City Slickers

We spent the last month of 2017 in the 2nd biggest city in Australia otherwise claimed to be the most liveable place in the country. Courtesy of TJ's sister, we house sat and minded a gentle spoodle for 3 weeks. It turned out to be a good time as TJ managed to do some fix-it jobs on the Podd and car. It was the first time in many months that we were in traffic jam crossing the West Gate Bridge.

Home of the Grand Prix, Albert Park

City Slicker

Melbourne is a great city for bikers with its many bike lanes and flat terrain. You can even ride into the city's busy Flinders Station and Crown Casino, dodging pedestrians. Our first experience riding in the city was the perfect storm, last working day before Christmas from lunch time!

A visit to the famous MCG to watch the Aussies train before the Boxing Day match

Waiting in line at Hawker Chan

The time here gave us the opportunity to catch up with many friends living here. After all it is "most liveable city". And soaking up what Melbourne has to offer. I have to admit that it is a place where I could live. We even queued up an hour and half for a Michelin star chicken rice!

One sad event that possibly marred our stay was the Flinders St attack. While this was not the first, it was one where I realised we could have been there. We were at the exact place just a few days ago.

The sight of my original home country still excites me

10 out of 10 Storm Warning in Victoria

A break from the rain 

A week after the Alpine Challenge, came a weather warning for the entire state of Victoria. The warning came from BOM for residents to be prepared for massive deluge of rain i.e expect a summer's rain total in just 3 days. The North east of Victoria is expected to be hit with >250mm of rain. Of course, Falls Creek is in this region. Our camp site is about 20 mins from Falls Creek called Raspberry Hill. It is a nice site. 

On Thursday, we could see most campers packing up. We folded all the walls and awnings and prepped inside our van. We were prepared to stay inside for 3 days. We could access our food and fridge internally. We have camping cooking utensils and gas burner. All we had to make sure is plenty of water. Yes, we also have a potty for emergency. There is no point in heading elsewhere as the entire state will get the rain. At least we know we won't be flooded up here.

The rain started on Friday afternoon and continued through the weekend. It finally subsided on Sunday but was intermittent. After 2 days indoor, we finally jumped in the car and had a good shower at Falls Creek. It is great that FC has public showers. Great move by the management. During this break, we also took the opportunity to dry a few damp stuff.

After looking at the weather, we decided to head to Lakes Entrance on Monday and hopefully to Melbourne by Thursday. Fingers-crossed....

Volunteering

from the Hotham Village Square 

After spending 10 days at Kosciusko NP, we arrived at Victoria Falls campground. It  wasn't a great camp site but good enough for 2 days before we head to Mount Hotham to volunteer for a run event by Running Wild. It was the Dinner Plain Mile High Trail Run and True Spirit of Alpine Australia Run at Mount Hotham over the weekend. As volunteers, we get to stay at the staff lodge which was at the top of the mountain.

Walking up to our accommodation

A selfie on top of Orchard chair lift on check point duty

After Mount Hotham, we went to Falls Creek, which hosts another run the week after. The race organiser, PA arranged accommodation for us from Monday instead of closer to the run date provided we helped him with the preparations. There were lots more activities from Falls Creek. We were able to do bike rides and walk/run the trails. It is the most activities we have done since we started.

View from Heathy Spur 

My 26km solo ride

Short sunset ride to test our bikes

Albury Stopover

After the drama of losing our car tow hitch resulting in an extended stay at Kosciuszko NP, we finally headed to Albury. It is by far the biggest town we have been since we left. Bigger than Dubbo.

The plan is to stay for 4 day with friends and get a few things for the caravan plus stocking up. Todd managed to book his car in for an overdue service as well.

Over the weekend, we went for a short bike ride along the old railway track in Victory. It was a scenic ride to Sandy Creek Bridge. The bridge is an old rail bridge which has been turned into a pedestrian/walking bridge. I think 1.35mil was spent on this.

Blue Water Hole

We checked out Blue Water Hole campground one fine day. As per namesake, there are blue pools of water along the creek.

There are a few trails that you can do and we chose the Clarke Gorge walk which is 2.2km one way. It was a good walk following the creek in the gorge. There are a few creek crossings. This means getting our feet wet. At the end of the gorge, you end up at a waterfall.

Cool amine  homestead

Yarrangobilly Caves

We took a day trip to visit the Caves around Kosciusko NP. There are 3 Caves open and we chose two; Jersey Cave and Jellabenan Cave. Both are guided tours.

