Week 10 Sun 22 Apr - Sat 28 Apr

Week 10 Sun 22 Apr – Sat 28 Apr

Werribee South (Melbourne) 22-23 Apr

The boat journey was good and no major dramas and we arrived at Melbourne port on time, debarking at 6.30am.  Being a Sunday it was fairly quiet which was nice as the traffic was minimal at this time of day.  We stopped and took a picture from around the bay and the headed west to Werribee, somewhere close to a train line.  After a few dramas about finding a caravan park, we made our way to Werribee South on the coast, a nice little caravan park and lucky for us open at 8am to check in.  After setting up and getting settled we had breakfast and then headed for the train. 

We found the Werribee train station carpark and got our tickets – amazed at how little it cost.  For both of us return fare only $7.00.  If this was Brisbane it would have been double this price. The train arrived in 10 mins and it took about 40 mins to get to Melbourne, deciding to get off at Flinders Street Station.

As Tony and I wanted  do a few different things, we decided to meet up in half hour, so I took off for the Yarra river walk, walked around Federation Square and then met up again.

Lunch was beckoning and then we hit the shopping streets of Melbourne.  We walked our legs off around blocks of streets, the obvious, Collins Street and Bourke Street and Flinders, although we opted to get a Tram from the bottom end of Flinders back to the Station.  We were getting rather tired as the boat trip doesn’t really give you a lot of sleep so we set off back to Werribee at 3.30pm.

Apollo Bay (Great Ocean Road) 24 - 28 Apr

Monday we set off for the Great Ocean Road, Apollo Bay was our destination.   We found a great fruit shop at a roadhouse not long out of Werribee and got 3 x 300g of small strawberries – absolutely delicious.  As we headed down the coast road the weather decidedly got worse, with horrible dark black clouds.  It did however manage to hold off as we parked up at Aireys Inlet to visit the Split Point Lighthouse which gives you the taster for what you are about to see along this fabulous coastline.  Just about to drive off and those dark clouds were turning into a horrible thunderstorm and torrential rain.  We preserved and made our way slowly to Lorne.

Lunch beckoned, so we got a healthy chicko roll and chips and sat in the park.  Suddenly we were surrounded – it was an attack of the Birds!!!!  They were everywhere and moving in – oh I am talking about cockatoos and they were asking for a chip.  They were on the floor, table and everywhere – very Hitchcock indeed.

Off again now leaving Lorne for Apollo Bay – and this is what I would call the archetypal Great Ocean Road drive.  It was beautiful and amazing and what a drive – although I had to keep my eyes on the road at all times.  The weather cleared a little after the storm and we got a fantastic view from Cape Patton down the coast to Apollo Bay.  We finally arrived at the Recreation Reserve camp spot around 4.00pm and the rain was back again.  The predictions for the next week was rain and showers and cloudy and windy – great!!

We woke up Tuesday and the weather was atrocious - blowing a gale, cold and wet – so we decided to have a lazy day and just have a look around Apollo Bay, check out the takeaway and shops.  We have been unsuccessfully trying to have a Chinese takeaway for the last fortnight to no avail, so when we came upon the takeaway we got the menu to decide what we were going to have. 

Wednesday was going to be a long day, as we were heading to the Twelve Apostles and other attractions on the coast.  The return drive would be around 200kms, and we should have left earlier than we did but nonetheless we got away at 10 am.  The rain was still coming down as we headed to Princetown and then the clouds got lighter and it started to clear, just a little cloudy.  We arrived at the Gibson Steps just up the road from the Twelve Apostles and went down to the beach.  As you see the amazing coastline it sort of takes your breath away with the beauty of the landscape and the cliffs faces and massive rocks juxtaposed in the ocean.  The colours are also amazing and as the wind has been quite high the seas were raging in and crashing on the shore and rocks.

Our next stop, the Twelve Apostles – now very commercialized and restrained by fences due to the volume of tourists. But even with this still a spectacular site.  This part of the coastline just has so much to see and offer, next being Loch Ard Gorge where there are 4 mini walks that take about an hour and a half – and we didn’t do everything.  I don’t know what to say – this part of the coast was particular amazing, spectacular, rugged and beautiful all at the same time.

We made our way along the Great Ocean Road stopping at all the touristy places, in order, Port Campbell, the Arch, London Bridge, Peterborough, Bay of Martyrs and the Bay of Islands. This was a far west as our travels are taking us on this trip, and after this we will slowly make our way back north east through Victoria back to NSW and then QLD.

By the time you do all these pit stops, the day had largely disappeared and before we knew it, it was 5.45pm and getting dark and we had a 1.5 hour drive back to base, not a great time to be driving as the roads are narrow, windy and wildlife love this time of day – but finally back at 7.00pm.

