Victoria’s Gold Fields

It has been a long time between posts for me, and of course editing the kids’stuff and adding photos from the various devices has been difficult to get to, but now I am almost caught up with their efforts and need to do some of my own.

There is always something to fix when you’re camping, and I am pretty sure that I could fill my time 100% with making everything work the way it should, but I am leaving that for a separate post for those who may be interested.

I last posted from Mildura where it was hot and sunny and from where we visited Lake Mungo among other places. We escaped the heat and headed south to the Grampians, where we camped near Halls Gap. Sarah has given a pretty good account of our time there. I enjoyed the camping and we were not far out of town, so taking care of some of the chores (like getting water).

The Plantation Camp Ground had a great view of the nearest part of the Grampians. It also had a couple of bucket showers – they had a spear into the creek and plenty of fresh but non-potable water. The cold water from the tap was too cold for showering (in my opinion) so we added some hot water for each bucket and everyone got through without catching their deaths.

We had a few fires at this camp site too. Fires have been a bit more rare than I might have expected before we left home – often it is still daylight when we’re heading to bed (long twilights + daylight savings) so the fire seems a bit pointless if you’re sitting around it in the daytime. It has also often been too cold to sit by the fire (too windy mainly) or too wet, or too windy to be allowed to light a fire – or sometimes we’re just staying somewhere where no fires are allowed.

We moved from Halls Gap to Mt Franklin which was a great campsite. The morning walks here with the dog involved walking up to the ridge which was the rim of the old volcano and walking along the ridge through the trees. We were always on our own which is pretty much the way I like my morning walks. I am sure the dog would prefer some doggy company, but too bad, so sad!

We had a few fires while we were at Mt Franklin and I cooked up the Jamie Oliver Isolation Pizza in the camp oven. It has become a bit of a favourite with the kids, including our most fussy eater who may not know exactly what I am putting on his pizza (although he is quite vigilant about picking off anything that he suspects may be a vegetable.

From Mt Franklin we headed to Hammond Road North Campground which is close by to the south coast with access to the Great Ocean Road. The practicalities of always needing a campsite are more time consuming than I might have guessed before starting to travel. When it comes to long weekends and school holidays you have to be on top of your game to ensure you have somewhere to stay.

We’re always shooting for free camping, and when it comes to the Great Ocean Road, it is the only affordable option. The paid campgrounds along the coast are quite expensive. 

As a consequence of seeking affordable camping, we have found some superb places to camp (by “we” I mean Sarah – who currently has a 100% record on campsite selection). The Hammond Road campsite was our third free camp week in a row. We’d had shade, cloud or rain for a fair bit of time over the course of the three weeks, and the juice in the batteries was getting pretty low, so when we were deciding where to go after Hammonds Road, we decided on a paid and powered site where we could get everything back on track. 

There had been no internet coverage (of use) in Hammond Road, and this meant a couple of days in the Torquay Library for Sarah who needed to get her work done. We were out of power for the computers as well, so were really trying to scrape through and hoping that the fridge power would last until we got to the mains power to plug everything in and recharge the batteries.

Colac Showgrounds was a very enjoyable place to stay – the town offered a fair few options for the morning walks including the lakeside botanical gardens. We even treated ourselves to a takeaway curry on our last night before heading down to the coast again.

We’re now here in Johanna Beach campground, which is a Vic Parks campground – not free, but cheap and all the Vic Park camp sites seem to be in great locations. 

Sarah has been able to get on two legs of the Great Ocean Walk through the Otway National Park, with one more to do on Friday, which will end at the Twelve Apostles.

We have had a couple of days of sunshine, so no power issues for the moment, and our internet aerial on a pole gives us working internet – which is not of much import to Sarah this week, since she is having the week off, but it is helpful to the rest of us who still need to work and catch up on our diaries.