Victoria – Page 3 – great life – retired got nothing on

161225 Snowy River

With all the beauty in Australia, we chose to head east in the State of Victoria for Christmas. One of Lyn’s clients suggested that Marlo was a pretty place beside the ocean and well worth a visit in our gr8l1f motorhome (Ah!! the one that still has Queensland licence plates.) We set off around 12ish and after a stop for lunch, headed out past Bairnsdale and turned right at Orbost. Marlo is just a small village on the mouth of the well known and written about, The Snowy River.

We drove through the small town, and headed further east along the coast towards Cape Conran. Cape Conran has a lookout to view even further east towards Mallacoota, a well known lakes region 30-40kms off the Pacific Highway. Our main reason for the extra distance was to look for a nice free camp on the coast without venturing onto gravel roads. Yes, we did a U-Turn and back to Marlo.

There are great fishing facilities for the angler but as fishing is not our ‘thing’, we decided to stop in the local caravan park and try to enjoy the sunset from a motorhome parked in a caravan park. After dark, we sent Christmas wishes to many of our sites and friends. In the morning, we realised that we didn’t have any 240 power so checked out the power supply and switches, and had the wife of the owner check the power (with her trusty electric power drill). No solution, so she called her fisherman husband who was out in a dinghy for that elusive early morning fish. He returned, to even find out for himself, that there was another isolation switch that had tripped – problem solved.

Without too much discussion before deciding, we exited the caravan park and headed back towards Orbost where we had noticed a lot of small free camps along the Snowy River. Ah, found one that didn’t take much to convince us to stay. The reflections in the river were just so relaxing and inviting. So we set the motorhome up on its ‘pegs’ and extended the slide-out to make this 48 hour stay enjoyable. (The notice said 48 hours – the site needed our presence for just a little longer. It is Christmas and the authorities are having a long break. LOL.)

Breakfast was late but holidays for us, is commonly a two-meal-a-day formality. What a sight to enjoy breakfast at; the reflections were just superb. We have 4 still cameras and a movie camera with us and all of them were getting over-worked; in just the first two days, our iPhones alone took over 100 photos. A friendly lizard comes by regularly for his food supply of insects and foliage. I just wished he had an appetite for flies; millions of them reside here. The local kookaburras are joyful in the morning as he hunts for worms and other insects that may have died in the last 24 hours or so. The cicadas seem to switch on their ‘sound blaster’ around 7:00pm for an hour and then are gone. But they are not like the all day ‘music’ we had at Seymour a few weeks ago. We have to stop talking sometimes due to the close proximity of the main road to Marlo, but the scene before us and the nearby ‘friendly gum tree’ is in the right place for us to be shaded during the afternoon; we have a heat-wave happening.

Christmas Day was very quiet but there needed to be some gardening done. The shire has been regenerating the river banks by fencing off much of the vegetation along the Snowy. There are a number of spots along the banks that have been cleared, lawned and made beautiful for the Free Self Contained motor homers and caravaners. However, in the cleaning up, they had poisoned some of the large weeds just in the foreground of our view. These browned off weeds needed clearing, so I donned the gloves, shoes and gardening shorts to pull them out and move them to a pile for the council to collect at their leisure. The view is now more enhanced.

The only ‘real’ problem with ‘free camping’ is that the facilities in the motorhome need to be serviced. For the uninitiated, at free camping spots there are no water faucets, no toilets, no power, and no drainage. To service the power problem, we have 3 x 150w solar panels feeding into a pair of 100amp truck batteries. If there is no solar energy available, we have a 2.6kva generator to charge up the batteries and also run the convection/microwave oven and air conditioner, when needed. We have water storage to 250 litres and ‘grey’ water storage to around 100 litres. Leaving a neat and appropriate site with great reflective views, is hard. We thought we could find a site on the other side of the river, but first, we needed to drive into Orbost to empty the cassette and grey water at a dump point, and refill the fresh water tank. After a ‘hot’ breakfast of tea and toasted raisin bread at the local bakery, we drove the road on the other side of the Snowy River. Before we came to any free camp sites, we came upon a fallen tree that was preventing us getting any further. A year ago, I purchased a pruning saw in case I wanted to saw off some branches from fallen trees for a fire. The saw came in very handy clearing the way as if a chain saw had done the job – but a little slower and with more sweat. Each site was a little too difficult to get into so we drove back to the Marlo Road side of the river, and after checking all the vacant sites along the river, believed that we needed a further 48 hours in the site that we had left earlier in the day.

The weather is overcast with a little rain falling making the atmosphere humid but cooler. In the morning, we decided to venture on towards Lake Tyers. I had researched the free camps at Nowa Nowa and one photo there of the site, provided by a camper, showed a suggestion on a tree, “why stay here when you can come on down to Lake Tyers Waterwheel Pub where we have power, water and en suites for free?” So, after checking with the pub owner, we took the last spot available for the night, so we thought.

While at dinner, a horde of little backpacker vans arrived and filled in the gaps. The ‘wide open spaces’ had become their kitchen, their clothes line and their socialising point. They are all good kids from Germany Belgium Switzerland and Holland. I say “good”, because they all cleaned up their sites well, before leaving. (Often that is not the case at free camps in the bush.) At 10:30pm, we heard a “Beep, Beep, Beep” of a vehicle reversing over the sound of our air conditioner. It was this Japanese guy in a hired motor home who ended up about 18” from our motor home. He had clipped his van on the roof of the en suite beside us, in the process of reversing. Karma, I say. No one should arrive into a free camp at that time of night, and trying to park on the side of the ‘road’ is not a good selection.

The beach is not too far away so we took a walk in the very humid overcast conditions for an hour or so. The main problem with the camping sites is that there is no TV reception, no radio reception, no phone connection and therefore no internet connection. Just near the pub you get a weak communication signal. If we want to know the cricket score, we have to find out inside the pub. So we feel like an arm has been taken off us. LOL!

A couple of days ago, I got a chill and have a tap-nose that won’t turn off. Many of you know, I am also an excellent sneezer. (I got that from my mum.) And so for me to have 3 or 4 sneezes is a disappointment for Lyn. She loves to count up to 7 or 8 before she’s satisfied.

After a morning sunrise that needed viewing, breakfast and another walk along the beach, we headed towards Lakes Entrance to fill up with diesel. I had noticed the price in Orbost was 135.9 cents per litre so was ready for a hike in the normal prices we pay, only to be surprised we picked up some for 115.9 cents per litre – a holiday period surprise. Lyn felt she was back in Melbourne and didn’t want to be in the ‘busyness’ of shopping so we quickly exited and made our way to Metung. There is a free spot just prior to arriving in the village, close to the water and the moored yachts. (I had seen a great spot for taking a morning sunrise if it was like today’s, so watch out for tomorrow’s sunrise shots.)

As I said, the village of Metung is not too far away, just 2 kilometres, and so we took the walk along a delightful boardwalk. Along the boardwalk, Lyn realised that we had brought our bikes for just such an occasion and they were still attached to the motor home. Metung is a quiet little village with quaint shops that overlook the Gippsland Lakes. An ice-cream is always on our list of an afternoon, before making our way back to the camp site. There are only 3 other vehicles here tonight, 2 of them are residents of Australia and we haven’t spoken to the third. The forecast, ‘lots of rain’, hasn’t hit us yet but looks like it is on the way for tonight.

Yes, it did rain over night. We noticed it when we brought the slide-out in. Some of the water on top of the slide-out came in and then ran down the sides and into the motor home, making a bit of a wet mess to soak up. Lesson learned? Brush the top of the slide-out before bringing it in; you may get rid of both leaves and water accumulated on the roof. The weather was looking promising for a short distance and then more rain to travel through. We headed to Bairnsdale and on to Maffra to do a little supply shopping. Not knowing exactly where our destination was, and the phone GPS not looking like it was doing a good job for us, we had to sort of guess our way to Cowwarr Weir. This is a very nice spot but only for self contained vehicles, which mean the vehicle should have storage tanks for waste water and its own toilet. However, there is a toilet block here.

What a great ‘hidden-away’ gem? The grass is green and mown and the weir is shallow and looks inviting to the kayak enthusiast. There were just 7 other ‘seniors’ in their caravans for the first night we stayed here.

The weather turned cold and bleak on New Year’s day so out with the warm jackets, even during the day. Finally, we decided to come home the day after, stopping for a meal at Yarragon along the way and arriving home early evening.

161210 Seymour

It’s time to ‘get-a-way’. Seymour is just 100 minutes away and the weather forecast is for sunny warm days over the other side of Australia’s Great Dividing Range. We had a steel ramp installed in the gutter where the gr8l1f.com parks so may as well give it some work to do.

The new steel ramp – built just for us.

Other campers were a long way away on Friday night.

The free camp across the Goulburn River near Seymour is a great spot to veg out. Lyn’s blood pressure has been up over some things at work and we are both just about over a cough/flu/cold, so the being away will bring us back to the ‘slow life’ again.

