Mark (our trip leader) was having pancakes for breakfast. We were most impressed – even if it was a ready mix – this may be THE most important bit of advice yet!
We packed up and got on the road, first stop Bright – pretty little alpine town and a great spot for breakfast! Oh to be in civilisation again. After our rather expensive breakfast we headed back on the Great Alpine Road through the skiing villages of Mount Beauty, Falls Creek and Bogong! (AKA the moth!! eeek!)
After the steep winding climb we got to the Rocky Valley Reservoir as the clouds set in. it was like a scene out of Sherlock Holmes – all very mysterious and scary! Not to mention cold!
Then we wound our way back down the other side of the mountain range to Omeo for a very wet night – the worst yet. It rained solidly and heavily through the night. Fortified by our Valentine lamb roast dinner from the local pub, we made it through the night, but the morning was grim. We took everything out of the tent, including the mattress, and stuffed it all into the rear seat. Then folded the sodden tent into itself, packed it in its sodden cover, showered, and set off in the rain down to Bairnsdale.
Then it was like supermarket sweep when we hit the high street in Bairnsdale, we bought ourselves a Super (Mini) Tarp, poles and ropes to go with and a toaster! Exciting new toys...
Back on the road again – aiming to be in Wilsons Prom by the evening. We accepted this was pushing it a little so settled in Traralgon for a night in a cabin at a Top Tourist park. At the park we also managed to catch up with our washing! (I was down to my last pair of knickers!!) 3 loads of washing later we were cream crackered and ready for bed! (Sheila – my mountain of small coins has come in handy so far – most of the machines take 20c coins – yey!) A real bed too! Lovely.
We were due to take Priscilla in for her bearings repacking but yet again we postponed it because the garage was going to take longer than initially advised. We'll sort her out in Melbourne for sure. Instead, we went to the other side of the road to do some more shopping! A new folding sink and dry bag was purchased from BCF. Then we were back on the road heading down to Wilsons Promontory – one of the most popular national parks in Australia. We stopped off at IGA for provisions – including pancake mix – it was Shrove Tuesday after all!
We paid at the gate and drove down to the campsite at Tidal River – stopping to take in the beautiful beach scenes on route.
When we got to Tidal River we were a little apprehensive as it seemed really busy – including school parties – that's all we needed – hundreds of screaming children! We found a good camp spot at the edge of the campsite (far enough away from the youths!) and set up – including SUPER TARP!!!! perfecto...(even more perfect as we had pancakes for dinner, yum)
We liked Tidal River, it felt good to be there. I have to mention that I got my third mozzie bite |THROUGH trousers! 3 times the little buggers have got me! Think I may need to buy some Bushmans repellent cos the little barstewards don't seem to care about Aeroguard. I went to the toilet block just as the sun had gone down and saw a wombat foraging around someone's campervan. This was bettered later on when Claire and I were returning from brushing our teeth to see a girl with a big floodlight and a guy with a camera taking pics close up – I told the wombat to attack – the girl found it funny at least! The brochure explains that the wildlife is so used to people they have no fear of them here. Oh, and Claire saw a big possum when she went to the toilet block that night too. Twice! (I didn't see him though..... I think he was a big rat).
We decided that we should spend another night at Tidal River so went to the tourist info to pay for another night, we also picked up a walking guide with good intentions. We obviously didn't bother with any of the great walks Wilsons Prom had to offer, instead we went and relaxed on the beach then came back to cook dinner early – in an attempt to avoid the night-time biters!
A steak and Claire's special spinach salad dinner was much appreciated – early to bed to catch up on this blog thing (we're finding it tough to keep up with already).
Thursday - On our way out of Wilsons Prom we stopped off at Squeaky Beach for lunch. Squeaky Beach is indeed squeaky, supposedly due to the uniform shape of the sand granules. On the ABC radio news we hear that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has vowed to stop wailing – thank god for that! It turned out her vowed to stop the Japanese whaling! Not himself – not nearly as funny in our opinion.