Thursday we headed in the opposite direction back to Lorne to have a better look and to do some of the waterfalls on the way, some of which were Carisbrook Falls and Sheok Falls then onto Lorne for lunch and then out to Erskine Falls a 30m waterfall (most famous in Lorne), back to Lorne to see the swinging bridge and walk along the beach, stop at the Pier and then take off home – again back to base in the dark.  Lorne is a lovely place and plenty of things going for it, however, I have never seen so many cockatoos in one place - and cheeky!!

Friday the weather was slightly better, but still the on and off showers persisted, but it did stop for longer today.  Today, off to do the loop around Apollo Bay to the Beech Forest and waterfall drive.  The drive up the mountain and through the forest is a particularly beautiful drive, narrow and steep and not much room for passing cars.   It is watch you always picture in your mind of a rainforest drive, dark, huge trees, drop offs and masses of ferns and enormous trees. 

Hopetoun Falls was the first walk for the day which took around 50 mins return and worth the walk down the steps to see.  Our next stop was to visit Triplet Falls.  This is a beautiful 1 hour loop walk on the forest floor with 3 levels of falls – lovely.  Just up the road from here is the Ottway Fly and Zipline Park.  We really enjoyed this as it has a number of sections to the walk plus a tower that is extremely high above the canopy, and it also sways a bit – a lot!!! 

Our last stop of the day was to Cape Otway Lighthouse, but we arrived at 5.00pm and it was closed, so we had to settle for the Lookout view – very disappointing. This was another full day just getting back on dusk.

Smythesdale (Ballarat) 28 Apr

Saturday we were leaving the coast and heading north, inland for Ballarat.  We stopped at a placed called Cressy to get a bit to eat, and got a great Lasange, salad and chips for $6 each.  Moving on we found a great free camp about 20km shy of Ballarat – a donation campsite with showers, toilets and a great camp kitchen with a fireplace. A really nice stopover for a few days, and we got straight to work collecting wood and started our fire for Billy tea. 

Unfortunately the rain came over on dark so no sitting out tonight.

Week 9 Sun 15 Apr - Sat 21 Apr

Week 9 Sun 15 Apr – Sat 21 Apr

Arthurs Lake (Central Lakes) 15-16 Apr

We headed out of Longford for Cressy and passed the Poatina Power station before tackling the Great Western Tiers mountain to get to Arthurs Lake.  The road up the mountain is literally straight up the face of the mountain – but the car and van made light work of it.  The weather was bright but getting this far up (over 1100m) started chilling down a little.  We eventually found the Pumphouse Camping Grounds (which is really for fisherman) but was a nice quiet spot on Arthurs Lake, this was to be our camp for the next 2 nights.  We made ourselves at home, got the Billy on the fire and made a cuppa and later drove up to the town of Flintstone (I kid you not – it is a town where most of the year it is not populated, a little like a shanty town – but in season would be thriving and full of boats and fisherman).

We enjoyed a raging campfire tonight in seemingly very mild conditions, as the temperature was a summery 6 degrees!!

Sunday we headed up to Miena to have a look at the Great Lake – which is very impressive.  It is over 25kms in length and is very picturesque in this alpine area.  We enjoyed a coffee and muffin at the Miena Hotel/Shop and then visited a grave monument in honour of one of the pioneers of Miena and walked across the Dam Wall.  While we were in the area we had a look at another campsite on Arthurs Lake – but it wasn’t as nice as the Pumphouse.

The weather turning a little drizzly here and there, Tuesday we headed off over the mountain saying goodbye to the Great Lakes, for Gowrie Park via Deloraine.  Gowrie Park is our base for Cradle Mountain and Mole Creek areas, close for all the sights that we want to visit.

Gowrie Park 17-20 Apr

We stocked up in Deloraine with supplies and headed into the wilderness west once again. Gowrie Park Wilderness Park is a strange and odd setup as it used to be a hyrdo power town with huts and roads – which have now all been demolished with the roads the only thing still existing.  The couple who run the park are in the process of upgrading the place, but a lot of money will need to be invested for it to really go ahead.  None the less, it is a quite place for us to visit the places we want over the next couple of days.

Gowrie Park is situated at the base of Mt Roland which is an impressive mountain range and it has a number of walking tracks that can be taken.  These will have to wait for our next visit.

