Family holiday for 6 months around Australia. Switching off for a while to remind ourselves of why we are doing what we do. Enjoying time with our little family that we have created. Creating some great memories and taking some awesome photographs as well.
Up early once again and its pancakes for breaky to lighten the mood because we are not at a very attractive site when compared to only a few days ago. We drive off in the morning sunshine which is lovely and warm and soon settle in for the drive. The girls are watching a movie and the roads in SA are fantastic. Victoria has the worst roads we have faced on our trip so far. Bumpety bump and boing boing is very frustrating and the towing is difficult to get right and a cruise speed hard to maintain when like this. the new roads make us feel alot better about travelling and i even used the cruise control for the first time. We travel alongside some freight trains which is entertaining for us all and at talmost the same speed. Murray Bridge soon arrives in our sights and the town is huge with all the businesses that you would expect.
Arrive at Murray Bridge
Mia loves feeding any animal she finds.
The Murray Bridge
The girls on an old steam train
Cheeky monkeys
All Aboard!
The wheels are bigger than Mia
Mum & Lily stop for a shot
Little Red Caboose
My little sweetheart amongst the pink Flowers
For our lunch break and coffee we head to the river side reserve and the jkids play on the swings while me and heather work out where to stay for the night.
Mannum Swans Unfortunately there are no free stay camp grounds here so it is decided to go another 24kms to a place called Mannum. This is where the first ever Murray river paddle boats where made and launched. there is no drinking water but what a lovely little river side camp spot. It overlooks the vllage on the other side of the river which is quite nice indeed. Two ferrys run 24 hrs a day at this town and there are 10 other ferrys that cross the Murray at their towns all along this popular Australian river. We go for a crossing with the ferry and a look around the town. An ice cream shop is not in town and so its ice cream on a stick for the girls. Some shopping is done and we cross the ferry again to go back to camp. earlier that day i had thrown my Yabbie trap into the rive just to see what might crawl in and to my surprise a fresh water yabbie was caught. Aha! Bait! there might just be some fissh in the murray wiorth Catching. Me and Lily dug up some worms and sat by the river that afternoon with a line in. We did get a nibble or two which is a good sign that with the right bait i might just be able to snare a yellow Belly or better still the prized murray cod. These things can grow up to 1.8 meters but i am not getting my hopes up with my fish catching record so far.
Me and Lily fishing for Dinner
We also had some cheeky swans visit us and almost walked into the door of the caravan. (see video)
Bold Swans
Mia gets close
Mannum Swans video
if you click the 'you tube' logo the video will play larger
We decided today that staying at caravan parks is not really worth the money unless you are leaving the van there for a whole day unprotected. all your really paying for is a toilet and shower which are not always great anyway. all the grey nomads and caravaners stay at the free stay areas which allows more money for tourist things and other enjoyable things. because the next few days are fairly boring areas, that's what we will be doing. Up early and off we go. On the road by 9ish and we are going to push for a place called Bordertown in South Australia. This is the first town on the entry to SA. These very flat roads are quite uninteresting as they travel through mostly farm land and flat country. a lunchtime stop off to break our trip was at Charliegarke lake. Nobody at this stop off at all. it is like an abandoned lakeside campground. Only a couple of old abandoned caravans and a broken down kiosk. Looked like a scene out of a plague movie where everything had been left behind. Very flat and open but right by the lakeside which was quite nice. there is plenty of tap water available (non drinking of course) so heather suggested we wash the van to get rid of some of the road grime and dust we have gathered. What a great idea. see video.Washing a very small mobile house
Bubble & Squeek
if you click the 'you tube' logo the video will play larger
Being such a large span of water i thought it might be a good idea that i throw in a line to see if there are any fish around but a local later told us that the lake had dried up only 3 years prior due to drought and so no fish at all existed here. maybe some yabbies would be around but as you see in the video there aren't even these little creatures hanging around.
