Great Ocean Road part2

The G.O.R. seems to me to be divided into distinct zones; travelling East from Warnnambool we travelled through lush green dairy pastures. 80% of the cows on these farms were Jerseys, to boost the cream content of the milk. Then we encountered the dramatic coastal cliffs, famous rocks and beaches. After Princetown, where we posted the last blog, we travelled through scenery more in keeping with the Great Alpine Road, winding through forests with tall tree ferns and dramatic deep gullies. Part of this was the Otway National Park, then we descended into a stunning coastal area, and into Apollo Bay.
This is a seriously tourist-oriented town; souvenir shops, cafes and accommodation abound. We stopped for a coffee and to replenish the fresh provisions (at IGA).
After Apollo Bay the road hugged the cliffs following the coastline, twisting and turning as the rocks and valleys dictated. This is what an Ocean Road is all about!!
Suddenly we came around a bend and there was the flat plain of the Kennett River mouth - our destination. We'd decided to stay at the Kennett River Holiday Park for one major reason -

Yes, there are koalas in this caravan park.

And a short walk through the surrounding bush revealed lots more!

The birdlife is amazing too - Michael became the birdman of Kennett River for a short while.

These King Parrots were incredible but the Sulphur Crested Cockies nipped Michael's fingers and toes, thank goodness they don't fly up into your hands like the King Parrots do.

The Rosellas weren't shy either.

All of this lead us to ask ourselves, "Have we peaked? Can it get better than this?"

But we have to move on and so reluctantly we left Kennett River to head to the Bellarine Peninsula before crossing to the Mornington Peninsula on Friday.

We considered going into Geelong, Michael fancied the Ford Centre, but on inspection it was not a tour of the factory but a static museum display so we gave it a miss and travelled through Torquay to Barwon Heads (where the tv programme SeaChange was made). We checked out the caravan park and saw "Laura's cabin",  we then drove on across the bridge (fans will know the significance), and on to Portarlington.

 We were going to spend 2 nights in this very pleasant town but the caravan park was enormous, with a large permanent contingent. Then we found out that the foreshore seasonal camping areas further along the coast at Indented Head and St Leonards are cheaper, so we are now staying at St Leonards, right on the coast of Port Phillip Bay.

The weather is typically Victorian, we've had all 4 seasons today! 

We're hoping for a clear day tomorrow, and that we'll see The Spirit of Tasmania as it sails across the Bay. 

We'll be on it Monday week.

Great Ocean Road

So we left Ballarat and travelled through 'Lakes and Craters' country, stopping for lunch at the interesting town of Camperdown where we pigged out on fishermans baskets and chips. The town centre has a very interesting clock tower which dominates the whole town being 30 metres tall in a single storey town, imagine Eiffel Tower on Rottnest!
Then onto Warrnambool.  Well, Warrnambool was a pleasant surprise. We opted for the Figtree caravan park, rather than camping out at the showgrounds - that turned out to be a good move; the caravan park was close to town and foreshore and had a heated swimming pool. (which was beautiful).
We spent one day exploring the town and the fantastic Mill Markets, in the old Fletcher Jones factory. The markets were a collectors delight, whatever you're into we're sure that they would have something for you and the prices seemed good. We spent the next day walking along the foreshore and found a little memorial to the Portuguese explorers, Henry the Navigator and Vasco da Gama.
(Michael is with Henry: I'm with Vasco)

                                      

We took it nice and easy in Warrnambool and stayed 3 days, we'll definitely put this town on the list of places to revisit.

We've noticed some different postboxes in this area  - they are called Post Receiving Pillars and they have a lovely little hand on the handle of the emptying door.      

Friday brought the showers back so we were apprehensive about what we would actually see along the Great Ocean Road. No worries! The views were as fantastic as all the promotional photos and hype promised. We turned off the road and 'did' all the tourist lookouts and photo ops. 

We had a look around the little towns of Peterborough and Port Campbell but decided to stop at the sweetest little caravan park in the village of Princetown; on the eastern edge of the 12 Apostles National Park. The caravan park is the "Apostles Camping Park" and the blurb said,"Perfect location overlooking the Gellibrand River and National Park. Simple, clean and quiet, ideal for couples and overseas travellers wanting that natural experience" It's all true, this place is perfect.

We decided on 2 nights but yesterday it was wet and drizzly all day so we decided to take a chance on it clearing up and stayed an extra day. It paid off, although it's a bit overcast, the showers have gone and all the birds are out; Splendid wrens, Blackbirds, Honeyeaters, Robins and cheeky little sparrows.

 (Apart from the sparrows and blackbirds it's like home, at the moment we have the place to ourselves).

