Prom Night

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So there we are after a very chilly night on the Prom - luckily we could snuggle up in the van where it was lovely and warm, but I did miss not being able to sit outside (never happy!) There were signs in the loos telling people not to leave food in tents as the wombats will rip the canvas to get to the food, it also said in the travel books that the wombats are so tame, they just ignore you as you walk past them. Did we see a wombat? Did we hell! We did see a roadsign of a wombat, which John couldn’t stop to take a photo of - he said we’d see others, but we haven’t so far!

But what I did see was really good - I was feeding an injured gull some bacon rind (well he was limping a bit), when all of a sudden a kookaburra swooped down and grabbed some, if I’d reached my hand out I could have stroked him. Minutes later there were 3 pink/grey galahs on the grass by me looking for worms. The lady next door said a beautiful red one flew over and perched on someone’s shoulder the day before.

After all the excitement, we spent some time on the lovely beach at Tidal River chatting to a lady with a metal detector ... I had to ask what she was looking for as I’d been giggling to myself about it being a waste of time (no Roman remains here I thought), and she admitted that so far she’d found a bottle top and a small coin - but she was wearing a stonking gold necklace with a huge gold nugget that she’d found further up country, so I suppose she had the last laugh!

We’ve been discussing the advice we’d give to people planning to do a similar trip - and it sort of breaks down to some of the following hints and tips:
• You can’t see everything - drive one day, have one day off - or at least every 3rd day. We are getting really tired, and are looking forward to the week at the seaside next week
• If you stay at a lovely nature reserve, make sure you have time to see the nature and do some of the walks (yes, even me!) There are some short ones for the walking impaired ... I think that’s me!!
• When you’re staying with good friends, stay longer than 3 nights! In fact, stay until they throw you out!!
• Don’t bother buying the Lonely Planet - it’s heavy and pretty pointless. The internet has most things covered for early planning and the Tourist Information offices in every small place have heaps of really good local info, plus stuff on farther places of interest.
• If you’re camping or using a van, buy the Camps 5 camping book (yes, we’ve lauded it before, but it’s worth repeating)
• Don’t pack anything white, unless your favourite colour is grungy grey! I have several ex-white t-shirts that aren’t going to be adding to our excess baggage charge next week...
• Take a laptop and set up a blog! Sure, it’s a pain at times but it’s amazing what you forget. What’s more, you’ll really appreciate everyone’s comments - so keep ‘em coming!

So you can probably guess from the travel advice that today hasn’t been the fullest - we’ve driven down to the Gippsland Lake District and we’re currently parked with yet another of our wonderful views across a huge lake, and the drive was very pretty, passing through small towns (including Stratford on the River Avon!), but nothing very exciting to report. We did manage to find a McDonalds and upload some Blog entries - I think we may only be a week behind now - even though they’re all written!!

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