Day 5 30/01/12

It took a while to get to sleep last night. It's funny how you quickly get used to things and then when something changes you have to readjust again. After being serenaded to sleep the past few nights by my folkie neighbours, there was only about four of us left in our area last night. It absolutely pissed down with rain in the wee (heh) hours of the morning and I woke up to a brief freak out that Freda and I may end up being washed down the hill. But alas, that wasn't the case and I got up to a fine but windy morning. Had a quick catch up with Brian before he took off and then I was on my way into Cooma to do some blog updates and have some lunch.
I spotted the "Golden Arches" of Maccas on my way in and stopped over with the intention of using their free wi-fi to upload some blogs.  Well after 3 frustrating hours of wrestling with the connection, I got the shits and decided to head to a place that makes decent burgers (and is less likely to knowingly screw our farmers in the process - high horse mounted, then off again). I forget the name of the place, but I ordered myself a couple of burgers (yes, I'm a little piggy):

I had a bit of a wander around the Cooma CBD, which looked a lot like this:

And stumbled across the Cooma Library where the internet gods were smiling upon me with a high-speed, bandwidthy, turbo-charged grin. I managed to upload everything I needed to in half an hour which would have taken me 5 weeks to complete at Maccas. I know I shouldn't complain about Maccas cos you get what you pay for but I have made a mental note that regional libraries are the way to go when you're wanting to e-communicate. Below is a pic of me internet winning at Cooma Library:

It was then off to Bemboka to shower and sleep. I've made a pact with myself that if there is a sign to something and if I can stop in time to check it out, I will go no matter how lame it sounds. So on the way to Bemboka, I stopped half way down the mountain (and possibly illegally parked) at The Fred Piper Memorial Lookout. Not the most exciting of stops but hey at least I stayed true to my pact huh? This was the view anyways:

Bemboka is a cool little village between Cooma and Bega with various little trinkety shops and stuff.  I popped into "Crystal and Lace" which is one of those shops, and not a brothel despite the suggestive name and picked up the key for the shower block at the sports oval.
At the oval I met fellow traveller Dave from the Gold Coast who's taking his family to central Australia over the next 3 months. After our chat I decided to do a few laps of the oval to work off those burgers then it was "time to hit the showers boys".

Despite being a sports ground, it was a really pleasant spot to sleep for the night.
Speaking of which, the value of Mum and Karen's work on the mozzie net came into full effect tonight let me tell ya! For some reason Freda was hot as buggery inside - not sure whether it was the driving I did during the day or whether it was just a humid night, but I was definitely feeling the heat!
So after stripping down to my jockeys and trying to make do with the little desk fan, by midnight I finally bit the bullet and opened Freda up to get some air circulation and some sleep. The funniest thing about it was my attempt to emerge gracefully from the van. Now this isn't the easist thing to do at the best of times but at this moment when i'm hot, sweaty, wearing next to nothing, in the middle of the night and trying to be careful to not rip the net on my way out it would have been hilarious to witness. To give you some idea, it was a lot like this: