130622 Marysville

Trying to get away on a Friday night is just impossible with bookings for early Monday morning coming in at the end of the day. We leave at 10:00 for just a short journey across the Great Divide to the little village of Marysville.
This town was burnt out in the February 2009 bush fires with just three businesses and less than ten houses left standing. The visitors centre has a great display showing the devastation that came in the form of a ‘fireball’ that rolled over ridges and down into the tourist town.
We stay at the local campground which is located across a creek near the town. The rebuilding of the town is taking shape with modern architectural designed buildings and lots of new trees planted to replace those to the fires. The sky is a brilliant blue and helps make the landscapes a delight to behold.
After a very cold night around negative 4, we venture out at around 10:00am. Lyn’s sister Earlene and Rod arrive for lunch and we help the local bakery a little. We take the ‘walk around the town’ and then a short drive to Steavenson’s Falls. The trees in the valley are showing regrowth but it will be a long time before we see things back to pre-fireball days.
Yes, Marysville is a great, quiet little village to put on your list of places to visit someday. You will enjoy!

Early Morning Frost
Looking up the main street of Marysville
Kids new playground
Water channel
Magnificent reflections
View up the Main Street
The Visitors’ centre
LOvely Red Breasted Parrot overhead
Site of new conference centre with 100 rooms
Steavenson River
Marysville
Steavensons Falls
Steavensons Falls – with Lyn with Rod and Earlene
Trail to the Falls
Colourful flower bed.
Wow – a ‘real’ self-serve fuel stations
Looking down from the Marysville Bakery

130611 Kimberley Adventure

Still without the Motorhome, we ventured into the Kimberley’s region of NW West Australia today flying with Kimberley Aviation in a single engine small plane.
Leaving Broome Airport at 8:00am, one hour away to our first highlight spot, was Horizontal Falls which get their name due to the rush of the tide between two land masses. We circled a couple of times and set off across the Buccaneer Archipelago towards Cape Leveque. An outback breakfast awaited us followed by a short swim in crystal clear waters nearby.
A short 4 minute flight to Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm enabled us to take a fast boat ride to the Sunday Island group to view the unique powerful giant tides squeezing through the thousands of islands in the archipelago. The whirlpools truly were powerful.
We had lunch followed by a presentation on how pearl farming works, then the sales chat with the hope we would buy a string of pearls – $16,000 for one of them. (Er, not purchased during our visit)
We touched down back at Broome at 5:00 after flying over Pender Bay, Carnot Bay, James Price Point, Willie Creek and the camels doing their evening walk along Cable Beach.
A truly wonderful tour, thanks to Charles our pilot and the company we had with us.

Sunsets are magnificent in Broome
Cape Leveque
On the way to the strong tides
Beautiful Blue
If turbines were in the tides – free power
The ‘sea-legs’ boats used as ferries
The Horizontal Falls
Cape Leveque Beach
Buccaneer Archipeligo
Cable Beach
Around Cable Beach Resort
China Town in Broome
Ready for take-off
Aerial of the coastline near Cable Beach

130609 Cable Beach – without GR8L1F

As Lyn is in the top 200 Qantas Holidays consultants in Australia, she won a selection of great adventures to be taken within a 12 month period. We have chosen 5 nights at Cable Beach Resort in Broome over the Queens Birthday weekend. What a bonus. The weather is superb after some out-of season rain, some 140mm in 24 hours.
Tomorrow, we are doing a full day trip to horizontal falls with some stops along the way including Cape Leveque, cygnet bay and the Buchaneer Archipelilego.

The sun has dipped beyond to prepare for another day.
Sunsets – always good at Cable Beach
‘The Camels’ of Cable Be3ach
This couple got married on the hump looking over Cable Beach
Preparing the ride.
Right place right time.
From the bar at Cable Beach Resort.

 

120715 Phillip Island

Lorne
Lorne

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.

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