Victoria Diary

October 2013 - After South Australia, and by the time we reached Victoria, we have only 3 weeks left on this trip. Not nearly enough time to deal with our "bucket list" in Australia's East. We might need to set off again soon.

20-10-2013 Sunday
We drove 222 kms south-east, across the border into Victoria, to the town of Kaniva (Vic) and the Kaniva Caravan Park (an unmanned council park) for 1 night. It was a fairly easy drive today, passing through lots of farming land and small towns. Like a lot of small country towns, Kaniva is struggling to maintain it's population with young people moving away to bigger towns/cities. A nice tidy town and we enjoyed our stopover here strolling around and seeing the "sheep art" and the very pretty Little Lorikeets.

21-10-2013 Monday
We drove 195 kms south-east to the town of Halls Gap (Vic) and the Halls Gap Lakeside Tourist Park for 3 nights. It is a lovely spot with the park nestled at the foot of the Grampians (mountains) and next door to Lake Bellfield which we'll visit tomorrow. We were greeted by some Sulphur Crested Cockatoos as we pulled up in our camp site, obviously waiting for some feed. We saw there were little bags of bird food for sale in reception - funny, as most places have signs out warning not to feed the wildlife as it encourages them to hang around people, plus the added problem of stopping them foraging for their own food, resulting in growing dependent. The streets in the park are all named after animals and we are between Kangaroo Ave and Echidna Ave. To the side of us in a nearby field are many kangaroos, some quietly grazing, quite a few mothers with big joeys in the pouches, a large male just lounging on the ground while behind, 2 young male juveniles having a playful dust-up, with intermittent time-outs for body scratching. The wild ducks moved in later for a feed. We'll see what other wildlife comes along in the next day or so. We chose to be lower down here in the park as there's lots more space and there are so many beautiful trees here with the Grampians right behind us. The downside is we couldn't use the satellite dish or get normal tv - oh well, sacrificing technology for nature's beauty occasionally is worthwhile.

Before leaving this morning we walked around the quaint small town of Kaniva (V). We've noticed many beautiful bright red bottle brush trees on our drive before today, but they seem to be more prolific here especially. One such tree was manicured into a ball and it was full of the red bottle brush flower - very striking. In the main street there are lots of fibreglass sheep, painted in various colours, pictures and themes, using art to acknowledge the importance sheep have played in their past and present. It reminded us of the town of Cowaramup in WA with all the painted fibreglass cows. One business had a sign up - "STEWART AND LIPSHUT - LAWYERS" - not sure if it was real or a joke!

22-10-2013 Tuesday
Outside and at the back of Casa in the caravan park here, we can hear rushing water and we can see a big dam wall not far away from us, outside the park. We rode Harley to it this morning, Lake Bellfield, basically next door. We walked right across the top of the dam, wonderful views of the water and the Grampians - fit for a postcard. The rushing water we could hear not far from our camp site, is the water being released from the dam. I just hope that dam wall is strong because if it broke, we'd get washed away as we're sitting right in its path.

We then rode 3.5 kms to the town of Halls Gap and the tourist centre for sightseeing info. It started to rain so we ducked into a cafe for lunch. Afterwards, the rain seemed to be set in for the afternoon and was getting heavier, so we decided to get back home seeing as we were on the scooter. Later in the early evening, we sprung a leak in the ceiling hatch right above the lounge/dining area and it was coming in quite quickly, and dripping on one of the cloth-covered lounge seats. I grabbed a container out of the kitchen to catch the drips. I felt like we were in one of those movies, where they have noisy tin buckets under all the leaks coming through a dilapidated roof. Luckily, we only had 1 leak. On inspection Dave noticed the water pooling on the roof next to the hatch so he put the front of the van up on ramps, stopping the pooling which fixed the problem for now - another job for his list when we get home.

23-10-2013 Wednesday
The rain continued in the morning but when you are confined indoors, it's certainly a nice spot with a front row seat of the lovely views and abundant wildlife. We haven't seen any emus yet but there are plenty of Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos, Long-Billed Corellas and Magpies about. I threw some seed down on the ground and about 14 birds came for a feed - 2 corellas and the rest cockatoos. They are obviously used to people and come quite close, keeping a wary eye out at the same time.

By about 2pm it appeared the skies were clearing so we took a punt and hopped on Harley, making our way to McKenzie Falls in the Grampians National Park, about 40 kms return up a winding but good sealed road. From the carpark we walked a short way to Broken Falls which was a pretty picture, with many little water falls over a big rock formation. Then it was a 1.2 km return walk, some on a steep path and then some steep steps to the base of the McKenzie Falls - pretty awesome. Lots of water cascaded down the high black rockface to the pool below, and beyond.

The sun had come out and it was a lovely afternoon. When we got back I took some cracker biscuits outside and started feeding them to the birds as Dave took photos. There were cockatoos everywhere, coming right up to me and taking bits of crackers from my fingers. I couldn't believe how gently they were taking the crackers. They even flew up on me, on my shoulders and arms, and at one time I had 4 of them on me. I was a bit concerned as they could've easily bitten my ear off but they were good, except when one took a cracker straight out of the container under my arm! There was one cockatoo on the ground, tugging at my pants leg, wanting to know where his cracker was. There would've been about 20 of them all hanging around. Then a beautiful Crimson Rosella came along. He was a lot smaller than the cockatoos and a bit wary, so he flew up onto the mhome's side mirror and I gave him a bit of cracker. As he held the cracker in his claw I was reminded of the parrot on the old Arnotts biscuit tin from many years ago, clutching a biscuit in his claw. It was a wonderful experience.

24-10-2013 Thursday
We drove 65 kms south-east to the town of Ararat (V) and the Acacia Caravan Park for 1 night. On the way here we stopped at the lovely and interesting town of Stawell (pronounced 'stall'). We walked around the town, enjoying the interesting old buildings and beautiful gardens. After a grocery shop we drove a couple kms to the underground mine Magdala Gold Mine, which started operating again in 1981. The town exists because of gold mining that was started back in the late 1800s. There was an observation area for the public where you could see the above ground crushing and processing equipment, and right beside the observation area was the only entrance/exit to the mine. We were fortunate enough to see one of the big mining trucks loaded with ore, come out of the tunnel. The gold mining company has made a proposition to the town to make 2 open cut mines out of the existing one, which would facilitate the optimum gold extraction from all the available ore. So far, there has been some opposition so time will tell.

25-10-2013 Friday
This morning we drove 206 kms south east to the Victorian capital Melbourne (Australia's biggest city), its suburb of Coburg (V) and the Melbourne BIG 4 Holiday Park for 3 nights. We had beautiful green scenery on the way, rolling tree covered hills and plenty of sheep (and lamb chops). It was a pleasurable drive for most of the trip with only the last leg in Melbourne suburbia raising the stress levels. Our GPS (Tom) supported us well though and brought us straight to the caravan park.

26-10-2013 Saturday
We rode Harley about 40 kms (return trip) to the Melbourne Telephone Show, which is our main reason for coming to Melbourne. Dave was very restrained and didn't buy anything, and even sold 2 of his books. It was an overcast and cool day and remained that way. We caught up with some old friends and met some club members we'd only spoken to on the phone. We were glad to get home just after the middle of the afternoon.

27-10-2013 Sunday
After doing a load of washing we rode the scooter about 9 kms to the Melbourne Zoo and spent about 4.5 hours walking around the large and impressive zoo. I was surprised there wasn't a polar bear exhibit. The place was very busy with many families, kids and prams.