Forster Tuncurry

Monday 11 April - Well it rained really heavy all night and a bit of the morning so we went for a drive around Tuncurry just having a look around and the rest of the day was just reading or sewing and chilling out again. Tomorrow is our last day in Tuncurry so I imagine if it is fine it will be the beach again and just filling up the car with petrol for our trip up near Coffs for two days before heading into Wooli.

Sunday 10 April - We went to the markets in Forster this morning which was OK and then we headed off to the beach again which was lovely. So another relaxing day.
We got back to camp and this couple with three kids have camped just about on top of us, they have a caravan with an annexe and then put up this large outdoor pegola that leans right against our van where they and all their friends hang out all day yapping on the top of their lungs and just being pests. They even brought their washing machine that they have set up at the back of their van.

Saturday 9 April - It turned out to be a lovely day, John went off on his charter (charter boat, what charter boat?) sorry couldn't help it. I did the washing and cleaning up and headed down the beach. Just after I got there a group of locals turned up and introduced themselves and before you knew it I was one of the elite group, by the end of the morning I knew who was who and all the gossip and I also managed to get a little sunburnt as I couldn't get a way from them.
Once I could break away I headed back to camp as John was to ring when he got back for me to pick him up. Well I went to pick him up and he came over to the car and said that he had just dropped the biggest @##%ing fish that he had ever seen (so I guess he was a little unhappy, don't you think?) He just about had it in the boat a 50 kilo cobia and they couldn't get it in the boat in time, so they lost it, the skipper who has been running the charter boats for years reckons it was the biggest cobia that he had ever seen, oh well, the only consolation is that they managed to catch a lot of other fish so he didn't come home empty handed, we just need to keep it frozen somehow.

Friday 8 April - Yeah! it is a lovely fine day, so off for a swim this morning, John as usual got talking to a guy in the water and came out looking a dried up prune after at least an hour of talking or waffling. So it was home for lunch and back for a fish, but no luck there so off for another swim after John finished a long conversation with a guy as we were packing up our fishing gear. With John in toe there is no such thing as a quick hello and move on it turns into a marathon conversation.
Fingers crossed for the sea to be calm tomorrow and an abundance of fish in the ocean as John is booked on a deep sea charter tomorrow. I hope he has a great time.


Thursday 7 April - Weather wasn't the greatest so we went sight seeing today, we headed south down to Seal Rocks, we passed through Pebbly Beach, Bennetts Head, Smith Lake, Boomerang Beach and stopped at a lovely little craft cottage and had lunch in Green Point. Even though the weather was terrible we really got a suprise on how lovely the beaches are, the water was so crystal clear and just absolutely lovely looking spots.

Monday to Wednesday 4-6 April - Just chilling at Tuncurry, we have had a bit of rain and when it clears up we head down for swim. We have managed to go fishing, John caught a lovely estuary cod that he had to throw back as they are a protected species, what a bugger. John has had a crook hip since South Australia so we finally got it looked at now that we are in the one spot for a while. He had a cortisone injection after x-rays etc, so fingers crossed it helps out.

Sunday 3 April - We couldn't believe it we woke up to a lovely warm morning. So after John washed the car we headed down the beach and had a couple of swims before lunch, the water was so clear and not that cold. The little enclosed beach is so pretty with nice white sand. We went back to camp which is a short walk through the park to the beach and had lunch. We headed in to town to get the usual bread and milk etc and I managed to get a hair cut that was badly needed, I asked for a trim but came out considerably a lot shorter.
Tonight we walked over to the local bowls club for the meat raffle, (we had no luck) John thoroughly enjoyed his "Tooheys Old" schooners though, funny that. We put a couple of dollars in the pokies after dinner and then walked back to camp.

Saturday 2 April - Another long trip but yeah we made it we are in Tuncurry which so far looks like a pretty spot, we had a quick drive to familiarise ourselves with what is what today and tomorrow, weather permitting we will peruse it much better. We are camped right next to the ocean and there is a man made rock wall that is on both sides to give you a very protected little beach very much like "Little D-/bar" at home at the entrance to the lake. Fingers crossed for some fine weather.