Looking out across the wetlands and river we can see kangaroos in the paddocks, I counted 46 just now.

Tomorrow we continue east along the Great Ocean Road, intending to stay at a caravan park with a promise of more wildlife.

Time to leave Bendigo and head back into the country Goldfields area; but first we stopped to replenish a few supplies at ALDI. (Our first Aldi store this trip). We were heading for the town of Newstead, home of the magazine - Restored Cars -. Michael has subscribed to this mag for many years, he has every issue.
We met the editor/publisher/man who started it all, Eddie Ford and had a nice long chat. We got to see his collection of cars, barbed wire, number plates as well as the magazine's vast library.

We left there and headed a little further west to Carisbrook for lunch at the bakery there. It's hard to believe that this area was under water in January this year. (The door to the bakery doesn't close properly now, the frame shifted in the floods). If you look closely you can see some damage remaining; garden walls knocked down, grasses and debris hanging on fences or up in tree branches.
  We were heading south again for Ballarat when we called into the information centre in Clunes for a decent map to navigate through Ballarat to the caravan park we fancied. (Martin wasn't there!) The lady there was good, she asked why we were heading off to Ballarat when they had a caravan park in Clunes and told us that the next day was the day of the Clunes Spring Fair and Agricultural Show.
So we stayed in Clunes for 2 nights. The caravan park was on the banks of the Creswick River and showed signs of flood damage. There weren't many people staying there and we got a lovely shady spot. Looking out through the van window reminded us of an English garden.

We had no need to worry about shade though, the rain started on Friday afternoon, stopped for about 3 hours on Saturday afternoon, whilst we went to the Fair, and didn't stop until Sunday morning.

Clunes is Victoria's first Gold Town, and the streetscape has changed little since the 1800s. It has more than 50 buildings 'of historical significance'; and has featured in more than a few tv shows and commercials.

The Fair was a typical small, country town affair: a few vintage cars, steam engines, sheep, cattle, goats, chickens and horses aswell as some donkeys, ferrets and guinea pigs.

There were more than a few 'beaut utes' and of course the ladies' craft, flower and baking competitions.

The Punch and Judy Show was showing it's age but the crowd of littlies sitting watching were so enthralled they didn't notice.

We woke on Sunday morning to glorious sunshine and headed down the short distance to Ballarat.

For only the second time on the trip we decided to use the GPS (didn't get a map) and amazingly it got us straight to the caravan park easily. Hopefully it will do as well in Melbourne.

Then we had our second disappointment of the trip: the Eureka Stockade is closed for rebuilding! Our caravan park is just around the corner so we walked over to have a look - yep! half the building is demolished. This is a major rebuild so it looks like we'll be coming back to Ballarat.

This flag is in the park next to the Stockade, at least it's something.

Sovereign Hill is still there and only a short bus ride away so we thought about visiting on Monday, but we checked prices and what we actually got for our money. Maybe we're cheapskates but it's nothing that we haven't seen already. So we got the bus into Ballarat and walked around town. 

Not only is there a fascinating selection of 1890s buildings but a lot of Art Deco architecture too.

We went to the Art Gallery - at least we could see the original Eureka Flag!

 Guess what - disappointment no3, the flag isn't on display at the moment!!

Anyway we had a good day walking around and then back to the van for our own little happy hour.

Tomorrow it's back on the road, into the country heading south west to Warrnambool to start on The Great Ocean Road.

Tourist gold in Bendigo

 We are back on the magic interweb at Bendigo, it being a major town/city, and we are back into the tourist areas. After Mt.Gambier we left South Australia to enter Victoria and we noticed that almost straight away the landscape changed from flat and gravelly to rather lush and the timber plantations are of eucalypt rather than pinus radiata. The roads changed too, from corrugated to smooth but with lots of potholes.
The first Victorian town was Dartmoor, where the main street had its street trees (?Atlantic Cedars), declared unsafe, so they were lopped. A chainsaw artist then carved figures in the stumps. These figures represent (as did the trees) the men and women of the area who served during WW1 & WW11.

Across the river there are morre carvings, one particular multi branched tree has lots of nursery rhyme characters carved; we spotted Snow White and the Dwarves, Hickory Dickory Dock, The Three Bears, The Cat and the Fiddle (and the Cow jumping over the moon) to name a few.

Then we headed north over rolling heads, beautiful lush pastures, 'fat lambs and cattle country', and a vast array of parrots.  It was very, very windy and the clouds were getting darker so when we got to Coleraine we decided to hunker down in the little caravan park and sit out the storm.
The storm didn't eventuate but we had a nice time looking around the town the next morning, there was an op  shop, a secondhand bookshop, and the local Christmas Fete to raise funds for the local hospital. It was nice to see wooden buildings after SAs stone and fibro buildings.

