Update from Gold Coast, Queensland

We are now on the Gold Coast, staying with one of Dave's lovely relatives and our tour of oz so far really has been about catching up with family :) ha ha  It's been a couple of weeks since Apollo Bay, so here is an update of what we've been doing:

Apollo Bay, Wednesday 13th March:
We did a 8.8km walk along the coast of Apollo Bay and it was Beautiful. The landscape varied so much from sandy beaches to rocky beaches, open grassland to little gullies of cool trees. We had the lovely company of Christine who we met at Johanna and her two little dogs Jo and Taz. The dogs sniffed out an Echidna on the beach and we got some photos, it wasn't shy at all and came towards the camera.... they are such an adorable creature.

14th March we left Apollo Bay and drove along the Great Ocean Road towards Melbourne, absolutely beautiful. We drove inland after awhile and camped at a free camp site somewhere in the Otway Ranges. Next day we headed to Pakenham for the Caravan's Service - we did a bit of shopping and catch up with family and friends in the area.

19th March, we left Packers and made our way to Paynesville to stay with Dave's Cousin Casey and her lovely family. Casey gave us a tour around the local sites the next day - really beautiful place. On 21st March we caught the ferry across to Raymond Island and did a 3 hour walk... a bit pooped but scenery worth it. It also meant we could have a Scallop Mornay pie when we got the ferry back to Paynesville - YUM!!

  there's fish in there!

Family Pic!  :)

Dave inspecting the water at Ramrod Creek/River

This road sign was on Raymond Island, I've never seen one before. "If you must take a horse & jinker, keep the pace to a respectable 40 km/h please".  Love it.

On Friday 22nd March we left Paynesville (Thanks guys for a lovely stay xxoo) and we headed along the coast road towards NSW. The countryside around there is beautiful, it is a wonderful drive and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. We stayed the night in Genoa at a free camping ground which the local community made available to travellers. Really nice place. Next morning we made our way to Canberra - further along the coast and left at Bega.

The drive from Bega to Cooma has been one of the best drives that Dave and I have ever done. Beautiful countryside and because the maximum speed we could go up the hills/mountains was 25km/h, we got to see it :)  Our Silver chariot did a fantastic job towing our home up those hills, real little trooper, chug, chug, chug. Dave was suitably impressed. Arriving at Cooma on the other side of Brown Mountain we had the best coffee at a cafe there (40 Cafe I think it was called) and it perked us up for the rest of the drive to Canberra.

Sunday 24th March we went to the War Memorial, National Museum and Parliament House. Would have seen more, but Canberra is a bit hard to navigate, you just keep going round and round and round. Everything is tucked away too, so when you're starving and need much required refreshments you can't see anything from the road and murder is nearly committed............. but anyhoo, nice place :)

view from the War Memorial at Canberra looking down Anzac Parade to Parliament House.

We did a tour at the War Memorial with a volunteer guide, this guy knew his stuff. Some of the stories were amazing and I felt like crying on a number of occasions ; at the futility of war but also the beauty of the best of human nature.


 bronze statue of a 'water carrier' from Gallipoli
 (our tour guide is on the right of the statue - great stuff)

So, whilst in Canberra and by the beauty of that scourge 'facebook', we discover that another of Dave's cousins is living there, so we caught up with them on Sunday night and had a great time. We really should call this the 'Gibbo's Family Reunion of Oz'  :)

Monday 25th March we left Canberra, turning right and heading for the coast. Drove around (wide around) Sydney and past Newcastle and stopped at Raymond Terrace at a Truck stop on the side of the Pacific Highway for the night..... um, it was noisy.... "I'm sorry Dave, did you say goodnight?" Jo yelled from the other side of the bed they both occupied.

7am the next morning, we're outta there, after minimal sleep. We're making our way to the Gold Coast to stay with Dave's Aunty and we want to get there before Easter so we have a definite place to stay over that chaotic/school holiday period. And, after 11 hours of Dave driving and me snoring in the co-pilot seat (hey, it's exhausting constantly supplying mints and water to the driver and providing directions - whether required or not!!) we arrived at said Aunty's place. Yeah!! It's been 4 years since we've seen them and it is great to be here. Beautiful place and people. :)

Well, that's us up to date. Tours of the Gold Coast and surrounds await us :) 

Cathedral Ranges, Johanna & Apollo Bay

We have internet access and power for the lap top - yeah!!!  Looks like the blogging won't be too regular depending on connections etc, but it will just keep you all in suspenders :)

Soooo, 2 weeks ago now, we were in Fawcett staying with friends (who I can't mention or they would have to kill you) :) and we had a great time catching up with them and exploring the Cathedral Ranges near by. Beautiful place, here are the pics: 

 Snobs Creek was the first stop for our day of exploring. An old Fly Fishing haunt of Dave's from quite a few years back. aaaaah the memories..

 the view from Snob's Creek at the waterfalls.

