Mt Martha (Mornington Peninsula)

We're taking advantage of my sister's hospitality and staying at her house at Mt Martha. It will be our base for the next few days while we have the van and car serviced. We're also doing a repack as we've been carrying gear that we simply haven't used. We'll be around this area over the Christmas period doing the family thing. The boys are coming down for a few days to join us. They too are on the move with Adrian and Renee heading to the UK and, David and KT heading to Sydney. Both moves happen in early January.

Cheryl's place is great as it's close to everything (shops, beach, family, etc). It's very strange however getting up each morning and having room to scratch... 'er stretch.

Cheryl and Jim are rarely here, but the neighbours keep a good eye on the place. So far we've met their local "Mrs Bucket", "Two Dogs" and the neighbour above (who Mrs Bucket mentioned had had a small electrical fire in the past day or so). I think if pressed she would have known the nature of the affected circuit, the time of the incident and whether it was covered by their insurance. No doubt the details of our occupation will be fully reported to Cheryl upon her arrival next week.

Cheryl's garden on a really nice day in Melbourne.

The sorting is well underway.

Queenscliff

We got up this morning and I said to Rose "you now if we pack up quickly, we could make the 9am ferry from Queenscliff to Sorrento". The 9am had a 1/2 price deal going for Caravans. We'd decided that we didn't wish to drive all the way back up to Melbourne then back down again to Mt Martha on the Mornington Peninsula (a half day), when we could catch the ferry across to the Peninsula then home (2 hours).

On the ferry. The first time I've seen the top of the van for quite a while.

Lorne (Great Ocean Road)

A nice place but getting busy now that the holidays are almost upon us. We're keen to get into Melbourne before the rush starts. We stayed at the Lorne campground, plugged into some power, turned the heater on and stayed indoors until later in the day when the rain let up and the wind dropped a little.

There's a couple of really nice walks around Lorne. We did one of them and met up with a couple of youngsters (a couple from Ireland and Sweden, just married) whom we chatted with pretty much non-stop for about 3-4 hours. During this time we got lost and had to retrace our steps several times. The waterfalls, crevices and the rain forests were really nice, and with the rain, they were all "operating"!

The wet weather made the walk cool but not cold. We saw the area at it's best.

Trying to be artistic..... not quite there yet, but improving!

Princetown (Great Ocean Road)

It was very windy heading down to the coast today, speed was right down but we followed the roads least travelled and stayed away from the traffic. We hit the south coast at Warrnambool and turned east. The Great Ocean Road starts around here.

We got talking to one of the park rangers. He and his wife had just finished a 10 week "loop" of Australia on a Harley. He'd decided it was pretty expensive and had no problems with the bike. Must be an exception... He told us to stay at the Pricetown Recreation Reserve. He said the other places were way too expensive. So we stayed at the reserve at $15/night right on the beach on the ocean side of the road, well out of the wind with great facilities with about 20 other happy campers.

We drove from here through to Lorne stopping at every lookout, lighthouse and any other feature along the way. It was wet and windy so we were travelling slowly and it took us all day to get there.

Our first sight of the coast east of Warrnambool.

The 12 Apostles. We were here with about 29 tourist busses (all with their own interpreters), helicopters racing overhead and all competing for space near the fence to get some reasonable pictures.

The tradies in the 1800's knew how to build things that last. I wonder if "Ashlar Bonding" is included in trade training these days.

Cape Otway Lighthouse. $20/person to tour and unless you are in the know, you only find out the price after you've driven the 15k to get here. The drive in is nice but!

The Grampians (Dunkeld)

We left Adelaide and just continued to drive. We're a little like hire ponies I think. Once we got a whiff of Melbourne, we wanted to get there. We stayed in a rest area just east of Horsham. A bit noisy but we slept well (a big drive (by our standards anyway) from Adelaide). We passed into Victoria and found it pretty much as we had left it back in May (wet and windy).

Driving east from Horsham we were keen to take a pretty circuitous route through The Grampians past a place called Zupsteins. After a 50k detour south down C216 we came to a sign that read "the road past Zupsteins may not be suitable for Caravans".... you would think they might have told us 50k further back but hey. We back tracked and managed to stay on some sealed farm roads which was a very picturesque route. Things happen for a reason.

The Grampians was much as we'd left it about 40yrs ago when last we were up here on the motorcycles. It's still a nice spot with some great walks and scenery.

We stayed a little south at Dunkeld. A little cheap council park in an even smaller town.. a good bakery but!

Every walk has steps, stoops, cracks and crevices

Last time we were here there were no fences. The "degree of pucker" is now not as great...

Adelaide

We drove from Mambray Creek after a very pleasant two days. We had planned to stop at Balaklava, but the "towing" weather was too good, so we kicked on to Adelaide via the back roads.

We're ensconced in the "Adelaide Caravan Park" on the river and a short walk from the centre of town, in the suburb of Hackney. This place feels like home. The river precinct is well looked after and Adelaide is a very busy city. The architecture here is just beautiful and the weather is once again treating us pretty well. Our neighbours are from south of Perth. We had a few drinks with them last night and did a bottle of red some justice followed by a pub meal... life is pretty good... Rose has started our Xmas shopping too.

We rode today out to Henley on the coast using the bike trails along the river today and we're heading up into the hills tomorrow weather permitting.

The local brewery is done up for xmas

The whole city is done up for Xmas. Rose is rubbing noses with these two locals...

Mambray Creek

From Coffin Bay to Pt Lincoln for an overnighter. We were going to stop for a day or so, but decided to continue up the east coast of the Eyre Peninsula and stop wen we felt the need. We dropped by a few towns on the way up, but nothing really offered us anything that we hadn't already seen so we continued on.

We arrived in Pt Augusta and "closed the loop" that we'd started drawing back in May. I'm sure Pt Augusta appeals to those who have lived there for a generation or two... or possibly three, but on our list it's a great place to check out the next camp spot, which we did.

Mambray Creek is about 40k from Pt Augusta in the Mt Remarkable National Park. It's one of the new age NP sites. It must now be booked online (site unseen) and costs $18 park entrance + $10 for the camp site. SA NP sites are expensive but most are pretty well set up. Having to book online is an inconvenience but a sign of the times I think. The parkssa web site is cumbersome and presupposes that you have web access. So one online booking, 3 phone calls and a visit to the Pt Augusta information centre later we finally had our site booked.... for the wrong night! So we arrived a day early and stayed for 2 nights anyway.

Half way through our 11km walk in the national park. This walk way tagged "hard" and it took us just over 5hrs + 5lt of water.

These guys came around at 5pm. They came as a pair. Whilst one entertained the other "cased the joint". He actually came right up to the table.

 

They left and the goanna's arrived.