The Big Koala
Grampians at a distance
Charliegarke lake sand castles
Kaniva Entry sign - very Australian
Finally at the South Australian border
Our first SA campsite. - Poocher Swamp
Back in the van after a couple of hours rest and play with the girls, we head for Bordertown. We made our destination at about 5pm and quickly set up at another free stay camp area called of all things "Poocher Swamp". A little breezy and raining as we entered the free camping ground. Again no-one around. This is actually a game reserve for duck hunting, very rough looking surroundings but enough for our night stay. after all we are only sleeping here not site seeing the area. Quite cold and the Gas stovetop is our heater for the cold nights. Works quite well.
Today started with rain, again. I did promise the girls a ride on the family bike that you can hire from the caravan park but the weather has kept us indoors for what seems ages. However just as we packed up our unit to leave, the sun popped out and so i decided to stretch our departure out a little and take them for a tour of the park by "Pedal Power".
if you click the 'you tube' logo the video will play larger
Heather needed to be on board with me because the leg power required to push 4 people is pretty heavy. Off we go and the giggles from the girls was non stop from the time we left til the time that mum and dad were exhausted from it and we took the bike back. Through the huge puddles and all around the park extremities. Now we set off for the Great Ocean Road.
King Of The Road
The Road itself is quite thin and care must be taken all the time. Signs everywhere saying "high accident area. take care". Stopping for a couple of pictures at the beginning to record it and also because we were assuming that it may keep raining. Fortunately for us the weather holds and the view is lovely.
Beach Stop photo
Dad & The Kids
Great Ocean Road Memorial Arch
All along the edges are what are called 'cut off areas' and this is for slow vehicles (that means us) to pull off to the side to allow others past. I did capture some video from the drivers seat by holding the camera against the side pillar and driving one handed. This may sound extremely dangerous but in fact as long as you concentrate on only the road and forget the camera, you drive no worse than if you had 2 hands on the wheel. I only captured when there were no other cars oncoming. (see video)
if you click the 'you tube' logo the video will play larger
Our goal today is Johanna beach camping ground for an unpowered site. 50 sites available with no drinking water, but close to the beach. This also puts us right in the middle of the Otway National Park. Great area for tree top walks, Wilderness walks and Lots of koalas.
The Sun Breaks through
Mia's Windy Lookout!
Catching Salmon, The easy way.
During the trip heather caught sight of some Dolphins jumping in the surf at Apollo bay and so we stopped at the next roadside Cut off. There were 2 other cars there at the time and one of them happened to be a professional fisherman. His wife explained to us that he was using a special lure to catch Salmon off the rocks. I shot some video and if you notice he catches a salmon every cast into the water. His wife offered us some of them and so we took her up on it.. beautiful fresh from the ocean fish for dinner. This irritated me alot because of the luckless fishing attempts i have made along the way. ( see video)
if you click the 'you tube' logo the video will play larger
Salmon Fillets for dinner!
We make a couple of stops for fuel and sightseeing and arrive at about 3.15pm. After setting up we shoot up the road (about 8kms) to grab some fresh water, coffee and to take a look around.
There is a BIG TREE for viewing at Lavers Hill and so before it gets dark we thought we would take a look. A 45 minute round trip through the very wet and green rain forest we discover that the tree had fallen last year due to wind and erosion so we only got to see the BIG FALLEN TREE, But it was a good energy burner for the girls who walked really well and complained very little. Lily needed a piggy back ride toward the end but all in all a cool little nature walk. As we left it was dark and so back to camp to eat dinner (yummy salmon) and warm up for a chilly night by the sea.
A quick pack up today and make our way out of Mallacoota to steer towards Lakes Entrance. Our trips now are being planned for quicker shorter distances as the girls don't cope well with being in the car any longer than 2 hours at a time. The perfect trip planned with 2 stops on the way. Are we there yet? Are we there yet? is all we seem to hear and today we hear it within the first 10 kilometers. The movie players are a good investment for these types of days. 'Despicable Me' was their first movie followed by 'The cat in the hat.' We arrive at Cann river and stop for coffee and to grab a map from the Information centre. 10 minute break is enough because our next stop is only 20mins further at MacKenzie Rainforest Boardwalk. We prep the girls for a 1 kilometer walk through a very wet but lovely rainforest area. Please see video.
if you click the 'you tube' logo the video will play larger
After this we pop back into the car for another drive to 'Orbost'. This should put us about 55kms from Lakes Entrance and definately within reach. As we approach Orbost it looks like a one horse town in the middle of nowhere. Slowly driving down the main street we see 2 geese walking along the road. All traffic is giving way to them but then we find a sign that says Give way to geese.
