I thought I’d come back to “7 Oaks” just outside Inverell for a few days to get some more sapphires, but in the end I decided to stay for 10 days. Hey I was getting stones, and who knew if I was ever going to make it back here to get any more. The weather was freezing cold, it rained to the point of almost flooding, it was muddy and dirty and the work was hard and physical.
Unfortunately I’ve been fairly rushed through the state of New South Wales because I needed to get up to Queensland for caravan modifications, the van was booked in and I had to make it here for the appointed date. So here I am now sitting in a hotel room just outside of Brisbane, I’m homeless in a different state, and only just writing up about New South Wales.
Welcome to NSW and to Bega! It started to rain a few days before I hit NSW and my drive into Bega which is in the south of the state was a wet one. Over the first three days in the state it has rained fairly constantly, Bega has received almost 300mm in three days. According to the news it’s the worst low pressure system to hit the east coast of Australia in perhaps 70 years and it was interesting to be here in the middle of it.
Seems I’ve hit the start of the holiday coast and towns. Phillip island really has that feel to it, and as I was to find out, so do many towns along this section of Victoria’s coast and heading up into NSW. I quite liked it in the Phillip Island region, rolling green hills and rugged coastlines interspersed with beautiful white beaches. Though I realize my liking the area possibly relates directly to the fact that it was off season, if I was there in the middle of summer I probably wouldn’t have liked it so much.
I wasn’t sure what picture to put up as the Main image for this Melbourne post, none of the hundreds of photos I had taken over the past couple of weeks really jumped out at me as “the one”. I was a little upset with my city scape night shots, I’d spent all day taking photos in the botanic gardens then waited for the sun to set so I could take some night shots only to discover I’d left my tripod back in the caravan. Then after taking perhaps a dozen photos precariously balancing the camera on bollards, signs and anything I could find which was reasonably flay, my camera battery was dead. I walked a couple of kilometres back to my car to find that my spare batteries were also in the caravan rather than where they should be in the car.
I spent 2 weeks just outside Melbourne at Werribee, this gave me plenty of time to visit Melbourne, Geelong and the surrounding areas. As part of this exploring I spent half a day in Geelong looking around the botanic gardens there, then almost a whole day at the Melbourne Royal botanic gardens. Both are well worth a visit if you’re in the area, especially the Melbourne gardens, they are enormous and I really should have perhaps allowed a couple of days to have a good look around them.
So often it seems that if you have to bump up the name of something with an adjective, it’s perhaps because it’s a little bit lacking in the first place, like Mount Remarkable in South Australia, which really wasn’t that remarkable at all. I’m looking forward to Deception Bay and Disaster Bay or perhaps Disappointment Bay in Tasmania, there’s going to be no raised hopes when I get to them
I didn’t find The Great Ocean Road which I’ll refer to from now on as GOR, to be that great at all, in fact many sections of the road are pretty damn horrible. Once again I want to have a whinge about the roads I’ve been driving on in the Eastern States.
It was a difficult drive up into the Grampians, not just because of some poor quality roads I mentioned in the previous post, but because once you get near the national park it’s hard not to look at the scenery you drive past for about 50km through the ranges before getting to Halls Gap. The large rocky ranges extend through 413,000 acres of national park located about 250km west of Melbourne. The tallest peak is over 1100m and there’s a vast area to explore and plenty for everyone to do if you visit the area.
When we arrived in the Annya forest camp there was only one or two other people here but then ANZAC day long weekend happened. Aver 24 hours the place filled, first it was the horse people, horse floats and fifth wheelers started pulling up, unloading horses and setting up camp. Then there was the local chapter of the CMCA (Campervan and Motorhome Club of Australia) with their assortment of converted coaster buses and camper vans. And of course then there’s the families and other assorted campers getting away for the long weekend, by Saturday afternoon the camp site was pretty full.
Spent a restful few days camped by the Murray river enjoying the tranquility, though this picture above is at lake Alexandrina down at the mouth of the Murray. The Murray river spot was another fantastic free camp provided by the small township of Walker Flat, just a few small clearings right on the banks of the Murray with a small toilet block near the entrance. The peacefulness of the river was only broken now and then by houseboats meandering up and down the river.