Then it was onto a little township of Harrow, a hidden gem! 

There are 2 museums in Harrow, a motor museum and the Johnny Mullagh museum.

The Johnny Mullagh museum was very interesting and although Michael knew the story I was only half aware that the very first Aussie cricket team to tour UK was an aboriginal team; one of the best players was Johnny Mullagh and he was a Harrow local, is in fact buried in Harrow cemetery. 

The transport museum was a surprise because......

Yes. a Citroen 5 CV.

There was also a Clement-Bayard, an FN, and a couple of Singers. All very sweet and it was only $3 each.

We were tempted to linger, but pressed on through 'Little Desert National Park'. (It's Desert in name only, very like the scrub just north of Lancelin, WA). There are only 2 sealed roads through the park, there are lots of 4WD tracks; one of these, a particularly small, sandy one was officially signposted as 'The McDonald Hwy' . This took us up to the town of Nhill, pronounced NIL and that was its attraction for us so we pressed on to Dimboola. There wasn't a wedding/fight or a fight/wedding, in fact there wasn't much of anything, but we spent the night there and can now say, been there, done that!

The next day it was on through backroads, broadacre farms without any visible livestock through towns of Minyip and Donald into Wychproof, 'where the railway runs through the middle of the main street'. Yes, the track does but the train doesn't run anymore. We then followed the Calder Hwy to Bendigo, staying overnight at the HardHill Tourist Reserve in Wedderburn before going into Bendigo. In all this time on the

 road we have seen very few other motorhomes, maybe they all went to the rally in Kalgoorlie and are now back home. There are some caravans and they DO wave to us.

Now we are in Bendigo and have had a good day playing tourist, riding on the tram and visiting the Joss House Temple.

The Chinese Joss House Temple was fascinating, a really interesting place, at which we both learnt a few things. There are few Chinese in Bendigo now, some people come from Melbourne to worship. This keeps the Joss House alive and is important for the ancestors.

                                                                                 

The photo on left is in the main room of the temple, it is the altar to General Guan-Di, the god of war and prosperity.  The photo on the right is the altar to Confucius.

Next tourist stop will be Ballarat in a couple of days. Watch this space.

  

 Oops! Shouldn't have mentioned proof reading, should have done it on my own work. The Kangaroo Island Ferry leaves from Cape Jervis NOT  Port Jervois!
Anyway, moving on, as we did from Victor Harbor (without a horsedrawn tram ride), we followed the coast to Goolwa then up to Strathalbyn and around the top of Lake Alexandrina. We used the little free ferry at Wellington to cross to Wellington East.  I just love these chain ferries.

We followed the Lake edge down along through the Coorong. Michael thought that we were on a back road until he realised that it was in fact the Princes Highway. If you closed your eyes (not the driver), you'd think you were on a dirt road the corrugations were so bad!   

We saw a beautiful pink lake and lots of bird life; Cape Barren Geese, Egrets, Herons, Pelicans and Ducks.

We stayed the night in Meningie, at the caravan park right on the shores of Lake Albert. Once again lots of birds.

                                

There is a great little op shop in Meningie and if I remember correctly they have raised over $200,000 for the local hospital over the last 6 years, my $6 helped.
The next day we drove around Lake Albert and used another chain ferry at Narrung, to cross the 'Narrows' where Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert meet.

The lighthouse on the headland on the other side of the lake is Point Malcolm Lighthouse, the only inland lighthouse in Australia. It was built in 1878 and was used to aid the paddle steamers crossing the Lakes with cargo to and from Meningie.

We rejoined the Princes Highway and continued south, through Meningie again, following the Coorong down to Kingston SE. (SE for South East, apparently there is another one elsewhere.)

We spent the night in Kingston SE, despite the choice of 4 free camp areas we stayed in the caravan park on the seafront. We had glorious views and a fantastic sunset.
Our last days in SA were to be spent in Mt Gambier, so we headed off. On the way we decided to pop into Tantanoola Caves. What a fantastic surprise! We have been in some amazing caves in USA and Europe but this cavern took our breath away!

We recommend this place, it's a 'not to be missed' site, and it's only $10.

We had 2 nights in Mt Gambier, here there is a lovely little caravan park in the middle of town, walking distance to everything. We had a good rest and did the tourist things.
We went out to the Blue Lake. The lake is in a dormant volcanic crater and the colour changes from a dark blue in winter to a vibrant bright blue in summer. It's due to the filtration of the limestone I think, the colour change starts in November so it's just starting now, and you can see the different colours around and across the lake.

