Hi gang,
We are back from our 2 week trip and I have written a trip report if you are interested
Well it all started in
Berridale, dropping off our 2 dogs at the father inlaw. Then it was off to
Echuca via the Alpine way. What a good drive that is, great scenery.
We ended up at Christies beach, 8km east of
Echuca that afternoon after a long drive. We were in luck, had the hole area to our selves.
Echuca was the wind down period before the
Ballarat and the GOR. We found a nice spot right next to the Murray with our own beach.
We spend 3 nights at Christies beach which also included a dinner cruise on the pride of the Murray.
After
Echuca we headed off for
Ballarat via
Bendigo.
Ballarat was a 2 night affair which was spend at Sovereign
Hill for a walk around (an all day walk around) and a sound and light show which included a dinner in one of the Sovereign
Hill Old pubs.
Leaving
Ballarat saw us heading towards
Geelong where we were suppose to meet up with friends, but as they were flying with ‘sorry airlines’ their flight was cancelled and they arrived a day late. So we took the opportunity to make the most of seeing salt
water for the first time in our trip and did the mandatory fish and chips at
Queenscliff.
After that we met up at
Torquay. Then we made our way to
Lorne for our first night kip on the GOR.
Lorne was a great spot but it was off again to see the sights, driving through
Apollo Bay, and Otaway’s. we walked the otaway fly….lets just say heights are not my best friend…
We then settled into
Port Campbell for a good nights sleep, before seeing the apostles,
London bridge, lorch and arch, blow holes, bay of islands and many more sights in that short distance. Finally we settled in at
Port Fairy, brushing off Warrnambool because of getting a liking to the smaller townships.
Port Fairy was in the rear vision mirror and we were headed for
Portland then Mt Gambier via
Nelson.
2 nights were spent in Mt Gambier. We had a look at all of
the caves and took a drive down to a small fishing town for dinner on the second night.
After Mt Gambier, we were suppose to head east towards
Lakes Entrance, but the weather report wasn’t looking good and big storms were on the way. We ended up following the S.A border north going along the country roads until we hung a right hander in-between Murray Sunset Nat
Park and the
Big Desert to a place called
Ouyen. We stopped off at the pub for lunch and came across the old Nissan in the attached photo, the old bloke must have been 90 and wanted to dress the old girl up for Christmas.
After
Ouyen, we headed east again headed for the main Highway at
Balranald then through
Hay and Wagga. As we had to pick up the 2 dogs at
Berridale on the way home we found ourselves going through Tumut then
Cooma.
By the time we got back to
Canberra the odometer read 3333.3km. just under the 3500km mark. Out of the 3333kms 2 birds and 1 roo paid their respects to the big shinny bull bar (although not that shinny with all the bugs) with no damage, and no break downs. Not bad for a grenade….ha ha ha
All up an excellent trip, if we had to do it again I would skip
Portland and instead of stopping at
Port Fairy I would stop at
Nelson