Gulgong

Friday 1 April - Wow what a long day, lots of really bad roads cutting across to Gulgong, we got there around 3pm and left the car on the van as we had an early start the next day for another 500klm.
We camped at the Gulgong showground for $12 which was a real bargain as most caravan parks are twice as much as that and more. We had hot showers and power included in that, so we just chilled as we had nearly another 500 klm to go tomorrow.
I know Michelle had been here on a school excursion when she was in 5th class, you will notice Gulgong on the $10 note.
When we left the next morning we were absolutely blown away by the beautiful old town. We have seen a lot of towns on our trip and a lot of them old but this was unbelievable, as we drove through the old town it was like being in an old movie, the streets were really skinny you could just imagine the horse and carts going through the township. So pretty we will have to come back some time to take photos. Apparently the museum is really good also.

Griffith

Thursday 31 March - We organised to go on a trip around Catalia Fruit Farm so before we got there we went out to McWilliams Wines and I managed to taste test a few nice wines and purchased a couple.
Then it was up town for a quick bite to eat before going to the fruit farm, we arrived at the farm and there ended up being 18 of us waiting to do the tour. The owners turned up,first Joe the husband handed us all a large bunch of grapes to eat and the wife Sharon was such a hard case, she was telling jokes and was very informative about how to propogate the various citrus fruits and plants in general. So off we went nice and cosy in her little mini bus with old scolloped fringe all around the top of the windows, very italian. She drove us around the orchards explaining everything and then we watch a dvd all about the farm, it was great.
When we got back we had taste testing of all the goods that Sharon makes, some of which were jams, relishes, sauces, honey, wines, mustards etc etc.
Then we headed back to town to fill up with that "cheap" fuel from the day before, we drove up and down the street and couldn't find the petrol station, there was a petrol station with no name on it and no bowsers and we thought "NO" that can't be it there is nothing left they couldn't demolish it in less than 24 hours, but guess what they had. As they say he who hesitates losers. So early night tonight as we have nearly 500 klms to go tomorrow.

Wednesday 30 March - Arrived at Griffith, set up the van and drove around town checking it out. The main street was so long it seemed to go forever. On the way up with noticed a United service station with diesel fuel 10cents cheaper than any of the others. I suggested we fill the car up and John said we will do it tomorrow.

Echuca

Wednesday 30 March - We said our goodbyes and headed in different directions, Julie and Brian headed off to Hollbrook and John and I headed for Griffith for two nights before making our way across NSW to the east.

Tuesday 29 March - The four of us went off for a drive in the morning and the boys went to the Port of Echuca which is a museum mostly about old paddle steamers, the river and old rail carriages.
Julie and I went and found a couple of fabric shops to spend time in and that night we went into Moama RSL for dinner. Out came our Seniors Cards and we had a lovely two course meal for $12.50 each, not bad, sometimes it pays to be senior.

Monday 28 March - We went for a cruise on the "Kingfisher" boat cruising the Murray River at Barmah where we went into the Barmah lake. There was heaps of birdlife and very high waters due to the floods. It was a very relaxing 2 hours. Then we went back to camp for lunch and headed out after lunch walking around the town checking out all the stores. Then back for beer 'o'clock.

Sunday 27 March - Off again this time we are heading to Echuca a fairly long trip. We had a detour in Karang which copped a lot of flooding not that long ago, it is where Prince William visited to check out the damage. It was really bad, I got out and took some photos of the Murray Valley Highway once we got back to the end of the damage, the road was still under water and completely ruined, the tar was all in a huge bulge, the paddocks still held loads of water, it was unbelievable. Finely we arrived to meet up with Brian and Julie for 3 days. We stayed at a caravan park right on the Murray River with old paddle steamers going up and down the river all day blowing there deep whistles as they passed by, there looked so lovely.
We didn't get up to too much that day, just bought food for dinner and headed back to camp where John and Brian had a swim and Julie and I just caught up with each other.

