Koonoomoo

It was great to see Sally again, although for the first few days she was flat out at work, luckily there were also a range of things to wander around and explore during the days.

The kids enjoyed a big quagmire in the driveway outside the house and slowly built up a landscape during our visit. Obviously some things from our travels made significant impacts with volcanoes (following visiting the Volcano Centre in Penshurst) and tornadoes (after watching a willy-willy make its way down a Melbourne street) kept appearing, wiping our significant parts of the town sites they had created.

We headed into Colac and Tocumwal one day. Tocumwal we found extremely interesting as the river clearly showed the impacts of the major rainfall received previously. Max was staggered by the pole that had floated it’s concrete footings out of the ground and drifted down the river. We also explored a boat mooring area where the water was still significantly higher than the moorings – in fact there was a ladder up to a jetty area, with the ladder completely under water.

The following day we drove back to Shepperton and spent the first hour wandering around a Mooving Art (painted fibreglass cows) display in one of the parks. We also went for a drive around the SPC Ardmona facility to try and get a handle on exactly how big an operation it is and then went and stocked up at the factory outlet. Finally we drove out to ‘Kidstown’, a massive children’s playground.

The playground makes the Donnybrook Apple park look like a tiddler – and is also better put together with most play elements linked together so that it feels like one giant play piece rather than a number of individual play elements co-located, but separate.

It has also been built to have relevance to the local industries, with one section made to look like it is built out of apple packing boxes and another paying tribute to the local dairy farmers. Many parts of the park have also been sponsored by local businesses which adds to its ‘friendly feel’. In the end the kids agreed that this was definitely the best playground they had ever visited!

Our last full day in Koonoomoo was spent with Sally – luckily work had finally slowed down a little.

She took us down the the ‘Big Strawberry”, a local cafe that had been built as an outlet for the strawberry farm opposite her house. Originally they had had coaches visiting the strawberry farm itself, however the roads and farm entry didn’t really suit the coaches so they had recently built the shop front at the main Koonoomoo crossroads.

e had lunch there which was beautiful and watched the couple next door to us order strawberry sundaes for dessert, which looked like they would take a good day to eat when they came out. They weren’t just huge however, they also looked beautiful – with the whole thing bordered by big, fresh strawberries.

We followed lunch with a visit to the horse training property Sally works on. This was another chance for the kids to gain yet another new experience, including attempting to crack a whip! The property itself was beautifully maintained and appeared well thought out.

Next morning it was time to head off for the Snowy’s – sad to leave Sally but exciting to continue the adventure.

…and we (finally) leave Melbourne

Following the break-in, departure from Melbourne ended up being delayed by 2 days, with the rear window being fixed that afternoon, but one of the two struts holding it in place also needing replacing and not being available until the following afternoon.

It turned out that when I explained the damage over the phone to Windows O’Brien the girl I was talking to decided that instead of ordering the strut in at the same time as the window, they would wait to ensure the strut was actually damaged (even though I had explained that it more resembled a pretzel than a strut). This meant that it then was impossible to get the strut in until the following afternoon. To top it off they asked me to bring the car back in at 2pm the following day to get the strut repaired, promising that they would call should the time need to be changed and then left me waiting around for an hour before it arrived (following being told that it would take an hour for the repairs the day before and then waiting around for over two hours I was pretty happy with the service at this stage).

One outcome of being held up for the extra days was that Harry could celebrate his actual birthday in Melbourne with Iris and Grady. He actually thought the thieves had done us a favour and was quite happy with them smashing into the car.

Finally, on Friday we managed to set off. First stop was Strath Creek, for a quick lunch in the park and then we moseyed up the road to find the Hume and Hovell Cricket Ground - http://www.humeandhovell.com.au/.

Some 4 years earlier, while on a flight back to WA from Canberra I was chatting to the lady sitting next to me. Part way into the flight, after finding that we were heading back to Victoria as a family for the following Christmas, she asked me if I followed cricket and then told me about this beautiful, private cricket ground north of Melbourne, built and owned by her cousin. She then provided the details of her cousin and the ground and insisted that we drop in to visit it.

