Judy & Brian Tour Oz

We've been holed up in Tathra for the last two days. Mostly because I've godda head cold and feel rotten, but partly because the weather is not brilliant. Yesterday we went next door and bought yet-another-fishing-rod as I'd cleverly left them all at home and now that we are at the coast Judy is desperate to go fishing. We tried her hand at the mouth of the Bega River, where she immediately pulled in a small Rock Cod, then snagged two rocks in quick succession before giving up. Then we drove up along the beaches and soon emerged at Bermagui, where we tried her hand again from the wharf, but only a token effort! I took cold&flus tabs and went to bed early and slept 12 hours. Today I was feeling slightly more human so we ventured all the way up to Bega. It never ceases to amaze me that Judy can drive the car into a foreign town, and drive straight to the big shops without a blink of an eye. It further amazes me that when you emerge from the underground carpark, you ...

Made the tiresome journey around the coast, first through Orbost and then to Cann River where every van on the road in the south east of Australia stopped for coffee and a ’pitstop’, then  after   coffee  and cake, we pushed ahead and right on through to Tathra where we had booked into the van park for the next week and a prettier sight I have not seen for some time. This is not really a fun journey, it’s just hard work, up and down, round and round, bump, bang, crash, road works, stop, go. It took nearly 5 hours for 300 km.  We settled into the Big 4 and although in no way busy, there a few other vans here. Across the road, another van park  which seems to be trading on the fact that Frankie J Holden is a part owner, is doing big renovations with new cabins and a new water play park getting ready for the coming summer season. This park is very nice but will probably have to upgrade to compete with the park across the road . Like most other parks ...

Awake before the alarm. 6:15am. Stumbled out to the bathroom. Had to stand still and take a second look. All I could see was fog. It's OK, I found the ensuite, it was only 2 metres away. We were booked on the ferry from Queenscliff to Sorrento at 8am, which for us means being there at 730. Luckily it was only 5 minutes away from the van park. Take a look at our trip to the ferry: OK, yes this is Queenscliff. Where is that boat? Down here maybe? Oh, ok there it is, down there Well, at least we found the right place. That is the ferry and he's at least 50 metres off course. Better do a hard right, then left... Oh yeah, it's in here isn't it. Out they come, lucky to be back on safe (couldn't say dry, could i?) ground This is the view out toward the busiest shipping lane in Australia, through which we have to pass to get to Sorrento We traversed the pond in the murky gloom, blasting our horn all the way. We saw nothing at all. After...

Ah, what a difference a little spot of sunshine and an indoor heated swimming pool can make! The van park has the said pool, and a spa as well, so we've made good use of both of those. Today we toured down to Point Lonsdale which is the southernmost headland of Port Philip Bay and where the 'Rip' is that threatens every bit of shipping that passes through, then out to Barwon Heads, which apart from being the setting for the TV Series Seachange a hundred years ago, is a very pretty spot indeed. We took some coffee and read the papers at the Cafe On The Heads, wandered about and relaxed. We came back to Queenscliff, intentions of having a look around Fort Queenscliff, only to find that the sign outside which stated amongst other things that there was a tour at one o'clock, really meant that the only time one could visit was at that time and with the tour guide. It seems that the place is still used by Defence for some reason or other and entry is restricted. Oh, wel...

Happy Birthday Paul!!! Not a moments regret in packing our kit up this morning in between rainstorms and heading to higher, perhaps drier, ground. No such luck, the rain and drizzle followed us all in the way into Geelong, through to 70km of 80kph roadwork and into the van park at Queenscliff. Then it stopped, and the sun came out. Ahhhh. That's so much better! We unhitched and went straight into town, firstly to check out the ferry connection for Wednesday, and to find a feed. Suitably sated, we walked around the marina, where for no apparent reason, they have a 40m high 360 degrees viewing tower. Naturally, I just had to go up and take a look and some snaps. We also lucked into seeing the local vintage train being shunted up to its shed for the night. Then we decided to do a quick spin through two other little towns, St Leonards and Point Arlington, which are nice little seaside villages. Actually they are probably suburbs of Geelong now, but they would have been nice cosy ...

Today didn't start out looking too good. Grey, raining, cold, windy. We had come to see the Ottway Fly, a suspended boardwalk out over the treetops. We went straight there but it was miserable looking with a lazy drizzle making a walk out in the open less than inviting. We decided to go down the coast and see the 12 Apostles first, then by the time we got back it would be clear. Right? Wrong. The weather down at the big 12 was pretty rubbish: really raining now, a freezing, hard sleety rain that was coming in sideways. We rugged up and walked down to all the lookouts anyway, but it was really cold and now we were wet from the bottom-of-the-coat downwards. We headed back up to the Fly, not really expecting much except lunch at the Black Snail cafe, which would be the only thing open for a meal for miles around. We sat quietly and ate our lunch, keeping a beady eye on the rain out through the picture windows. It got heavier and heavier. We wasted time, looked around the sho...

Sometime after leaving Naracoorte, travelling through the most lush looking rolling hillsides, we passed into Victoria. Yeah, that’s six states and territories, not the complete set but a good effort nonetheless. We have been travelling on the backroads through the smallest towns and it’s been delightful, well except for the lumpy roads, which became a bit tiresome before we reached our destination. We stopped for coffee at Hamilton, where our clocks was saying 11 but it was really 1130. We drove on from Hamilton through more lovely looking countryside, the vines of the Coonawarra area having given way to the cattle and sheep, which look a picture against the verdant green grass. We stopped momentarily at Colac to buy some stock at Woolies and then turned south up into the Ottway mountains before getting to Gellibrand. Now this is a tiny town. We chose it because the pictures of the van park looked decidedly better than those at Colac, and because its 27km further on toward the Ot...

We took ourselves on a bit of a tour out of Victor Harbor down to Goolwa. Goolwa is on the edge of Lake Alexandrina, which is where the Murray River ends, except for big floods when the lake empties into the ocean. There is a bridge over to Hindmarsh Island, which is where Charles Sturt swum to in 1830, climbed a sand dune and declared that he could at last see the mouth of the Murray River. It is also where Captain Barker swum to in 1831 under orders to retrace Sturt's steps and add more details to his survey. He too climbed the hill and waved at his regiment on the far shore at Goolwa. he then disappeared from view, never to be seen again. We stopped at Horseshoe Bay, established in 1851 to be the safe port for goods brought down the Murray to Goolwa. They even built a railway line in 1854, the first public railway in Australia. Port Elliot is the town right behind Horseshoe Bay. The bay was only active until 1864 when the penny dropped that it wasn't actually all that safe...