Gol Gol - Mildura

25 - 26 March - Friday - We arrived in one of my favourite caravan parks, if anyone decided to head down this way it is the first caravan park I would recommend, the amenities are set up as ensuites and the facilities in general are great. The whole place is absolutely spotless.
When we first arrived John went off to the doctors as he is having problems with his hip, so he got some drugs and off we went walking around the town of Mildura checking it out. It is a really large place.
Saturday - we headed off to Wentworth it is where the Murray River meets the Darling River. We were here last year but boy what a difference, the road was blocked off and the water has come right up over the parks, the lookout and road. I took heaps of photos as it is unbelievable the difference. The picnic table we had lunch on last year is out in the water some distance away. You cannot get to the lookout as it is way out in the water as well. The river is running so fast all because of the flood waters coming down from Queensland. Mildura has had a lot of rain as well and there is water laying around everywhere it is not soaking into the ground at all. When we were up at Nuriootpa a couple of the big wineries (Penfolds and Wolf Blass) lost a lot of their grape crops due to the water. I think the 2011 wine vintage will be a poor one as they are all complaining about the lack of quality.
After lunch we headed down to Red Cliffs where they have the lunar festival which is the end of the harvest so they have a big celebration. There were floats going down the main street, stalls in the park and loads of entertainment. It was an excellent turn out for a reasonable small town. Then it was back to camp to prepare for our move tomorrow. We are off to Echucha for a couple of days meeting up with Brian and Julie, then we will start heading upwards on our home stretch.
Hopefully this next week we can put the last week behind us and relax a little more.

Barmera South Australia

Wednesday 23 March - We set off early today as we had a lot of kilometres ahead of us today as we changed plans to arrive in Mildura today. But just outside of Renmark we received a call from a friend and need to go back to Adelaide to do some business, so we found a caravan park at Barmera on Lake Bonney which would probably be quite spectacular if that bloody wind wasn't howling at a rate of knots. I know I sound like a broken record, but I have never encountered so much wind as we have in South Australia, we just can't get away from it. To make matters worse it has chilled up again today I think we reached 18° at one stage.
We went for a drive into Renmark, the town isn't as big as I thought it would be. We discovered quite a few large houseboats moored in the Murray River and took a couple of photos then headed back going through Berri where they make the orange juices etc. We didn't bother going through the factory as we wanted to get back to have a rest as we have a late trip into Adelaide tonight and then hopefully head off in the morning to Mildura.

Nuriootpa

Tuesday 22 March - We got off to a sluggish start today but managed to cover a fair area. We headed off to Angaston to the Angus Fruit factory, after testing a few of the dried fruits we purchased some dried peaches that are yummy and some dark chocolate orange balls, John and I ate one each and then I got the guilts and said we should put them away for Kylie as she would really love them, so fingers crossed Kylie that they make it home. Then we headed to Lyndoch another town further south of Tanunda and called into this beautiful cottage full of patchwork fabrics that went forever, she had some many rooms full of fabrics but I refrained from purchasing any.
After that we went to Maggie Beers for lunch it was so delicious, I had a picnic basket of duck pate with couscous, pickles and fresh mini bread loves with a lovely white wine that is from Maggie's husbands vineyard. Then off to a couple more wineries which included Jacobs Creek that is huge. The grape fields went forever and the wine was sooo nice, so feeling very relaxed we went to this beautiful nursery to admire all the rose plants. The roses grow like weeds over here you just can't believe how many every one have in their yards and the standard roses along their pathways leading to the beautiful old homes are just unbelievable, we are so envious of them all. John has been pinching all the old dead buds hoping to germinate the seeds. I have heard that an expert down here does that but sometimes you can plant hundreds and have a return of about 2, but if it keeps him busy that's fine.

Monday 21 March - We arrived in Nuriootpa in one of the prettiest caravan parks I have seen, it was very impressive. The trip here was another story though, the roads are unbelievable they are so bumpy with dips all over the place, I don't think they have done maintenance on their roads for years.
The caravan right next to us has a lovely couple (John and Rose) who happen to live in Burleigh, it is amazing how many people we have run into that live near us or where we lived in Wollongong, small world. Anyway we set up and went for a drive into Tanunda which is the next town down from us that is quaint with lots of old shops in it. On our way back we decided to go to Penfolds for some wine tasting which was nice. We purchased a couple of wines and another port and headed back to camp.