Wednesday we headed off fairly early to Cradle Mountain (a 40 min drive from Gowrie) on a very interesting twisty windy road through the mountain range to Cradle Mountain.  We got the rundown at the Visitors Centre and then drove to the walk at Ronney Creek.  We decided to do the Cradle Lake walk to Marions Lookout and then come down the Rough and Steep track to Dove Lake (this is literally straight down the mountain face from 1200m to about 800m and it is what is states – rough and very steep.  Since we didn’t want to walk back up the road we took the Lilla lake track to get back to the Ronney carpark.  This took us about 5 hours to do and was absolutely great.  The weather when we arrived at the Visitor centre this morning was drizzling and cold and windy – so we got our all weather coats out – rugged up and commenced our walk.  The weather stopped drizzling and the wind kept the clouds rolling over us but it brightened up for most of the day (except for the wind) and only started clouding in around 3.30pm – by 4.30pm it was miserable (cold, wet and windy and the clouds closing in for the night).  We finally got back to Gowrie at about 6.00pm – just before all the Pademelon’s started appearing.  We hibernated in the van as it was just too horrible to be outside, planning our next adventure tomorrow.

We woke to a very rainy misty morning and it didn’t look like it was going to get any better.  So not to spoil our day we drove into Sheffield and had a look around some of the shops, bought a couple of souvenirs and then made our way back via Paradise to Mole Creek.   We were heading for the Allum Cliffs which are just past Mole Creek.  The weather seemed to hold off raining for about an hour just enough time for us to walk to the cliffs take some pictures and then make our way to the Trowunna Wildlife Park to see Tassie Devils.  We just made the 1pm tour for the feeding of the Devils and a cuddle of a wombat.  It was really good to see and we saw many Tassie Devils at this park along with a number of other animals, including kangaroos, ducks, wedge tailed eagles.  The park is a breeding program and also a rehabilitation place for injured animals.  The only problem with the place was the leeches galore – not just one, thousands and climbing all over you.  We stood stomping and picking them off the whole time, and I wasn’t quick enough – got bitten – blood all over my trousers.

After the park we took off for the Mole Creek Caves, the Marakoopa Cave to do the Great Cathedral and Glow Worm Chamber – this was a really good cave and has some amazing features – apart from the glowworms.   After this we drove home via King Solomon’s Cave to a place called Liena and then keep going.  We couldn’t see a thing, all in cloud and the road was literally a dirt track – small and narrow all the way up the mountain, an amazing drive.  We had a look later and the road doesn’t even exist – so it must only be for locals. Due to the inclement weather tonight we hibernated in our cosy van all night.

Friday the weather was much better and the clouds were gradually clearing.  We were going to move onto another spot, but decided just to stay here for another night.  We were having a nice lazy day for our last night in Tassie, before getting the boat tomorrow back to the mainland.  We went shopping again in Sheffield and had a better look at the shops spoke to a guy (local character) who had his alpaca with him.  He makes some extra money with tourists wanting a picture with the alpaca – of which we did for a gold coin donation – a bit of fun.  We drove back to Gowrie and went up the road to Round Mountain lookout to get a better view of Mt Roland which now just had a little bit of cloud on it. 

Saturday was a slow start (and we were lucky to get a section of the Targa Rally here at Mt Roland, so went to have a look). It was just after breakfast I heard that familiar mosquito buzz of engines going up the mountain in the distance.  We drove up the road to see all the cars starting to line up.  The weather was awful, misty, low clouds and drizzling - casualities occuring the previous day as a result of the weather.  We watched them all take off and then headed back to camp and continued our pack up.  We finally got away around 1.30pm and headed for La Trobe. 

La Trobe is a very artistic town and we found this magnificant shop that had absolutely everything you could think of, from dolls, teddy bears, toys, kitchen, games, star wars, venetian clowns, costume hire.  As we entered our bags were taken from us (and I can see why as we made our way around the shop), plus we were given a map.  There was some 20 rooms in this shop and no joke you could not move - every available space was jammed packed with something.  Tony and I both found this teddy bear (not cheap) that we fell in love with (we have now called him Bertrand) - he is the most adorable thing and looks so real.  Apart from having to have the bear we came out of the shop over $200 poorer.  As the day was fast disappearing we made our way to Devonport to join the queue of cars and vans ready to board the Spirit of Tasmania.

The boat sailed on time and we were off - our last goodbye to Tassie in the nights lights.  We were expecting a smooth sailing for our trip back to Melbourne.

Week 8 Sun 8 Apr - Sat 14 Apr

Week 8 Sun 8 April – Sat 14 Apr

Oatlands  8–9 April

We said goodbye to the far South and started heading east, stopping off in Geeveston for quick shopping detour and then again in Huonville for some supplies before heading back through Hobart and across the bridge to the East.  We decided to take the inland route rather than the coast road and drive via Richmond to Oatlands. Stopped in Richmond for a really nice coffee (too windy to be outside – now officially over the wind and the cold) and then headed for the free camp in Oatlands on the lake. We arrived fairly late around 5.00 pm and it was pretty busy with about 8 other vans already in for the night.  We are going to stay here for 2 nights and then head to the East coast to Freycinet National Park.

