Frankston to Ballarat

---

FRANKSTON to BALLARAT

Today is the first day of our big adventure. We (Nicole, our dog Koby and I - Nicci) are planning on a 4 month trip from Vic - SA - WA - Darwin and back down to SA and then Victoria. Secretly we would be thrilled if we just make it to Perth and back again. First leg has been from Frankston Vic to Ballarat. This is where our lacking of confidence and skill shone through. We were not sure if we had tied our Jerry can down well enough on the roof so Nicole had to keep sticking her head out of the window to check, resulting in her loosing my fav pair of sunnies. We finally arrived at our destination after a quick stop at the shops for a gazebo, prawns and some wine. We chose to spend the night at a free camp spot called Smythesdale Gardens, which was equipped with toilets, hot showers and drinking water - basically everything we needed. We began to set up our spot by putting all our belongings in a 3 man tent so we could sleep in our 4WD, that was until Nic had pulled the tent off the roof to find we had left the poles at home. We still managed to use the tent without the poles and successfully keep everything dry throughout the drizzly night. My foot on the other hand did not stay dry after attempting to pee in the bush after being so s unsure about using the toilets at night, I got a scare from a possum and ended up getting my foot, the next two times I managed to stay dry. Our first night sleep was horrible, we have a lot to learn. We met a nice guy and his wife and 2 dogs from Mt Gambia who had broken the Axel on his caravan and had been there 2 weeks- we had planned on going to Naracoorte next however he inspired our next destination Mt Gambia.

---