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Note from Caroline
To the Caravan site owner, leaving the money as we actually wanted to pay our duesBeep Beep
Day 1664/3
Finally it stopped raining, it was late but it was a relief on the ear drums, but no sooner than the rains stopped the wind whipped up into a frenzy, nonetheless we were warm and cosy.
It was around 7am when I awoke, the sun was coming up thankfully, Andy got out of bed and made a cup of tea for us both, I drank mine in bed and read for a short while, but I needed to get up and shower ready for the day ahead.
Sometimes when you are on the road, you learn not to expect too much from some places which makes things a nice surprise when you get more than what you expect. There is an amenities block here, they look old and have seen better days, but they are clean and for that I am thankful, but there are no locks on the doors and there is no where to hang your clothes, a solitary chair sits next to the sinks so I grab that to drape my clothes and towel on while I shower.
Caroline
Posting the cash under the door The shower head is so clogged up the water comes through like fine pins, not strong enough to rinse the soap out of my hair, but I persevere and after a while it is all good.
We have our breakfast and prepare to leave, I have not seen the lady that owns the site to give her any money, she said she would come by this morning, it is now 10.00 and we are ready to go, so I telephone her and very half-heartedly she asks me to put cash in an envelope and leave it for her. I do this but somehow I get the feeling that she would not have been too worried if we left without paying. Anyway we have paid our dues and we set off down the road and back towards Hay.
We have 211 kilometres of road that we now have to back track, but that is the way it goes, we are not the only ones who have been caught out, so we suck it up and get on with it.
We find our Album of the day on the ipod and settle
Emu's
On the way back from Ivanhoe in to listen to “The Album” it has various artists but is actually very good, neither of us had any idea where it came from but it kept us company for a considerable part of our journey. We did also touch on another album “American idiot” by Green Day.
The scenery this morning is so different, there is barely a cloud in the sky and the sun is shining across the plains, you can see for miles and miles, you would not have thought it had rained for so long and so hard if it was not for the occasional tell tale puddles that you drive past every now and again.
We have had a flurry of messages on the blog which is nice, thanks to everyone who has sent then and we hope you have received our response.
One message from our friends in Walla Walla, advises us that they have named a Rabbit who lives under their house Caroline, I tell Caroline that she now has a rabbit named after us and she is delighted.
One thing we do notice is the extent of animals we
see, yesterday there was barely an animal in sight, but today, we see hundreds of sheep, cattle and emu’s. Emu’s! I have never seen so many, they are everywhere, you just have to train your eye into the landscape and there they are, very well camouflaged but when they hear you coming they run.
They run so fast and mostly they run away from you, but on more than a couple of occasions they run straight across your path, I nearly hit two today, but thankfully I had already spied them and anticipated the move so I had slowed right up.
We were laughing about a certain cartoon called Road Runner, and envisaged an emu trying to overtake us at speed just for devilment, Beep Beep!
Thankfully our journey back to Hay was uneventful, but we had used up one full tank of fuel on this slight detour. So we went back to the fuel station that we filled up at yesterday and had another tank full. (Andy wanted a refund!)
Now we are on the road to Mildura, we don’t think we will make Mildura tonight, so
I am already checking Camps to see what contenders there are for our overnight stop.
Somewhere along the way, we stop for lunch, the wind is so strong that we are thankful for the ability to open the door and pop the roof in Gypsy so that we can boil the kettle and make a sandwich in comfort, which is a far cry from some of the conditions that we had to cook in on our last big trip.
We find a National Park roughly 5 kilometres from Banaldi, but unfortunately it is closed, dry weather roads only. So we have no choice but to move on. I tell Andy that the next town is 77 kilometres, but there is somewhere just on the outskirts that may be suitable.
Arriving at Lake Benandee, just after 4.30 a few campers were here, we pulled in but what a gem this place appears to be, there is a huge lake with sandy shores and quite a large area for parking/camping.
We find a spot easily enough, lock up and then go off for a short walk to the lake side.
It is still windy and the wind is cold, the waves are crashing against the shore.
Andy sets about making up a camp fire, we think we will need it tonight and we were hoping to cook on it, but the wood is damp and it takes a while to get going. So I start cooking tea consisting of chilli and rice which invariably means I get some leftovers to keep for another nights dinner.
Andy prepares me a gin and tonic which I enjoy sitting by the camp fire. I was going to say surprisingly, but I should say not surprisingly I turn around and see how busy this little camp spot has become, there are several caravans parked up and still more coming in.
If you like watching big trucks, then this is a good place to do it. Being the main road to Adelaide, it is very busy and watching some of the big rigs drive past is quite something.
This one will be marked up as one of my favourites in the Camps book, but sadly we are only here for one night as we want to move on to Mildura in the morning.
The camp fire has fizzled out, the stars are bright in the sky and it looks a clear night, but that also means a cold one, so we retire to the comfort and warmth of Gypsy.
1. The Blog Day 1663/2
2. Total distance from Woodstock 884 Kilometres
3. Distance Travelled Today 385 kilometres
4. Point to point Journey-Ivanhoe to Euston
5. Lake Benanee (Awesome Camp spot)
6. Camps reference 876 (Camps 5)
7. No cost
8. Telstra access minimal, but the long range aerial came up trumps with a full 5 bars. Plenty of firewood, the toilets are relatively clean.
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Debbie
non-member comment
Hoorah for the daily blog
Loving the return of the daily blog. Safe travels and enjoy!