Sadly, on that trip we didn’t ever manage to get close enough to visit, so thought we would make a special effort this time around. When we arrived there we were directed up to the main house by a man working doing some repairs around the front gate. Before we had even managed to get to the front door Don (the owner) was out greeting us. He then proceeded to show us around the main part of the grounds itself and opened up the club house for us to look through. The tour included a very healthy history of the ground and was a wonderful interlude in the days travels.

Following this we kept going up through Shepperton to my Aunt Sally’s place in Koonoomoo. After I had extricated myself from a bog hole commonly referred to as her driveway we set up camp for another few nights and prepared for a second round of catch-ups.

Melbourne

We decided early on that when we reached places like Melbourne on this trip we would focus more on catching up with friends than worrying about trying to race around seeing ‘sights’. Obviously we have all been to Melbourne before, and will visit again.

This has been even more important while here as we have a number of friends we want to spend some time with, all with kids around the same ages as ours.

On Saturday we ventured up in to the Dandenong’s to a park for lunch with one of Liz's cousins and his family and Liz’s best friend from her school days and her family. The view was spectacular, the kids all had a marvellous time and on the way home we stopped in at the William Rickett’s Sculpture Park, which was really interesting, well interpreted and surprisingly well received by the kids as well.

Sadly, some of our visiting was curtailed as on the way home from friends on Sunday I started to feel unwell and ended up spending the following day in bed with a nasty bug – but yesterday dawned and all was well in the world again, therefore I took the kids into Melbourne itself via tram and we wandered around in a fairly unstructured way. Stops included the ANZ building, which Harry asked if we could have a look inside. This was while Liz was still with us (before she left for a slightly less strenuous and more relaxing day) and what a great call it was. The building had been maintained in largely original form with historical displays also incorporated into the customer waiting areas.

Following this we split up and during our wanders the kids and I managed to spend almost an hour perusing Bernard’s Magic Shop. Finally, after a few hours we made it to the Melbourne Museum, which included the Tutankhamen touring exhibition, however due to the elongated route we took to get there we decided it wasn’t worth going in given the amount of time we had left to actually look over it. This was an easy decision for the kids I think as we also hadn’t yet had lunch (our original intention was to be home for lunch so we were a little under-prepared).  Luckily there was a small display in the foyer of the museum that included an overview of the science behind unravelling the young Pharaoh's life (and death) which kept the kids riveted and made the visit worth it on it’s own.

On the way home we stopped next-door the the school of Grady and Iris (who we have been staying with) at a playground which I think could be the finest I have ever come across. Max agrees with this however Harry thinks the Donnybrook Playground outshines it as this one doesn’t have a large climbing frame. Last time we were in Melbourne the kids spent many hours there (however it was summer that time which meant it rained considerably less!) and I thought they should at least have the opportunity to run around on it once this trip. The playground is predominantly made out of wood (rather than the plastic and metal construction of most around these days), was community sponsored and all elements interlink brilliantly, making it into one huge affair rather than a number of discreet elements all arranged in close proximity to each other.

That night we went out for a birthday dinner for Harry. While his birthday wasn’t for a couple of more days he really wanted to celebrate it around the kids he had been playing with all week rather than on his own on the road. Given that we are intending to leave this morning (I say intending for a reason and will get to that soon) it was also a good chance to spend a final evening with both of Liz’s cousins and their families, who had shown us great hospitality over the past week.

Sadly, this morning started a little earlier than I was intending (hence the early morning post – I am now fully awake and trying to find things I can do without disturbing everyone else.

At 5am I hear a couple of people talking outside on the pavement (canvas walls don’t stop a lot of sound). While this wasn’t a big deal given the number of people walking and jogging in this area before work, the fact that I am a fairly light sleeper sometimes has it’s benefits. Just as I was about to put my head down again I heard a window smash and bolted out of the caravan. Obviously the people outside heard me coming and by the time i got the door open they were back in their car and heading off (so all I saw was a Nissan Navara D40 ute with canopy – black with silver trim, but no rego…. bugger it). The bad news is that we now have no rear window in the Pathfinder. The good news is that everything else is still there so we will just be a little lighter in the pocket once we cover the insurance excess. Once I had finished speaking to the police, insurance and Windows O’Brien however there wasn’t much point trying to go back to sleep. It has also left us waiting until later this morning to find out what timeframe repairs are likely to take, meaning that we are now unsure whether today is actually leaving Melbourne day or not!