Jersey Cave has black and grey flowstones with display of stunning and diverse cave decorations i.e stalactites, stalactites. The tour took an hour and half.

Jellabenan Cave is possibly the oldest at Yarrangobilly. It has displays of delicate straws and shawls, cave coral, stalactites and helictites. The tour took an hour as its smaller and I believed the only cave with wheelchair access. This is fantastic as I am sure someone who is wheelchair-bound all their lives would never have seen a cave. I am definitely going to mention this to my nephew.

After lunch, we planned to take a dip in the thermal pool which is constantly at 27C fed from natural spring. However, two bus loads of school kids turned up to put us off. Maybe another day.

Kosciusko National Park

Camping by the Fire

From Lake Blowering, we drove towards high country. We are now in Kosciusko National Park. Not the northern side where the ski fields are but the southern end. The scenery and landscape is similar except there are free camping and no park fees. The Long Plain Hut campground is on a high ground with views. Given the high altitude, it is pretty cold. Getting to single digit at night. This morning, we had a bit of ice on top of the awning. Must have gotten to zero at some point. Luckily we were quite snuggly in our Podd under the quilt.

Long Plain Hut

Brumbies grazing

Overnight ice

Biking Day

Today, we decided to go biking. There are numerous trails to ride. We decided on the Mosquito trail. It was rocky and undulating up and down. Don't think I was fit enough to do the 50km loop as planned. We turned around after 10km and lunch. It was a wise decision as I cramped up on both my legs 100m from our camp. Total 26km done.

Lake Blowering aka Blowering Dam

After 4 days at Weddin Mountains,we headed south towards the Victorian border. We passed through Young hoping for an early season of cherries. No such luck. We saw cherry trees with green or at best orange coloured fruits.

Lake Blowering

We arrived at Lake Blowering, in a state forest 50km from Tumut. This is snowy river country. The rain hit just as we were preparing dinner. With the rain, came gusty winds. It was a sight watching the storm over the lake. It rained on and off from evening till the next morning. Then the sun came out to play just before lunch. We decided to stay another day and enjoy a lazy day inside.

The sun is out!

Weddin Mountains

The campground in the park is called Ben Hall Campground. Its a nice area with facilities. There are a few walking tracks from the site.

Weddin Mountains 

Our campground is called Ben Hall campground at Weddin Mountains National Park. From here, there are a few walking tracks, which we did for a couple of days.

View from Eualdrie Lookout 

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The first trail we did is to Eualdrie Lookout, about 9km return. We also went to Peregrine Lookout, 900m further, where we met a school group from Cowra. The kids hiked from the other side of the mountains to camp at Ben Hall. In the end, we did about 11km walk, which is the furthest I have done for a while.

traffic jam ahead on way to Grenfell

Onward Again

We finally had the Podd sorted after a week and half. On the road again. 

Our first destination, Parkes. Guess what is the biggest and only attraction here?

Hints: NASA, Neil Armstrong, Moon....

Answer: Radio Telescope or famously known as The Dish, featured in the movie starring Sam Neil. The Dish played an important part in the moon landing as it was used to beam the pictures of Armstrong walking on the moon. There are 3 things that I have always wanted to see, Mount Rushmore, Punxsutawney Phil and The Dish. I have covered them all, Yay..

Our campground is in Weddin Mountain National Park, near Grenfell. Nice site with toilets and BBQ. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to light fires although there are fire pits around. Must have been a recent change as there were burnt wood and collection of wood around our fire pit.

Short Break

Due to the unfortunate situation with the Podd, we are stuck in Dubbo. Hence a short break to our travel.

Making the most of it, we spent a couple of hours kayaking the Macquarie river. The river itself doesn’t look fantastic, brown and murky. It was still good to get out and about.

Lucky or Unfortunate????

Today has been good and bad. The bad news.... the tyre fell off the van on Newell Highway on our way to Parkes.

The good news?

- happened in a big city of Dubbo. We were only 20km from the city instead of in woop woop 

- the van did not overturn

- TJ managed to stop slowly and safely on the side of the road

- we waited only about an hour for the tow truck

- weather was sunny but not too hot

- we had insurance cover

Dubbo

Arrived in Dubbo and checked into the Discovery Caravan Park near the zoo. It was a convenient location to the Taronga Western Plain Zoo. Its a big zoo and you can ride bikes around. Its about 6km around the zoo. I must say that it is quite an impressive zoo with a lot of exotic animals.

We also caught up with one of TJ's friends from his old army days.

