm. 

We awoke before 6am so we could play golf on “our” golf course. I started off terribly but improved to something reasonable by the end of the 9 holes. Lance scored 6 over par! 

After golf, we drove 40 minutes to the pretty township of Tumbarumba for 9am Mass. It was a very conservative community with a very conservative priest who prepared communion facing the altar. It was an interesting experience.

On the way back to  Jingellic, we had a group call with all the family which was a real treat. The kids (grandkids) were very  cute relating to each other and to us. Our kids are pretty alright too.

We returned for brunch at our camp-site and some relaxing by the river.  Our new camping neighbour came by for a quick chat that lasted an hour (we should have known when he turned up with a beer in hand).

After a pleasant chat and a bit of advice we got out our blow up kayak. Like everything on this trip we made some errors at first. The kayak kept deflating until we finally took the vital step and read the instructions. Kayak now now ready we (mostly Lance) paddled upstream for about half an hour.  Once we turned around we had a glorious float downstream.  This is truly a beautiful part of the world.

We are having roast  pork for  dinner- an Lance specially,