Phillip Island, Poowong, Darlington Beach, Point Addis Point Impossible, and Murrindindi Scenic Reserve are now available to read – enjoy!

It has been a long time we reported on any trips we have done in our Motorhome.  Perhaps you have thought we haven’t been away since the end of January, but we have – not too far away but yes, we have.

Victoria had a long weekend in March.  As is common, we plan our trips at the last minute.  Without making a booking, we travelled down towards Lorne on the coast.  The receptionist at the campground there, said on our arrival, “You know this is a major holiday weekend and we are booked out.”  I asked if there was any cancellations.  ”Ah, there is.  Go take a look at site 8.”  Without much hassle, we agreed to take the site.  It was right on the river’s edge with a magnificent river view.  So we took it for 2 nights – and then booked the same site for next year for the whole long-weekend.  (That’s a record in this motorhome venture.)

We had only passed through Lorne prior to this visit and we quite enjoyed the style of the town.  Lyn enjoyed the shops with her sister Earlene, who was camping with Rod’s family in another section of the campground.  There were many other campers there who we know from around the traps so there was a bit of a party atmosphere.

Church camp was held over Easter at Elmore.  We ended up setting up our site away from all the other camperswhich proved to be a good quiet location.  I did about 8 hours of chair massages and raised over $200 towards Meniere’s Australia.  Trying to take down our tarp in the high winds proved to be quite difficult, indeed.

Because we spent May in Italy and on a Mediterranean Cruise, we have not been able to get away until this weekend.  We decided to back to the same site we stayed the first time we took a weekend away in the motorhome back in June 2011.  The weatherman had said we would get lots of rain and camping would be “yuck”, but he was wrong and we had lots of sunshine, although the chill in the air wasn’t always enjoyed.  After doing the shops for a short while on Sunday morning, we packed up and drove to the back beach road at San Remo. It looked like there were whales just off the coast but we were fooled- the flow of tide seemed to send up squirts similar to whales blowing.  Lunch looking over the back near San Remo was cosy – warm inside and sunny outside.

Australia Day was on a Thursday, so we closed for business and included Friday in making a long weekend in the GR8L1F at Lakes Entrance.  Sharlee drove down in her Peugeot and tented on our site.  We left early morning on the Thursday stopping at Moe for breakfast which included hash browns with cereal consumed in the MH.  The trip was quite uneventful and we arrived at the North Arm Tourist Park around mid day and backed into what was a rather small site to spend a long weekend.

Fortunately, there is much to do in Lakes Entrance for a weekend.   However, Friday was very windy so we spent most of the time in the MH watching the cricket test between Australia and India – oh the Australian Open Tennis was on too; the men’s semi finals were on.

Saturday was a brilliant day.  The sky was blue and not a sign of wind or impending clouds.  We had taken our bikes and so did a ride around Lakes Entrance checking out the town and finding some great spots to just relax beside the water.  In the afternoon, Lyn and I took a two and a half hour catamaran trip around the lakes of the area.  There are some great views and some very special spots where many were finding “the fish aren’t biting today”.  The palatial residences in the canals at Paynesville were something to enjoy; great places to retire, if you don’t have a motor home.  On our way back to the MH, Lyn and I enjoyed a fantastic hot chocolate at the local chocolate factory – mmmmmm. Saturday night was spent watching the two ‘grunters’ of tennis fight it out in the Ladies Final of the Australian Open.

Sunday, another brilliant day.  We had never taken the walk across from the town of Lakes Entrance, so after checking out of the park, we moved the MH to near the access bridge to the isthmus.  We found some beautiful vistas from the walk and some interesting bush flowers.  No moving wildlife tho!  The walk took around 2 hours return, to the end of the head of the lakes entrance and back.

Our return trip home was fairly busy on the highway and then we motored through a full on rain storm and arrived home a little later than expected.

It was hard to leave the camp site where we have been for 11 nights.  Would you believe that we left 2 hours after originally planning to depart at 10:30am.  The final ‘walk along the beach’ was hard to finish and we stood on the sand hills for quite some time in farewell mode.

We took some pics around Robe; can you see all the vehicles lined up along the beach?  We have never seen that before.  The Big4 campground in the town itself, was crammed full; side-by-side with hardly any vegetation around – and one guy said he ‘had come here for the last 3 years or so”.  We don’t know why, really.  Perhaps we have been spoilt with a great site for 11 days.

After dropping in to drive around Beachport, we drove on to Mt Gambier and are camping at the Big4 just near Blue Lake.  What a magnificent blue the lake is.  The properties around Mt Gambier seem to be well manicured and are pleasant indeed.

We are travelling to Hamilton today and hope to meet up with Peter and Lin Tung who used to be in Warburton ‘years ago’.  Then on to Ballarat to watch the Australian Road Cycling Championship Men’s Road Race before driving back to home on Sunday late afternoon.  Work on Monday – drad!!!

Today started out with a 1:30am phone call.  Sharlee was the caller and she was all distraught because she heard a gushing noise and got out of bed to be met by wet carpet; quite a surprise.  The hot water outlet to her vanity in the bedroom had come adrift and water was all through the place causing soppy carpets to worry about.  Oh well, things are on the mend now but caused a day off work waiting for plumbers and carpet cleaners to turn up and fix the situation or start the ‘healing’ process.

That meant today has been a ‘tired’ sort of day.  Up late and no early morning run.  Just an ‘after breakfast’ stroll along the beautiful beach just over the sand hills.  At one stage, there were 20 4WDs driving along the ‘highway’ from Beachport to Robe.

This evening, while having the second meal of the day (weight/shape adjustments are on the way), we saw an echidna walking down the track just across from our site.  Friendly little fellow indeed and he didn’t even seem shy to have his photo taken.

The wind yesterday during the very hot 40 degrees was quite strong and kept us off the beach and near the site in case we needed to attend to anything going wrong.  Otherwise, nothing much has changed; just a great quiet spot to enjoy a relaxing holiday.

Last evening, we sat on the sand hills watching 2011 come to a close.  We had the most awesome sky to view the sunset and so shot over 50 photos.  Just some are showing but the cloud formation was just something to behold.  We hope you enjoy.

We attended the New Year’s Eve Party at the activities centre, but party pooped and left at 11:30pm; didn’t hear any of the yelling that usually goes on at NYE parties – we must have gone to sleep very quickly after having walked about 16km during the day.

2012 offers new excitement for all of us.  I guess a lot will happen with the motorhome of a weekend visiting great locations around Victoria.  We have a planned group trip to Italy with a Cruise attached leaving in May, and are looking forward to that.  Our best wishes for 2012 goes to each of you and we hope to meet up with many of you again.

Keep August 2013 free to join our group tour to the game parks in Africa plus a few other highlights.