The Dubbo Gaol

Farewell for Now Queensland

While we want to continue exploring QLD, we have to bid farewell and head south due to the early heatwave. After stopping in Bourke, NSW to see the Historic Cemetery and some groceries, we proceeded to Nyngan. We finally escaped the heat! 

Our free camp is on Ducks Creek. We were the only ones here, which means that we don't have to set up our shower screen! The nice weather did not last long although we did get 2 nights of camp fire. On the 3rd day, it rained the whole day. We decided to stay put for another night and spent the whole day indoor watching movies.

Swanvale Jump Up

We spent an extra night in Cooper Creek after T and family left. It was pleasant enough for another night of camp fire. I cooked my first damper of the trip. It was a bit salty but we still ate it all. Another plus was our camp neighbour, Brian gave us some yellowbelly cooked with batter. It was better than the fish from the shops. We also cooked "Vernon", the yabby I caught a couple of days before.

We headed out towards Stonehenge and looked around Wellford NP for possible camp site. It was way too hot and decided to proceed to Swanvale Jump Up. A free camp with a view. Unfortunately the temperature made it really uncomfortable for us as well as the bees, flies and mozzies. We left very early in the morning without coffee or breakkie.

We drove to Longreach but decided that it was just too hot to stay another night. We made the decision to drive south, as far south as possible. After TJ's photos at the Qantas Founders Museum, we drove to try to outrun the heat. Finally stopped at Cunnumulla after 6pm and parked at Hotel Cunnumulla. Its free to park the night if you eat or drink at the hotel. While its cooler than Swanvale, it was still uncomfortable to sleep.

Cooper Creek Windorah

We left Roma and the 40 degrees heat after 4 days and headed towards Windorah. The plan was to stop at Cooladdi, Queensland's tiniest town with population of 4. From the write-up, it seemed that there is a cool camp site near Quilberry Creek and the Foxtrap Motel is THE place to stop to have yarn with the locals while you get directions from them to the watering hole camp. We arrived, went in but was disappointed. The pub was run down, not air conditioned and the lady wasn't too friendly nor forthcoming with any information. We left and drove another couple of hours to Quilpie.

It was in Quilpie that we had our first wet night/day. It rained the whole night and was still pouring when we left. After an hour or so, we got sunshine again.

Cooper Creek Camp with T and family

 Our destination is called Cooper Creek Campground in Windorah. This is where we met a former colleague, T. We camped next to Cooper Creek and threw in our yabby net. Got our first blue yabby. Not enough for dinner but I would still call it surf & turf since we are having roast beef!

We did a 12km nature drive in Windorah with T and family. Also visited the solar farm by Ergon Energy which supplies the town of 80 people with their electric.

Solar Farm at Windorah

Roma

After more than 6 hours driving from Fraser Island, we ended up in Roma. We checked in at the Roma Gun Club which has spots for caravans. It was a quiet area and we only heard some shots for a few minutes. 

Weather in Roma is unseasonably hit. Its 40c in spring. We could see that people with air conditioner in their caravans are huddled in their vans while the rest of us are outside.

We took the tour at the Roma saleyard. It is one of the biggest sale yards for cattles. We were taken around the pens and observed auctions. The price of live cattle is now averaging $2.60/kg. Relative to the price we buy at supermarkets, the cheapest cut of meat is about $10/kg, scotch fillet is around $25/kg.

With the temperature hitting 40c in the day, we spent one day at the Commonwealth Hotel and today at the public library. Free air conditioning and internet! Having no income, we have to skimp whenever we can.

Final Week

Our last week in Fraser is spent on the western side, where we get to see sunset. We have not been witnessing sunrise on the eastern front the last couple of weeks as we are not early risers. Having said this, we have been waking up early compared to our city life.

Sunset view from our home

Our initial plan to camp at Bowaraddy Creek was dashed when we could not drive across the creek where the sites are. We went over to Awinya Creek, a couple of km further. One downside and perhaps why not many prefer this area is that you can only drive across the creek during low tide. We ended up staying put at camp instead of driving around during the days. 

Kayaks all ready

Since the ocean is sheltered by Hervey Bay, we were able to take our kayaks out. It was also good fishing. I got a big whiting from where the creek meets the sea. It was nothing compared to the flat heads that our camp neighbour, Peter gave us. So, finally, we had our maiden main fish dinner!

The fish I caught

It became windy the next few days and we decided to leave early. We have had a bit too much salt. Everything tasted salty due to the wind. 

The piece on the left was mine. The big piece is a flat head from Peter