It does also suggest to me that you don’t have to be particularly intelligent to be a thief (attempted in this case anyway). Why would you pick a car sitting within 5 metres of a caravan with canvas walls around the sleeping areas? I would think that that is the least likely place there is to be able to smash a window without disturbing anyone.

Community Style Caravan Parks

Not including highway rest stops, places we have stayed that have had some sort of community element to the ownership and/or management are:

• Broomehill
  
• Kimba
  
• Yacka
  
• Naracoorte
  
• Cavendish
  
• Warrnambool
  
• Princetown

Broomehill is owned and run by the local Shire Council, Kimba was a joint venture between the local Lions and Apex clubs, Naracoorte and Warrnambool are run by Agricultural Societies as pert of the effort to derive additional income from Showgrounds, Princetown and Cavendish are within recreation grounds with the income assisting to fund the sporting facilities while Yacka is part of a local park.
The first one we came across was Broomehill. We thought it was beautifully laid out when we used it, although somewhat separate from the rest of the town which limited the benefits the town received from visitors staying there. As we have continued on I have started to think that it is significantly over-capitalised given that all infrastructure had to be installed from scratch.
All the other have made use of existing infrastructure and co-located the camping areas resulting in campers being more likely to involve themselves in the towns themselves at times. This is especially the case with Cavendish and Warrnambool – Cavendish still has a vibrant winter sporting scene with meals and bar facilities open etc adjacent to camping facilities on weekends that have home game fixtures, while the Warrnambool Showgrounds are also home to the Warrnambool Greyhound Club and weekly markets on Sunday mornings.
In the case of Naracoorte, the power for the camp sites doubles as a power source for local markets and for show days, while Kimba hasn’t required a great deal of additional infrastructure at all as no utilities are available directly to camping area itself meaning that all the facilities that have been built are provided as much for locals using the park as they are for visitors.
The outcome is an opportunity for virtually every town across Australia. Rarely does a place not have sporting facilities, all of which are always looking for every opportunity to increase their sources of revenue to assist with upkeep. Given that they already generally have toilet and shower facilities all that is really left to provide is some 15amp power sockets and maybe an adjacent water tap and all major camping requirements are met. Any additional infrastructure (bbq’s, children’s playgrounds etc) should either already be available or able to be positioned over time so that it is available for use by the sporting users as well as campers. By being able to charge between $10-20 a night for a site, rather than the considerably higher charges generally encountered at commercial parks the facilities themselves can be very attractive, while still bringing in valuable income to the sporting associations.
Additionally, there is every chance that those campers in occupation on game days (and sometimes training days as well) will utilise kitchen/kiosk/bar offerings providing a further source of income.

A Uni Experience

Yesterday was mainly about a chance to take stock following a fairly full-on start to the trip. Washing and cleaning up took priority, especially given the wet weather we had experienced over the past couple of weeks.

last night however I ventured off to uni for the first time in about 18 years. having been undertaking my Master of Economic development for the last 3 years, this was the first chance I had had to attend a lecture. For a country lad from WA, who had attended the little Muresk campus of Curtin University (located half way between Northam and York), the Melbourne campus of RMIT was a slightly different experience.

It was also funny to see the look on some of the faces of the other students when i (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) mentioned that I had fired up a diesel engine and done 6,000km in 7 weeks purely to attend a lecture on environmental sustainability. It would be fair to say that there was a level of shock mixed with outrage until they realised that it wasn’t actually a fair representation of what had brought me to Melbourne.

Today has been all about commencing my last assignment for this unit – with the opportunity to catch up on blog entries coming while I am waiting on reference resources to download.

It has also been very enjoyable catching up with Sharon once again. Circumstances have changed significantly since e last stayed with her but the welcome is just the same.

Happily, now that I am up-to-date again with the blog I can turn my sites on a post I have been wanting to do regarding community camping sites. Many of the places we have stayed have been run by community organisations as opposed to full commercial operations and the similarities and difference have been very interesting, so next post hopefully might let me explore the benefits and drawbacks to these – especially from an ED perspective.