Monday morning brrrr!!! The temperature has dropped – and it is cold!  It is about 10 degrees but the wind chill makes it feel around 7 degrees.  I have three layers on this morning before we took off for our walk of Oatlands town and the Mill.   We walked all through town (not a big town and being Easter Monday still a few shops shut) but we ended up at the wool store and bought ourselves some woolen gloves (which we have had on most of the day).  There is some really nice jumpers, jackets etc in this shop if you are willing to part with a few hundred dollars.  A few showers are making it cooler and tonight the skies are overcast but clearing.  We have hibernated to our van to keep warm – but the night air is seeping in and it feels colder. 

Bicheno  10 –12 April

We got off to an earlish start and headed for Bicheno.  We had originally intended to stay at Coles Bay near Freycinet National Park, but with Easter holidays were still book and also we didn’t want to stay at the Big 4 caravan park.

On route we detoured via Ross, a lovely little town, very picturesque and like most in Tasmania, very historic.  We strolled up the street and did some of the shops over and then headed out of town on our way East.  We arrived in Bicheno about 2.00pm and leisurely enjoyed the remainder of the day.  The park was busy but not full – but still lots of kids around.  The day was turning out to be lovely and this sunshine is supposed to last until after the weekend. We walked down to the beach just before sunset and took more of our happy snaps.  I had forgotten how much I liked this little town.  It has a lot of things to offer, the beach, a lovely coastal walk, a blowhole, a national park only 8kms up the road, and close to Freycinet National Park. 

Both Tony & I have been suffering from head colds, but Tony is still just in the midst of his and feeling pretty horrible, so we decided to go for a nice small walk (or so we thought) at the Douglas Apsley National Park – the Apsley gorge circuit – a mere 3 hour return.  To our initial shock, the walk was straight up – so with our colds it was a hard slog.  We continued on and when it flattened out it wasn’t so bad.  The gorge walk was a really nice walk and worth the effort in the end.

We returned to camp and then went out for lunch – deciding to do the coastal foreshore walk around the point ending up at the blowhole.  This walk has a little of everything, a bit of forest, beach and rock hopping – it is a really nice coastal walk and the benefit at the end is the blowhole. 

When we were at the old jetty I overheard a woman talking to a guy in a boat who was throwing wood off his boat.  Apparently a boat had run aground and was breaking up, which we discovered just before the blowhole.  It was not a massive boat, but big enough, just rocking back and forth in the wake of the waves occasionally hitting the rocks with the incoming tide. There were bits of wood and boat breaking away around the bay, an eerie feeling to see a boat just floating aimlessly with the tide and with every wave eventually knowing it will sink.  

We continued onto the blowhole, lucky that the tide was still coming in.  It is a very spectacular sight and great to watch with every wave as it streams up into the air.  After numerous photos we continued to walk up to Whalers Lookout, a hill overlooking the town.  You get a great view of the town of Bicheno, the mountains and the coastline to St Helens.  It is a very nice part of the world.

Thursday with the weather still holding, we drove down to Coles Bay to do the Hazards circuit walk in Freycinet National Park.  The walk takes you around a number of bays on the mountain onto Hazards beach then across to the lovely and picturesque Wineglass Bay and back up to the Lookout.  It was worth the effort, sweat and tired legs at the end, particularly after our walk yesterday.

After the walk, we drove to Cape Tourville to view the Lighthouse and take in the great views of the Hazards, Freycinet and Mt Amos.  There is a small 600 metre boardwalk around the Lighthouse that gives great views back to Wineglass Bay.

Our visit to the East coast all but finished, we checked out and then did a bit of shopping and had morning tea at the local bakery before heading west to Launceston.  Not wanting to stay right in Launceston, we found a lovely caravan park on the river at Longford, about 22kms south of Launceston.

Longford (Launceston)  13 –14 April

 Longford is a lovely town and a great place to stay over for a few days to visit Launceston only 20 mins away.  The caravan park is set on the banks of the South Esk River which has the most unusual flow for a river I have ever seen, one side flows upstream and the other downstream and the middle is just eddies and whirlpools were the two currents meet.  Bizzare. Even the ducks struggle with the currents as they paddle furiously to get to one side.

Saturday we drove into Launceston taking the back road from Longford.  We found a place to park along the park (as now every space is a pay and display) about 10 mins from the city centre (we didn’t mind walking) and proceeded to do the shops over.  We both commented that Launceston is a much bigger town than Hobart with lots more shops and seemingly more old buildings.  

We walked up the mall and up to City Park to see the monkeys in the park and back into town for lunch.  We walked around much of the city centre then up to Kings Park on the river before driving up to Cataract Gorge.  This is such a lovely park and has many walks for you to enjoy.  As the day was fast dwindling we wandered around for an hour enjoying the views both up and down the gorge, walking back across the swinging bridge before saying goodbye to the Gorge and Launceston and heading back to Longford.