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 :)