Water in various forms is a great healer and relaxer, even though we can’t bring ourselves to taking a swim in the murky Goulburn River. The cicadas started their one and only tune by 9:00am so ‘listening for silence’ was not on the agenda. There are a few campers along the river but none of them seem to make good talkers; no stories of their exploits around this great land.

Looked like a kingfisher.

Spare time.

Saturday night – a few more travellers.

The river is not a fast torrent here but sure does heal. We have quickly moved into grey nomad mode. This new motorhome is good to live in. There is a nice feel about it and everything works well. A cuppa in bed looking over the river is always the order of the day but the early arrival is not what today is all about. At home, the cuppa comes along at 6-7:00am, but today, we have slept in and 9:00am starts our day – after the cicadas have revved up. Days of ‘doing nothing’ should be part of everyone’s life. Interrupting ‘busyness’ should be on every agenda. Lyn needed the break and it sure did wonders.

Sunset beyond the trees/

Ready to be kahunad

A classic view from the lounge chair.

Sunday came and so did the 9:00am cuppa tea and the fruit salad and waffles for breakfast. Another glorious blue sky day, and the cicadas on their finely tuned rendition of ‘a day in the life of a noisy member of Noah’s ark’ were at it again. A massage on the banks of a river is always hard to knock back and Lyn was able to enjoy that; I missed out again.

In the late afternoon, we took the long way around to the town of Seymour. The ride on the trail across the river from our camping spot, is sealed and easy to enjoy. Shady trees arched across the path which at some places camouflaged the pot holes in the trail causing a sudden shudder in the bike. The free camp at Seymour doesn’t have a toilet like many of the free camps around Australia, but we hear one is to be constructed – soon. (Soon is a word often used by councils to describe a time period meaning ‘a day in the distant future’). We found the closest toilet to the camp site. It is so far away that if you had to walk to the loo each time you wanted to use it, you would forget why you had made the 4 or 5 km trudge in the first place. (Shsssshhh I used the loo in the motor home for the first ever time – don’t tell the family).

Across the Goulburn River is our motorhome

I wish the council would repair the bridge – would make the walk to the loo so much shorter.

Our decision to return home early Monday morning was a good one as the traffic was good and the early morning mist hanging around the farms was a great sight to enjoy. Seymour? A great spot for a couple of days of R&R. We recommend it and will be back.

151123 Rubicon Free Camp

“It’s time we got away in the motor home for a weekend”, said Lyn a few days ago. So we have.

Victoria has so many spots to be checked out and we have been so slack all this year with only 390 kilometres used since before Easter through to mid October, with my recent drive up to Mullumbimby in October being the only real trip for the year. “Where shall we go, then?”, I asked. “I do enough choosing holidays for other people during the week, so you choose.”

I found this spot on Wikicamps, which probably millions of others know too, just 90 minutes away from home. The weather on the south side of the Great Dividing Range looked pretty bleak for the weekend so across we drove to Tagetty and towards Thornton in search of warmer and brighter weather. Turning right just before Thornton, we ventured in the rain down towards Rubicon. Free Camps still exist in Victoria and this one is not controlled by some Government National Parks organisation; hence “no charge”.

Rubicon State Forest

Rubicon State Forest

There are lots of sites spread amongst the shading trees beside a river, which you can hear, but have to venture over towards to see it. We drove right in and found a great spot just near the start of a walking track. The grass is mown and the fireplaces are tidy. I parked the Motorhome so we would have a good view of the bush and privacy from other campers. Although we are parked near where the trail begins, we aren’t bothered too much by the passing parade, making their way to the river bank for fishing or in search of firewood.

The rain had stopped just as we arrived, and we didn’t have any rainfall during Friday night. By 10:00am Saturday, the weather started to warm and we were able to find a nice rocky part overlooking the river/creek to “park” our camping lounges while we napped and read.

After a baked beans and spaghetti lunch, it was time to put on the hiking boots and enjoy the 7 kilometre walk around the river and up a few hills for a view of the campsite. How pleasant walking in the bush on a warm day, enjoying the filtered sunlight again. “Have to do this again sometime soon.”

We were just resting after the walk when we had a feeling that a bird had flown into the motorhome. This little tiny guy had decided that motor homing is not a bad idea but the windows don’t open just because you fly into them. He was stunned a little when I picked him up and took a few minutes to ‘come to’ and be on his way. Makes a good couple of photos to include in the post for today.

Sunday was a bit of a sleep-in day with blue skies but chilly atmosphere until we arose and started into our normal breakfast of pancakes, fruit, yoghurt and maple syrup. The maple syrup had been hiding for a number of years but has matured over the time.

