A family holiday for 6 months around Australia. Switching off for a while to remind ourselves of why we are doing what we do. Enjoying time with our little family that we have created. Creating some great memories and taking some awesome photographs as well.
Up early once again and its pancakes for breaky to lighten the mood because we are not at a very attractive site when compared to only a few days ago. We drive off in the morning sunshine which is lovely and warm and soon settle in for the drive. The girls are watching a movie and the roads in SA are fantastic. Victoria has the worst roads we have faced on our trip so far. Bumpety bump and boing boing is very frustrating and the towing is difficult to get right and a cruise speed hard to maintain when like this. the new roads make us feel alot better about travelling and i even used the cruise control for the first time. We travel alongside some freight trains which is entertaining for us all and at talmost the same speed. Murray Bridge soon arrives in our sights and the town is huge with all the businesses that you would expect.
Arrive at Murray Bridge
Mia loves feeding any animal she finds.
The Murray Bridge
The girls on an old steam train
Cheeky monkeys
All Aboard!
The wheels are bigger than Mia
Mum & Lily stop for a shot
Little Red Caboose
My little sweetheart amongst the pink Flowers
For our lunch break and coffee we head to the river side reserve and the jkids play on the swings while me and heather work out where to stay for the night.
Mannum Swans
Unfortunately there are no free stay camp grounds here so it is decided to go another 24kms to a place called Mannum. This is where the first ever Murray river paddle boats where made and launched. there is no drinking water but what a lovely little river side camp spot. It overlooks the vllage on the other side of the river which is quite nice indeed. Two ferrys run 24 hrs a day at this town and there are 10 other ferrys that cross the Murray at their towns all along this popular Australian river.
We go for a crossing with the ferry and a look around the town. An ice cream shop is not in town and so its ice cream on a stick for the girls. Some shopping is done and we cross the ferry again to go back to camp.
earlier that day i had thrown my Yabbie trap into the rive just to see what might crawl in and to my surprise a fresh water yabbie was caught. Aha! Bait! there might just be some fissh in the murray wiorth Catching. Me and Lily dug up some worms and sat by the river that afternoon with a line in. We did get a nibble or two which is a good sign that with the right bait i might just be able to snare a yellow Belly or better still the prized murray cod. These things can grow up to 1.8 meters but i am not getting my hopes up with my fish catching record so far.
Me and Lily fishing for Dinner
We also had some cheeky swans visit us and almost walked into the door of the caravan. (see video)
Bold Swans
Mia gets close
Mannum Swans video
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We decided today that staying at caravan parks is not really worth the money unless you are leaving the van there for a whole day unprotected. all your really paying for is a toilet and shower which are not always great anyway. all the grey nomads and caravaners stay at the free stay areas which allows more money for tourist things and other enjoyable things. because the next few days are fairly boring areas, that's what we will be doing. Up early and off we go. On the road by 9ish and we are going to push for a place called Bordertown in South Australia. This is the first town on the entry to SA. These very flat roads are quite uninteresting as they travel through mostly farm land and flat country. a lunchtime stop off to break our trip was at Charliegarke lake. Nobody at this stop off at all. it is like an abandoned lakeside campground. Only a couple of old abandoned caravans and a broken down kiosk. Looked like a scene out of a plague movie where everything had been left behind. Very flat and open but right by the lakeside which was quite nice. there is plenty of tap water available (non drinking of course) so heather suggested we wash the van to get rid of some of the road grime and dust we have gathered. What a great idea. see video.Washing a very small mobile house
Bubble & Squeek
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Being such a large span of water i thought it might be a good idea that i throw in a line to see if there are any fish around but a local later told us that the lake had dried up only 3 years prior due to drought and so no fish at all existed here. maybe some yabbies would be around but as you see in the video there aren't even these little creatures hanging around.
The Big Koala
Grampians at a distance
Charliegarke lake sand castles
Kaniva Entry sign - very Australian
Finally at the South Australian border
Our first SA campsite. - Poocher Swamp
Back in the van after a couple of hours rest and play with the girls, we head for Bordertown. We made our destination at about 5pm and quickly set up at another free stay camp area called of all things "Poocher Swamp". A little breezy and raining as we entered the free camping ground. Again no-one around. This is actually a game reserve for duck hunting, very rough looking surroundings but enough for our night stay. after all we are only sleeping here not site seeing the area. Quite cold and the Gas stovetop is our heater for the cold nights. Works quite well.
Today we leave the great town of Ballarat and head north west to make our way to a doctors appointment for Mia in Adelaide. The goal is to reach Stawell. A country town where my father spent some of his youth and the footpath to the great Grampian Mountain ranges.
Me at Stawell
One stop at a roadside cut off for some lunch and stretch the legs. i made popcorn the old fashioned way to show the girls and for them to eat on the way. We arrive in the afternoon at "Stawell's Grampians gateway caravan park, set up and head straight to one of the terrific waterfalls (Mackenzie Falls)
Swans at Stawell
Girls feeding The swans
Streets Of Stawell
Main Street Stawell
Post Office
Church Detail
Musical chimes come from the town hall Clock
Main Street Shops
Original Shops kept in perfect condition
Original Fire Station
Court House
Mackenzie Falls
Rock face of the Grampians
These ranges are unbelievable to look at. Pure rock and launching straight up into the sky out of a very flat country side. Up the hill we go toward the falls lookout. When we arrive i quickly went in to chat with the information centre to get our bearings. The guy there tells me that the falls is a 1.2 kilometer walk to the base of the falls. Oh No! the poor girls. off we go again. This time it was an extremely steep walk "all the way down". But what an impressive waterfall. We took some great family photos here with the running falls as a backdrop. these will be printed for our home for sure.
Then we knew we had to do it.. Walk back up again. Lily was our biggest challenge but she took to it very well. I had to shoot some video of them struggling and for a 3 & 4 year old they made Mum & dad very proud. Our little princess Mia was typically a princess all the way. Goofing off and struggling to keep up.
VIDEO - Big Steps Little Legs
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Me & Heather at Mackenzie Falls
At The bottom of the Falls
Caught in action
We will all sleep very well tonight as our muscles are screaming. well mine are anyway. Because the roads are flat and somewhat boring we should make some distance tomorrow toward adelaide.
I went out one night and shot some images of the Buildings in Ballarat. The gold era certainly put some money into town planning and the terrific architecture was testament to that.
Sovereign Hill was a walk back in time to the early days of the gold rush. Set up as it was then when GOLD fever was in everyone's blood.
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What a truly fantastic place to walk around. All of the people that work here do so voluntarily and make it such an authentic place to be. Live street fighting and squabbles were cool to see. there is a running stream through the middle of the town and you can pick up a shovel and pan and dig til your hearts content. They place gold in the river for you to see some colour in your pan but only if you know how. We showed the girls how to dig and pan and before long Bingo. GOLD! fever had struck. Lily loved panning and found some herself. We bought a little glass vile to hold our riches and we will take it home with us. We watched candle making, Went underground into mine (great show) and even went ten pin bowling like the old days. Timber ball and very old set up but just like it was in them days. A truly magic part of our family holiday. As we left we spent about half our in an amazing gold museum with the Huge nuggets on display that had been found in the area. Back to the van for me to rest up on a massive days travels and events.
Goldfields Big 4 Caravan Park
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