Moonta Bay

Sunday 20 March - We drove into Kadina to fill the car up with fuel and then visited the Mine Museum, it took ages as there so much to see. It was really interesting displaying information on the copper mining as well as memorabilia from World War 1 and World War 2, as well as a room set up as an old school room as the museum is set up in the old Moonta school. There was a shop front that had been placed in the museum and an old shoe maker shop that had every tool that they would have ever used as well as every size shoe sole cut outs. I could go on forever about all the interesting things they had in there.
So after that it was time to go back to camp for cheese and wine time, and get prepared for our move to Nuriootpa tomorrow.

Saturday 19 March - Had a phone call with some bad news so today is a right off. We ended going down to the Cornish Bakery and had our Cornish Pasty which was delicious.

Friday 18 March - Well I rang Rhonda for her birthday and then we had a real veg day where we just sat around and did some reading and walking around the camp. In the afternoon we decided to try and catch some more crabs, but the crabs had other ideas we only caught one so we gave it to a young couple to add to their collection of 2.

Thursday 17 March - St Pat's day the day before my sisters birthday, it is blowing even harder today, what's new for South Australia, fair dinkum it is always windy. So after sitting here updating the blog we are off for more site seeing this afternoon so until then, ciao
Well we are back, this afternoon we headed down to Maitland which is a very old township, there was a sign saying markets today so we went in to the old tin shed where they had lots and lots of craft. John was excited as he picked up yet another Ruth Rendell book for $5, I thought that he would have had the whole set by now.
After Maitland we headed down to Port Victoria which had another long jetty, we bought an icecream and walked down the jetty to see what everyone was catching, they catch tommies which are the smallest fish I have ever seen but they are of legal size. I couldn't help but take a photo of I think was an italian woman fishing in her scarf and apron, I will upload the photo but it might be hard to make out. We saw the funniest thing they have a golf course right alongside the water, the photos I have added show the tee off is a piece of synthetic grass on top of the dirt and the green is black fine stones with out of bound poles right alongside the beach. We had a nice chat with a couple from England that come out here for 6 months of the year every year at this time and drove around looking at the place before heading back to camp.
We have a young couple camped right behind us from Bendigo who have two young children and this afternoon Kaitlan who is 4 and her brother 2years drew a beautiful picture of me and gave it to me as a gift as they head off tomorrow, the parents have taken 12 months off work to travel around Australia before Kaitlan goes to school. We have found a lot of couples doing this or some with older kids that are doing home schooling.

Wednesday 16 March - It is a bit windy today so we went sightseeing today, first we headed to Port Hughes and looked around, it is just down the road from Moonta so very similar with another large jetty and nice beach. I hope John will book a trip on a fishing charter, but all depends on the winds dying down. We then headed towards Kadina taking in the sights and walking around the old township. All around here it is listed as Heritage so lots and lots of old buildings and homes. We stopped and had lunch at a nice little cafe and then John found "Cheap as Chips" which he discovered last time he was down here, he just loves the junk shop. After that we headed back to Moonta which is called "Australia's Little Cornwall" and apparently they have the best cornish pasties out, so hopefully I will get to try one before we leave, the little bakery is gorgeous. The top section of the Yorke Peninsula which we are on is called the "Copper Coast" where a lot of copper has been discovered. We took a trip on an old train from the Wheal Munta station through the historic landmarks of former mining operations with the driver explaining workings of the ore sorting floors, reservoir and the tunnel through Ryan's tailing heap. Apparently in the early days of the mining there was limited fresh water and they had various epidemics that caused children to die at around 100 per week for a period of time, when we went into the Moonta cemetary you could see all these small gravesites it was so sad. The commentary was very interesting and later on we will go through the Moonta Mines Museum.
Once we got back to camp we decided to both go crabbing, it was a bit slower today but finally John caught 3 crabs and I got 2, one of my blue swimmers was huge, very sweet. The only part is the shelling, it takes ages for little return.

Tuesday 15 March - We are now in Moonta which is a lovely place to stop, we will be here until next Monday.
Today we just set up camp and went for a walk down along the jetty which is really long, people were fishing and crabbing, they tend to be there all day. Along one side of the jetty nearly half way down is a netted off area for swimming.
John decided after dinner to go crabbing, it got the better of him so less than 2 hours later he arrived back with 4 crabs, yum, yum.