Check the video Below. Apologies for the creaking sound during any raw video footage but any movement from me will produce these pops and crack noises. I will try my best to eliminate as time goes by
if you click the 'you tube' logo the video will play larger
These 2 geese are just walking along together window shopping at the seemingly empty run down shop windows... Amazing to see and quite funny for the girls.
Orbost road sign
St James church
There is a parking area at the end of town for caravans and that's where we stop for lunch. Lunch today is pancakes for the girls and mummy and daddy are eating the fish we caught from the day before. a good size Tailor from our boating expedition and daddy caught a pretty nice little flathead the night before while the family were sleeping.
if you click the 'you tube' logo the video will play larger
After lunch some photos of the girls playing at the park and a couple of mummy at the derelict Butter factory. Nice one Mummy!
all aboard for the final push to Lakes Entrance.
Afternoon arrival
We are absolutely astounded at the tiny sizes of the caravan parks here... it looks like owners have converted their back yards to make a van park. How they expect us to get in there is pretty tough. Although we found (thank to a local gent that guides us) a great little park that has enough space for us due to its larger size grounds and we book into our first en suite stay. En suite stay parks have a little bathroom at the side of your van for showers etc and toilet. Very handy and a nice change from our squishy little bathroom. Fish and Chips for dinner tonight and we are done... Tomorrow we are expecting rain so we might plan to do some indoor stuff with the girls. Some phone calls must be done as well so Daddy will be kept busy doing that..
This day is the day to catch a fish with my girls. Just across from us we chat to Charlie the hire boat owner. this man works in Mallacoota for 6 months and then goes to live in thailand for the other 6 months. 'what a life'
The rates are cheap and so for $60 we have a 2 hour run in a little motor boat. The distance we need to cover to catch our fish is too far for our little inflatable to handle so its just better off to hire the boat here.
Charlie tells us where to go for some taylor and thats just what we go for. In the first 10 minutes we hook up a couple of littlies and one good size form My Rod. Then we let the girls real in their forst ever fish on their own fishing rods that poppy bought fort them at Christmas. The video camera was running out of battery but we managed to capture it all.. See the video...
if you click the 'you tube' logo the video will play larger
We head back in with our little catch and intend to go for a drive to the Double Creek rainforest boardwalk just up the road. However the rain sets in and a quick storm puts and end to those plans. This day sees our first rain since we started our trip and i guess 1 storm out of 17 days travel is pretty good.
Good photo Mia
can't fish without popcorn
lily ready go reel one in
Watch closely girls
Mum in the sun!
More south travel tomorrow will hopefully put us at Lakes Entrance area.
A move from Moruya To Bermagui today only took 1.5 hours with a small detour through Tilba Tilba. So small in fact that we couldn't stop because of the size of the road we were on through the town so we kept on truckin South. We arrive at Ocean lake Caravan Park. Perfect spot by the water.. We decide to pump up the boat and head to the high seas with Mia & Lily our fish catchers...no fish biting today but we will hook up soon i'm sure.
Gorgeous over the water sunset for us while we cooked our dinner. check the pics
This is only a one night stay before moving down to Merimbula. There we intend a 2 night stop before hitting VICTORIA!
Fish cleaning table. Haven't had to use one yet :(
Locals
Pelicans Basking
Is That a fish George? ..Where? over there. Are you shitting me Ted? Guys did you see that movement? Cut it out Ted, your jokes aren't funny. Lighten up fellas, Arr geez, i'm going to hang with the Gulls...
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