  

Also in Mt Gambier is the Umpherston S inkhole, also known as the sunken garden. It was originally 'beautified' in 1886 by James Umperston. He started work on the garden in 1884 setting out to create 'a pleasant resort in the heat of summer', originally there was a small lake too, and he used to have a boat to row under the limestone rocks, the lake has dried out but the gardens are still glorious and home to lots of birds and bees. At night possums come out to play too!

So that's it for now and South Australia, next blog from Victoria. We'll be going up country, away from the  coast for a while, looping around and coming back to the coast in a few days to do the Great Ocean Road enroute to Melbourne. So we'll leave SA with a fantastic sunset from Kingston SE.

It's been a few days, so backtracking: we left Peterborough and travelled south through very, very dry country towards Adelaide. We stopped at a weird little town called Burra, hmmm get the feeling that they think it's more special than it is; anyway we popped up to see the old miners' dugouts from 1800s. They were in Creek street - because they were dug out on either side of the creek!  and then we hurried on south.

We spent the night in Gawler, a large commercial town with all the
facilities and some lovely quaint cottages with nearly every garden full of gorgeous roses. Gawler doesn't feature in any of the tourist area guides, it's not part of the southern Flinders, not part of the Barossa, not the Murray River, not on the Yorke Peninsula and is outside the Adelaide Hills, poor Gawler no one claims it.

Next we went to Birdwood and the National Motor Museum. The museum is like the tardis, much bigger on the inside than it appears from the outside. We could have got a job there proof reading the exhibit notes, quite a few errors.

So it was onto Adelaide through rolling, twisting, 'exciting' roads down through the hills into a caravan park in a quiet leafy suburb. There was a bus stop next to the caravan park so the next day we got our all day ticket and headed into the city. Then we jumped on a tram to Glenelg (along with lots of others heading out to the beach because of the 35 degrees forecast).

It's only been a few years since Wendy was in Glenelg, the building along the foreshore is now complete, but Michael was last there in 1975, he noticed a lot of changes. Glenelg reminded us of Key West, but without the 'beautiful people'!
Back into the city and a trip a bus along the O bahn out to a shopping centre for coffee and a toilet stop before changing to another bus 'home'.

 Sunday was market and museum day, Port Adelaide markets then out to St Kilda for the Aus Electric Transport Museum (trams and trolley buses).                        

We were lucky enough to be able to stay overnight at the museum and met a lovely couple of CMCAers (motorhomers) who live in St Kilda and the next morning they showed us around the little township. Which rumour has it will soon have an area for overnight parking and a dump point. It is a lovely spot, masses of birdlife and a great adventure playground - enjoyed by young and old.

We left Adelaide after lunch so that we could use the 'one-way Expressway' 

In the morning the 3 lane highway is open northbound, ie into Adelaide, and in afternoon it's open southbound out of Adelaide: something not to be missed!

 

Having left the big city we popped into McLaren Vale and then on down to spend the night next to the ocean at Lady Bay. The next day it was down to Port Jervois to see the Kangaroo Island ferry arrive and depart - the most expensive ferry crossing in Aus? To take the motorhome over would be $106 +$3.20 for every 10cms over 6metres (it's 7metres long), that's just one way, same price for return trip. We didn't go!

We took the Fleurieu Way across the peninsula to Victor Harbor - a great road travelling through some valleys and then across the top of the range, then suddenly there's this fantastic view across the town with the ocean and the islands! Beautiful! 

We came to Victor Harbor to ride on the Horse Drawn Tram and were thinking of spending 3 nights here, but it turns out the Tram is not running this week because they are doing road and footpath work at the terminus and the big machines scare the horses!!They are hoping to get it done by Saturday but we're not stopping that long. Our first disappointment of the trip!

Tyre fixes and off we go. Not quite. The problem was actually a microscopic hole in the wheel. A tube was called for to effect the repair.
We then drove to the town of Peterborough,called Petersburg pre WW1, through very dry country. This is just the beginning of summer, last time we were here it was dry as a camel bone.

Today, Wednesday, was spent in the sweet town of Peterborough, which until just 40 years ago was the railway crossroads of Australia. There is a good shot of the 3 gauges of railway which came through here. A case of an English railway man, a Scots railway man and an Irish railway man, unfortunately they all got the go ahead. It was never thought that the railways from the disparate colonies would ever connect.











But now we are planning to go south through the Clare valley to Gawler before hitting our first capital city, Adelaide. It shows how remote Perth is, our nearest capital is in fact, Jakarta. Adelaide is where an incredible voice is on ABC radio, reading the news with the ability to read through full stops and not emphasis any part of the report. This is coupled with an unfortunate voice, a dull monotone so like "Marvin the Paranoid Android", depressing really but scary.

But it still beats working!