Adelaide

Monday 14 March - Another lovely day in Adelaide so off on our bus again, well why not if you flash your "Seniors Card" the cost is free, and with the price of petrol at the moment why wouldn't you.
So today was spent walking around the huge botanical gardens of Adelaide, the rose section was gigantic, I couldn't believe the area covered so many varieties of roses, John had a pocket full of spent flowers in his pockets collecting seeds that will hopefully propogate later on. While walking around the gardens we could here the bands next door in the Fringe Festival arena, so we saved quite a bit of money over the weekend managing to listen to various acts for nothing. I know cheap you say but it was pretty expensive to get into the festival and some of the acts were ordinary. Anyway we sat and had a devonshire tea in the gardens for lunch which was very nice and then continued on through the gardens and back down the mall to hear and see other acts, but we decided to head back to camp because there were so many uni students half tanked walking aroundthe city and a huge amount of people due to the public holiday. You couldn't move for people.
The Adelaide Hospital was very impressive and really big, but I was blown away by the amount of cigarette butts lying on the ground just outside the main gates. I shouldn't have been surprised as there is so many smokers in the city they even smoke in cafes and restaurants that are open air, it is disgusting and they never put their butts in a bin, they go straight on the ground.
Oh well I will get off my bandwagon now and go cook dinner as tomorrow we are off the Moonta on the York Peninsula.

Sunday 13 March - Well back on bus 271 into the city and then walk down to the Tram station and head off to Glenelg for the day. It was a lovely day down at Glenelg the breeze was keeping it cool enough to walk around without feeling too hot. The Australian Beach Volleyball Championships were on which was exciting. So after having a look at that we walked around the beach area where they have a fun parlour with dodgem cars in water, a ferris wheel and two huge water slides.
After that we headed down the street and walked the full length looking at the shops etc, stopping for lunch as it was quite a long street, so once we got back from our walk we caught the tram back to the city and walked around looking at more of the buskers advertising for their shows at the Fringe Festival that night. Then back on the bus back to the park for a kick off of the shoes and drink o'clock.

Saturday 12 March - It is a lovely hot day 31° so we are heading off to Semaphore Beach which is near the Port of Adelaide. The water is fairly cool but very refreshing, the only problem you have to walk a mile out in the water to go above your knees and you need to take a picnic lunch down to the water as it is a long way away.
We then found a lovely little cafe near the yacht club where there were thousands of yachts and had lunch. After lunch we headed a little south of Semaphore and had another swim in a little deeper water, it turned out to be a lovely day.
John found part of a huge mussel shell, I could not believe that they could grow that big, wow it was huge.

Friday 11 March - We headed in to the city of Adelaide for the day on the bus, so after showing our "Seniors Card" we travelled for free - Bonus. We headed down to the Gouger Street markets, they were great. There was so many deli stalls the meats and cheeses were wonderful and reasonably priced. So we decided that we would have salami,rare wagau beef, chorizio, ham, a avariety of cheeses, roasted capsicum, lettuce, tomato and beautiful italian bread, yum, yum and beer and wine of course.
Because the "Fringe Festival" is on we kept stopping in the mall and watching the various acts that will be performing tonight, they are very talented. We ended up having lunch at a little Greek cafe that we went to last time we were here, their foods is fantastic.
After lunch we walked around some more checking out old buildings, the university buildings etc, but our feet got the better of us and decided to head back to camp, so we got back and chilled out. Tomorrow is supposed to be fairly warm so we will probably head up to Semaphore for a swim which is just over the Port of Adelaide, so should be a chill out day.

Thursday 10 March - Off we toddled to Mount Lofty to the lookout to take photos overlooking Adelaide and its surrounds, but as usual when we go to a lookout it was cloudy and dull so photos very uninteresting.