We made it to Phillip Island by mid afternoon – stopping at the visitors centre to purchase our tickets for the penguin parade that evening! We carried on through the Island to Cowes, the major town on the Island. We got to the campsite and pulled up – only for someone to pull up behind us and run into the office ahead of us – how rude! I think they were German!! It turns out they had 2 vans and wanted to be next to each other – ok, but still rude! The annoying thing about this evening was that we needed to drive to the Penguins at about 7.45 so we couldn't get the tent out. We made a nice Chilli dinner and headed off to see the penguins – they were due to come out of the sea at about 8.45pm, we foolishly got the the Arena at about 7.45pm so had an hour to wait until they did their little show! It was pretty blooming cold – I tell ya!
Finally they came out of the water in a huddle (very much like that of the American footballers) and wobbled their way towards the dunes at about 9pm. If we're honest this was rather unimpressive – more impressive was seeing them up close by the walkway as they went back to their nests to feed the chicks. I have to mention that the Penguin Parade does not allow any kind of photography of filming – I think they do this to stop the Chinese tourists (of which there were many!!!) from blinding the poor little things with super bright flashes! We watched one mum return to 2 plump fluffy chicks only to be rugby tackled for a feed! Cool to watch but you ended up feeling sorry for the mum! We went back to the campsite and set up our tent – a late night for us – in bed for 11!
Friday – we set off with gusto aiming for the big smoke – Melbourne!
We took the coastal road through some lovely towns Portsea and Sorrento on the Mornington Peninsula – Wowzers – there are a lot of very nice mansions down there... need to find me a big nugget to buy one of those! Claire had checked the Wotif (the Aussie version of Last Minute) website in the morning so we had a couple of hotels in the city to head towards. Without too many dramas we got straight to the first one, Park View Hotel just on the outskirts of St Kilda and liked it so decided to stay the night ! It was pretty handy to have free street parking just outside the hotel, we felt this was safe – but not quite safe enough for the surfboard. Claire decided she wanted it in the hotel room – oh the embarrassment when she walked through the rather nice foyer area with a 7'6 minimal! At least the muppets enjoyed a break from the travelling and the surfboard....
In the evening we headed out into the city with a desire to watch the AFL game that was playing that night. St Kilda were playing Collingwood in the NAB cup (this is intended to be a pre-season friendly). We managed to get on and off trams without killing ourselves and got to the Etihad Stadium with the thousands of other footy fans. We paid a bit extra for the good seats on level 2 (full price £11 each), we ended up on the front row very close to the goal! Perfect! The game kicked off at 7.40pm and the temp then was 32 degrees Celsius. It was slow to start but then the teams showed us a game – St Kilda (our team due to our residence that evening) started really well, being up by over 40 points at half time. This was obviously too boring so they allowed Collingwood back into the game and the last 10-15 minutes there was probably only 7 points in it at any time. The final whistle blew and St Kilda won by one point! 100-99. We are so glad we got to see a game in Melbourne as this is the number one sport in the city.
The game finished at about 10.30pm and the temp was still 29 deg, phew....
We wandered down a back street looking for a bar when I hear “JENNIE THORPE” yelled from a bar window! I know I'm a minor celebrity but this is ridiculous... it was Claire Lindley nee Kelly, an old school friend of mine who I have not seen since leaving school about 15 years ago!
We went in the bar and had a couple of drinks with Claire and her husband Dean. They are now living in Adelaide so we said we'd catch up for a drink when we get there. What a wonderful yet ridiculous evening!
Saturday – We have a lazy start to the day and decide to book for another night in the hotel. We then head out into the city to do arty things. We went to the Australian Centre for Contemporary Arts – very nice but incredibly small (unless we missed some of it) then we went for a walk around the NGV (National Gallery of Victoria). This museum is huge and very impressive! We really enjoyed it, but were totally exhausted so we found ourselves a bar down by the river (reminded me a lot of York!)
After a couple of drinks we went back to the hotel to freshen up (and chill out a bit). After a power nap and a shower we went back on the trams to Fitzroy – an area recommended to us by Adam (thanks!) We stumbled across a Tapas place and wandered in for a very good feed as it turned out! We then went on to a cool little grungy bar – we were too old to be in there so we only stayed for 2 drinks... Plus we were tired, we're normally in bed by 10pm at the latest!!
Jen
(of Claire n Jen fame)
No comments:
Post a Comment