The day was brilliant; not too hot and just nice to lay out in the sun to get some vitamin D and enjoy a book or complete a few more sudoku puzzles. After lunch of McSpains, we cleaned out the motor home ready for our Christmas/New Year trip followed by another walk around the loop. There were so many more parrots this time. Leaving at around 5:00pm, we collected some nice cherries at Taggerty before picking up some chocolate specials from the Beechworth Bakery in Healesville.

141103 Murray River

Years ago, we came here in the Camry to find out what it is like camping on the Murray. We have returned again while others are having their yearly flutter at the famous Melbourne Cup Carnival.
It was cold over in the Yarra Valley when we left Friday, and the weather wasn’t looking promising for the weekend. We weren’t sure where we would end up but with night approaching, Yea became our overnight stop.
The morning wasn’t too much better weather wise, so we decided to stay a second night and just ‘sit’ while the storms went through during the morning. The afternoon showed us a few blue spots which enabled us to get out and explore the little town of Yea.
It is an agricultural town with much ‘country’ history. The wide Main Street boulevard is busy with travellers checking out the local cafes and shops. Lyn finds a new rose in the memorial garden to replace the ‘wrong choice’ of a few weeks ago. It is an “ebtide”, a purple colour with a nice bloom shape.
The annual Cup Weekend Photography Show is on at the well cared for Beaufort Manor. Outside the front door is a delightful hanging basket with red and white blooms cascading over the edge of the container. Inside, is a well laid out photographic exhibition. After walking through the display, we were given the opportunity to be part of the viewers choice and chose a beautiful picture of an owl. When we submitted our choice, the attendant said that the picture was the second choice of the judges, so we did pretty good really.
Sunday morning looked a little brighter with less chance of rain, so we packed up and headed towards Wangaratta where its annual Jazz Festival was the main event of the year. One of our clients had invited us as he is a keen ‘jazz festival man’ and goes each year. The town was a buzz with people and after a quick stroll through the market, we found the first community stage where a big band was performing. They played very well with quite a few school aged kids in it. At the main community stage, we were entertained by the Australian Army Jazz Band. What a difference daily practice makes to a band quality. They are of a very high standard and were well received by the large crowd that was there, some even getting up to dance in the front of the stage.
We were headed towards the Murray River really, and after a look at a few spots, found what we had always wanted as a ‘view to kill’ of this famous River. We are perched in the Motorhome overlooking the river that has had so many songs and poems written about. Once we were comfortable with the level of the motorhome, we started shooting memories. The river invites you to relax, unwind and to enjoy the reflections which invite many clicks on the cameras. We have taken over 80 photos while the sun sets for another day. The small scatterings of cloud became a slight pink haze.
We decide it’s time for our evening meal of pre-prepared cauliflower and potato soup with my bread made on Friday. Ah! It’s all gone now. – sorry. None left for you.
Monday commences with that ‘get up early for the best photos’ call. And then back to bed for a sleep-in that delays breakfast until nearly 10:00am. Water skiers are also tired and seem to be enjoying the peacefulness of this majestic river. That’s my style too.
The sun lures us to enjoy the benefits of Vitamin D for a few hours, and we set up our outside eating and sleeping area for the day. Does man need 8 weet bix each day for breakfast? Certainly not when the pancakes, fruit salad and yoghurt come along. Delicious, again, Lyn.
Skiers still not up and roaring up and down the river until after our late breakfast is had. I set the hammock up as Lyn’s office for the day but she only received three phone calls in all. A sleep here and there is thrown in and in the later part of the day, we get the bikes ready and take off for a tour of Yarrawonga. It is the first ride for Lyn for over 12 months, while it is the first ride for me since before my active Meniere’s Disease subsided. That drop Attack sure brought some blessings to me as since then 15 weeks ago, I haven’t felt any symptoms or had any signs of the Meniere’s Disease. Great stuff – keep away Mr Menieres. And that ice cream along the way was good stuff – thanks for staying open long enough to serve us.
Day two is more of that relaxation stuff beside the river. The sunshine is nice and warm while campers pack up and head on home or, head on home via the pub so they can watch the Melbourne Cup on the way. At 2 minutes before the race, we turn on the TV, watch the race, then turn it off, not knowing anything about who was who and if any of our friends got themselves on TV in some fancy outfit or not.
We have really taken to this ‘beside the river’ mode and we’re looking forward to returning for another bout; when? We do not know.
We tried starting the Motorhome. It looks like we need a new vehicle battery as the starting up procedure required the generator on to kick over the motor. Lucky, lucky! All good and a safe drive home.