After that we headed up to Hahndorf and walked around the German Village from one end to the other. We had lunch, John wanted his Kransky and Sauerkraut roll that he had last year when we were up there and I ended up with a spud with bacon, sour cream and cheese. It is a nice little village very similar to Mount Tamborine. I didn't bother taking photos as I got a lot last year when we were up there.
After we exhausted Hahndorf we went up to Woodside where they have a huge confectionery shop, it is called Melbas where I bought my chocolate covered sultanas and John got his dark chocolate peppermint crisp, Mmmmmmm. We then headed up to Birdswood for a drive and decided to head back home, but managed to get lost, so we got to see lots of country side and lots of terrible windy blind cornered roads. The signposts or lack of did not help us at all. We have noticed in South Australia a really bad lack of signage or signs right on top of where you need to turn off, so if you blink you will miss it.
So no signs made for a very stressful trip home. To make matters worse the drivers over here are idiots, they only know one speed and that is flat out, there is little chance of making right hand turns as there is no let up in oncoming traffic it just keeps coming at 100klm an hour at you and to make matters worse when you do get a green light you have to wait until at least 4 cars go through red signals first before you can move. You do not get right hand turn green arrows between certain hours which happen to be peak times, it is horrific. We got home this afternoon and just sat down, John with his beer and me with my wine, we desperately needed to chill out.
Tomorrow we are thinking of going into the city of Adelaide, but there is a bus that leaves outside the park here and guess who will be on it, you guessed it these two little bunnies. Apparently if you do drive into town you are very unlikely to find a car park and a lot of the parking stations roofs are that low you won't fit, so fingers crossed tomorrow is less stressful.

Today - Wednesday 9 March, we headed off to Levi Park which is 5 klm outside of the city of Adelaide. Before we headed off we had a broken brake light to contend with and had to call in to auto pro and replace the bulb. So slow start to the day but we made it. When we checked in to the caravan park the woman taking our details informed us she was working around Australia with her husband and that she lived at Pacific Pines, so again what a small world.
We went for a drive around town after setting up to get a feel for where things were, and walked down from the park to a lovely walk along the Torrens River. John then found First Choice liquor store as the beer is a lot more expensive over here so he was pleased when he saw First Choice.

Goolwa

Well we are at Goolwa in South Australia not far from Victor Harbour. It is a great caravan park, real grassy and shady, very nice and best of all it is in the low 30 degrees, yeah warmth at last. We have even had two swims in the park pool.
On the way here we stopped for a coffee break on the side of the road where there was a replica of an oil rig. Whilst we were there a car pulled up and four people got

out and started taking photos of the rig and we started talking, it turned out that three of the people were tourist from America that were being shown around our country by a guy that came from Woonona. Then when we got to the caravan park we started talking to another couple and they come from Helensburgh, so it is a small world.
After settling in we headed up to Hindmarsh Island to have a look at the mouth of the Murray, the Murray was running out into the ocean fairly fast. We called in to a fresh fish market and bought some Mullaway it was delicious.
Today we headed down to Victor Harbour and walked around the town, went out to different points and took photos of Parsons Beach, Waitpinga Beach and Newland Head, it was just a long blue ocean.
We headed home for a swim and then went to have a look at Goolwa Barrage (which is an ajustable dam) as they need to stem the flow of the water going out into the ocean and try and preserve some of the water for the various towns and to stop the salt water going into the lake.
After that we went to have a look at Goolwa Beach which is a lovely long blue strip of ocean. It was very tempting until I read the sign, Rough Surf, Strong Currents (well that was OK) BUT - Snakes (I don't think so).
Tomorrow we will head up to Milang, last year when we were there there was some lovely old beach houses with jetties and the sign on the jetties said "no diving off the jetty" what was really funny was the fact that there was no water to be seen as they hadn't had a decent lot of water go through there in years, so it should be a different story tomorrow, so it should be interesting what we might find.

Robe

Well it is Friday and we were nearly at Portland when the road side said Portland this way or Mt Gambia straight ahead, John looked over to me and said what do you think? I said it didn't matter which way we went, what did he want to do and he said "well we are heading into cold weather just like we have had for the last week, so lets try South Australia and see it our luck changes.
So we got to Mt Gambier and it was really cold and we knew that the next stop we really wanted to be at was Goolwa which was going to be a long one day trip from Mt Gambier and we would probably need a stopover somewhere, so we decided to go a bit further and ended up at Robe.
We stayed at the same place we stopped when we were there last year, it is quite a pretty spot there, so we checked out the beaches which were far too cold to swim in and just chilled out for two nights, when I say chilled I mean it in more ways than one.
They catch huge amounts of lobster at Robe, just looking at all the rock formations it is easy to see why.

So Sunday morning we are off to Goolwa.