Blogs from Ulverstone, Tasmania, Australia, Oceania

Having our own vehicle is really making this part of our trip more enjoyable and possible. If we were using buses we would have to pay 50$ a night for a crappy room or camp out in the woods which are somwhat inaccessible because there is a distinct lack of buses here. Right off the bat we don't even spend that on food and petrol in a day as well if we were to rely on traveller services we would be at the mercy of many dodgy institutions and only be able to access jobs and countryside via tourist buses. All in all its a big circle jerk to be stuck in that world and we are largely free to do as we please. We have a map book that lists 1000's of free camping sites ... read more

Day 110 Hello Mother, Hello Father, here I am at Camp Granada… some of you may remember a very old song by Terry Scott called Camp Granada, well after yesterday I have to say that it felt a little bit like that here, especially after we had to abandon our plans to walk “The Nut” at Stanley. If you are not familiar with the song then look it up on the Internet and you will understand where I am coming from on this one. We were beginning to think that we may never see the sunshine on Tasmania and especially when Hazel, the Penguin volunteer, said this is summer, I could be forgiven for thinking that I wanted to go back to the mainland, no, not come home! Just get back to the mainland where the ... read more

Day 108 I got up early again this morning grabbed the PC, my cup, a tea bag, a spoon and the milk and wandered over to what they call the camp kitchen. Don’t get any Idea’s that it is some derelict dirty lean too, it’s a modern large room, equipped with fridge, Microwave, kettle, TV, with a large seating area, but above all it’s nice and warm. The weather is very grey and windy but I am glad to be here. Once the morning tea is “mashed” I plug the lap top in and settle down to managing some picture files, and just making some minor changes to the previous blog Caroline type, the day before. Someday’s I do it, someday’s Caroline does it and sometimes it a mish mash of both of us, when reading ... read more

Day 106 I woke up annoyed that the alarm had not gone off, that Caroline was supposed to set for 5.00am. I had had the most dreadful nights sleep, the mother of all arguments had been going on in the distance and I thought that may be a fight had was in progress or even worse. I shook Caroline and announced it was time to get up, she looked at her watch and said it was half past four, Whoops!! I got out of bed and put the kettle on, and beetled about, Caroline went back to sleep for half an hour as I stayed out of the way. We had packed a lot of our stuff away last night, so only had the trailer to pack and all the awning sheets that go on the ... read more

Well, it seems like AGES since my last Blog. Hope you all had a wonderful and happy Christmas and I wish you all good health and a safe 2009. After leaving Ballarat we headed south to Lake Colac. As with most of the lakes throughout Victoria it was water-less!!! The drought is something that's just incomprehensible to us, coming from the wettest part of Australia, where rain is a darned nuisance !!! It was also smelly and blowing about 60 knotts so we left next morning. Kept going south and ended up on The Great Ocean Road at Lorne. We pushed back east and spent a couple of days at Anglesea and about 4 or 5 in Barwon Heads. Barwon Heads and Ocean Grove are the closest rivals to our pick of the places so far ... read more