We then went to Rubicon, at the camp ground there and also a river.... some drooling and a little line dropping there..... nothing caught though.

 Our first Snake siting - Dave nearly stepped on it in fact. At the Cathedral Ranges at the top car park, right near the "You Are Here" sign. Suffice to say, we didn't really know where we were because reading the sign from 2 meters away is a bit hard...

Me on a walk at Cathedral Ranges.

 Dave on a Rock at the Cathedral Ranges - doesn't he look majestic!!!!!  lot's of stomping around happened first before getting up there, very snake wary by now.

 Cheviot Tunnel near Yea-ish I think. Use to be a railway line that took all the wood out of the place to ....... another place....... history mate, love it!!

but cool tunnel

another photo of me....... a "hey Jo!" photo I believe...


We left our lovely friends at Fawcett on Sunday 3rd of March and made our circuitous route to Johanna - we went through Ballarat. We did stop in Ballarat to do some grocery shopping - do you know how handy it has to have your home with you when you've finished shopping - straight into the fridge and cupboards!!!! You do take up about 5 carparks, but hey, we gave someone out there an oppurtunity to tut that day :)


On that Sunday night we stayed outside of Ballarat at a place called Smythesdale. It was a lovely campground that you only had to make a donation to stay there. Run by the local community for the local community - really cool.

Early Monday morn, we set off for Johanna - yeah.

How

Beautiful

 is this Beach at Johanna? it is stunning!!!!!!

our first sunset at Johanna.... so relaxing and beautiful

our home all set up.... A P.B. with the annexe, only 1& 1/2 hours this time!! Woo Hoo!! Definitely beer worthy when finished..

We think these might have been penguins - view from up top on the Great Ocean Walk,  a huge walk you can do along a part of the Great Ocean Rd coast - I believe we did approximately..... 1-2km of it.. but the views were amazing :)

we relaxed a fair bit at Johanna, it was quite warm, but we also got a beautiful sea breeze which cooled us down at night. On the Thursday we went for a walk at Melba Gully, about 1/2 hour from Johanna. It was about a 30 minute walk in this Gully full of fern trees, a little creek and some big trees. It was also a bit cooler there too which was delightful.

Dave's figured out how to do the timer on the camera so there's photos of both of us now :)

good job again Dave!

                                                                                 


                                                                    here I am being stumped!

 a huge tree had fallen over and the insides had rotted out, this is looking down the middle of it.

 It's MY beach!!! Actually, there was a ship wrecked on the coast here which was called Joanna!!!!  the survivors eventually got help and they then named the Beach Johanna, spelling it wrong!!!  so it is My beach....... and for those in the know..... there is a Stafford Rd there too! Hey! It's mine!!!!

Anyhoo, come Friday and the start of the Labour Day long weekend, well, every man, woman, child and dog descended on Johanna. Seriously, when we arrived on the Monday I thought there were too many people there (because I love people so), but come Saturday morning, there were caravans, motorhomes, vans and tents everywhere. And I mean everywhere, the Day carpark area was valuable real estate!!

We survived the long weekend and the hordes, we meet some lovely people at Johanna earlier in the week and visited their camp a bit, Dave had bit of a jam with them too which was cool. On the Monday (yesterday) we set off for Marengo Caravan Park, just outside of Apollo Bay to fill up on water, do some clothes washing and have a lovely high pressure shower.... aaaaaaaaaaahhh! don't mind the wasps though, they're all hunky dory :)

Today we went to the Otway Tree Top Walk - it was Cool (both in fun terms and temperature - I believe it was 37C in Melbourne, so very cool!) It was really good. It was really high - and being a height scaredy, I had the brown undies on - but, it wasn't too bad. I even went up a spiral tower thingy.... I held on at the top, but the view truly was amazing, worth the brown undies :)

 

turn your head to the left

couldn't call it a smile, but there's a glimmer in the eyes!!

knarly dude! (I know, it's not good, but I had to)

So, that's us up to date. Wednesday tomorrow and we leave Apollo Bay and make our way to Pakenham... Packers you say, why the hell are you going to Packers? we have our first Caravan service next week, so off to Packers it is. A drop into 'ol Franga while the van is serviced and buy some needed items we have figured out we need :)
It's just over 3 weeks in and we are loving it.... we truly are. The friends we caught up with said we looked really relaxed, which was nice to hear, because we are... no thoughts of work as yet, but soon :). After Pakenham, we will be making our way along the coast up to the Gold Coast to catch up with Dave's rellies, this time we will be going slowly, slowly, so we can stop at a spot and explore if we want to, not like in the past when it's been a rush to get up there. Can't wait to see them (and the other rellies in Paynesville along the way:) )
to all our friend reading this who love the English Language and Punctuation as much as me.... I apologise.... seriously, the time it takes to write this shit  stuff negates me going over it again :)