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Published: April 6th 2015
Celebrations
Cheers for our 16th wedding anniversary!
Saturday 28th March 2015 What a special day! Started off with John’s weekend breakfast of bacon, silver beet and poached egg on toast, then off in the new van on our 16
th wedding anniversary. Can’t get much better than that!
We traveled rather sedately, the roads were wet from the light drizzle we were experiencing and Rags was very aware that he had a new van in tow. Normally he watches his rear view and gets a little stressed when someone sits on his tail. We now have a rear view camera displaying what is behind us and Rags was quite content to let them pass us when they could.
Lang Lang was our first stop, this little town only about 50kms from Somerville. We walked up and down the main street of this well set out and tidy town, Judy picking up some vegetables, Rags a Saturday paper.
An hour later we stopped for lunch, in Warragul, in the van even though the rain had stopped. From here it was a short run to Willow Park, a free campsite next to the La Trobe River just before the town of Rosedale.
Willow Park is, as the name suggests planted with willow trees. It sits on the LaTrobe River and is large and grassy - super for a free camp!
After setting up we walked into town, crossing the river on a pedestrian bridge from the park, and found it a neat little place with many historic buildings and some signage explaining the history. It was totally deserted like most are after midday on a Saturday. But we did manage to purchase a bottle of champagne to celebrate our anniversary and first night in the van.
After drinks, dinner and a steaming hot shower in the comfort of the van, was dived into our new warm bed. Thus ended our day. The night was cold and we found out later that it had been the coldest March night in Melbourne for 9 or so years but we were snug in our new van and doona.
Sunday 29th March 2015 A cold morning greeted us, and the thick mist cut visibility to no more than a couple of hundred metres. By the time we pulled out of the grounds just before 1000 the mist
had cleared somewhat and dispersed as we drove the short distance to Sale.
The Sale Motor Village is set just by the highway as you enter town and we both had a good feeling about it just from its appearance. This was reinforced by the pleasant greeting we received, the $17/night + electricity cost, and the clean ablution block. This place is the cheapest we have come across on our trip and is definitely not the worst.
After a quick tour of the town where we found a Bunnings and a Dick Smith, plus any other shop we might need, and we set off for the coast about 40kms away. Just out of town we stopped at the Swinging Bridge, built in the 1883 by the Victorian Government and designed by John Grainger. This was built so that it could be opened to allow ships through, Sale being a port for the surrounding districts in those times. At one stage it opened about 20 times a day but was renovated between 2003 and 2006 for heritage reasons and is now only opened on weekends and one Wednesday a month. As it was a Sunday Judy suggested we might
return later at the opening time if we were in the area.
Seaspray is a little town on the Ninety Mile Beach and we followed the road north to Golden Beach, the ocean on one side of us and Lake Reeve on the other. The beach was not very inviting today, with a strong wind was blowing keeping the temperature down. It must be good at some time because all along the 20 or so kms we drove there were holiday and permanent homes dotted along the side of the road. Just about all of these were empty now!
We tried to get into Lake Reeve but the tracks we tried did not get through, or they ended in private properties.
Golden Beach was a RV friendly town, with free facilities for caravans and motorhomes for 48 hour stays. Even so, there were no campers there today.
Just before returning to Sale we stopped off at the Sale Commons, an area once used for drovers to fed their herd, now a nature reserve. We walked along the boardwalk there for several kilometres but saw little wildlife. Perhaps morning or evenings would be better.
On leaving
the reserve we Judy reminded Rags of the swinging bridge so we retraced our trip back to the Swinging Bridge as this is opened between 1500 and 1600 every Saturday and Sunday. We watched it closing at 1600, the gear mechanism driven by an electric motor powered by a generator driven onto it by the volunteer. An impressive bit of engineering so long ago.
Monday 30th March 2015 Today was a day of taking it easy. We did some shopping in the large Coles complex, looked through Bunnings and was given a monitor lead by a kind lady at AZ Computers after we couldn’t buy one anywhere else (Judy had forgotten hers and needed it to make marking her student's work easier).
Judy had some uni marking to do and Rags bought a new 12 pin flat type electrical plug and fitted it to the Jeep. Maybe this will solve the problem we are having with the fridge not switching to 12v otherwise we may be taking a detour to Nowra, in NSW, to have the Dometic agent there look at it.
We sat down with the map after dinner planning
on where to go next, we have to take Easter into consideration when choosing destinations. We’re not too worried though, as even though the school holidays have started we haven't found many campers.
This may change, especially as there is an expected bout of warmer weather on the way.
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Valerie Mock
non-member comment
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!
You are looking great and I am glad to hear of the good, free, cheap campsites. Sharon and I hope to come your way one of these years. I told her we could just follow your blogs. I think the bird is an anhinga, but I don't know if they have them down under.