Travelling Around Australia: Continuing our journey......Victoria

December 7^th 2012 to January 11^th 2013

The new journey has begun. I hope you all look forward to my upcoming blogs. It has been a while but we are finally back on the road continuing our around Australia tour. I will start with a reminder of where we were at last time you read our story. We arrived back in Geelong on Australia day 2012 after 12months of travelling Tasmania and the East Coast of Australia. Greg started working again and we prepared the house for selling. We put our house on the market around early July and after an initial contract fail we finally sold it in October with a settlement date of 7^th December. With only a few short weeks to prepare we left Geelong on settlement date with great anticipation.

Our first stop was Camperdown with the intention of spending a few days with Greg’s mum before we headed off. A few days turned into 2 weeks as we were approached with an opportunity that was too good to pass up. To cut a long story short we bought another house in Lismore on the Hamilton Highway in country Victoria. Greg’s mum will be living in it while we travel so we have someone to look after it and it is a perfect investment for us, allowing us to travel without any worries.

Finally on 20^th December we were on our way. Our destination is Rocklands Reservoir on the west side of the Grampians. Balmoral is the closest town to us for supplies at 26 km west of our campsite or Horsham at 73 kms to the north. Mountain Dam campground at Rocklands Reservoir is a free camp with toilet facilities and a boat ramp. There are acres of bushland and plenty of room to set up camp. Unfortunately the reservoir is only about 45% capacity, but it is still ideal for kayaking and fishing. We stayed here for 22 days and of those only two days were below 30 degrees with the temperature topping 44 degrees on four days. Thankfully we could use the reservoir to cool down.

To get here via Balmoral we had to travel along 14 kilometres of dirt track. It wasn’t a bad track with only a few tight corners and loose gravel. It is not far the Rocklands Dam wall, which is a popular spot for waterskiing and fishing. Our campsite was a perfect bushland setting and very peaceful. The strange thing about being on our own at that time was the first morning we woke up was the day the world was supposed to end. To wake up and have only us there, acres of bushland and not the sight nor sound of another human being was quite strange. Thankfully we had full internet access and I was soon able to confirm, what we knew anyway, that all was well with the world around us.

For those of you who have never been up this way, I was one of them, the landscape is quite amazing. After kilometres of flat, dry and barren land, all of a sudden the Grampians burst into the scenery. It must have been a very welcome sight for our early explorers.

The reservoir is full of old, dead tree stumps but still with plenty of clear water to manoeuvre a boat or in our case the Hobie around in. It is strangely quite pretty, particularly when there is no wind as the reflections of the trees add a serene beauty to the water. Because of the extreme heat we generally took the Hobie out in the early morning or in the evening. We had no luck with fishing, but then neither did the fisherman who came this way during our stay. I think it was just too hot. Even the yabbies didn’t want to be caught.

Mister, our dog, has been settling in well the camping. He loves to run around and although he hasn’t been eating very well since we left home, we think he will enjoy the whole experience. He has turned into a bit of hunter, probably a natural instinct, and loves hunting for leftover food from other campers. He doesn’t eat his finds but he has buried quite a stash. He doesn’t like the water, but mostly sits perfectly still whilst on the Hobie, although on a couple of occasions he just walked off his buck board. We have him on a lead so that we don’t lose him, but when we put him back on he shakes the water off and then falls in again.

We cooked ourselves a beautiful Christmas dinner and ate in the gazebo protected from the flies and other insects. A real ‘bush Christmas’, perhaps I could write a song about that! By New Years Eve there were quite a few other campers near us, so we didn’t feel quite alone. One of our neighbours had some fireworks for New Years Eve and gathered all the campers around to view them. Unfortunately the fireworks turned into a firework as only one worked. But it was a pretty one and I was able to get a photo.

We drove over to the Grampians one day to view the beautiful waterfalls and lookouts. The Grampians is a huge tourist destination and after being at the Rocklands with hardly anyone around, it was amazing to see so many people. Every car park at the various lookouts and falls were full. Lots of cameras were out taking photos, the scenery is magnificent.

We were joined in the New Year by my brother Peter and his wife Lynette. They arrived in the morning of the day when the temperature would soar to 46.7 degrees. Not such a nice welcome and it was a very hard day to get through. Thankfully the cool change came through over night and the next few days were hot but not extreme. My sister Louy and my daughter Emma came next and we all enjoyed a nice peaceful and few days together. We even enticed Peter and Louy to have a ride in the Hobie, which was a biggie for Louy as she doesn’t like the water very much. After they all left our neighbour from Ranger Crt, Trevor came and stayed a couple of nights. We enjoyed seeing Trevor again and although he had no luck fishing he enjoyed his short stay in the bush.

We left Rocklands on Friday 11^th January to head to Hopetoun. That amazing story is for the next blog. Cheers til next time.