Great Ocean Road(ish)

Next morning we packed up from Princetown and headed off towards Melbourne, unsure whether Melbourne would be reached that night or another stop would be required along the way. The intention was to follow the coast pretty much the whole way, however just after visiting Triplett Falls, I missed a turn. We ended up coming to a sign saying no caravans etc. at an intersection so thought we had better stay on the road we were on for the moment, however it turned out that the sing was actually referring to the road we were on, meaning we were supposed to have turned onto the cross street. The outcome however was definitely a road we weren’t going to turn a caravan around on so we continued on. This was a lucky outcome for us as it turned out as we ended up travelling about 30km straight through the Otway’s along a winding track that made the Nannup to Balingup road look straight. While we rarely got above 30 km/hr and added about an hour to the journey it was worth every extra minute and kilometre. We were extremely surprised to find a rain forest so far South as we had no idea it actually existed.
Eventually we managed to get ourselves back to the coast with only a little of the coastline actually bypassed. The only town we had passed by was Apollo Bay. Continuing down the GOR we found that the topography, while no less magnificent, was starting to change markedly. We had plenty of time to take in the scenery as we seemed to be stopped every kilometre or so as major roadworks were being undertaken through this stretch. It appears that a number of landslides have occurred either side of the road causing major damage.
Eventually we reached Lorne for lunch, by which time I think the kids were about ready to start eating the headrests off the car! At this point we were still tossing up whether to stay the night somewhere nearby or continue on, but I think to choice between a night-time set in Melbourne where I could set up while Liz was inside having a cuppa with her cousin Sharon or an additional set-up and pack-up along the road was fairly easy for Liz. So off we set once again.
As we left Lorne we once again hit the issue of me trying to drive and keep an eye out for the sights along the way as I missed the turn onto the GOR and headed up a small side street. his didn’t seem to be too much of an issue as I had the GPS on to keep an eye on the road conditions and it was showing a number of upcoming streets leading back down to the coastal road. At each one however I found that no road existed and I would have had to drive through someone's lounge room if I was to follow the GPS’s directions. Therefore we once again set off on a detour, which resulted in us having to deal with about 40 odd kilometres of sweeping valley views. Again the benefits of driving without any real deadlines of exacting destinations was proven as this would have been enough to almost get me divorced in the normal course, but became a very pleasant detour in this instance. A number of tracks later and we found ourselves at Airey’s Beach meaning that it had taken us about an hour to go not far – but as I said a pleasant hour and well pleased I had taken the wrong turn.
At this point we started to consider whether we should just jump on the freeway and head straight into Melbourne, however Liz had really wanted to see what Bell’s Beach was all about so I ignored several calls (mainly from the kids) to get the drive over with and kept on going. Bell’s was interesting, but ultimately a little disappointing. I think our expectations were probably unrealistic however due to being used to the Margaret River area. From there we only had to tool through Torquay for Liz to have ticked all the boxes as far as point’s of interest went in that area and we were off on the freeway.
Finally Ascot Vale was reached which did indeed result in Liz getting to test the inside of a house for the first time since we left Esperance and me getting to set the van up in the dark. Watching the kids catching up with Grady and Iris was the most fantastic part of this night. After having nort seen each other for long enough that they didn’t really remember each other Max and Iris, and Harry and Grady, were paired off like long lost pals.

Princetown

After setting out from Warrnambool, first stop was Cheese World. When we got there we found it was somewhat more commercial than places we had visited before. The kids however thought the tastings were fantastic and each ended up purchasing a cheddar – Max and Chilli Cheddar and Harry a Tomato and Chive. Where Cheese World had it over other places was a partnership they had in place with the Warrnambool Historical Society to house their displays. This meant that an old engine exhibition and a small museum of early settlers artefacts and early cheese and butter making paraphernalia were also available to visitors to browse through.

After Cheese World we set off down the Great Ocean Road properly, with the aim being to have a look at places of interest for the first half and then motor straight into Princetown and come back to places like the 12 Apostles the next day. The scenery was fantastic and the countryside was beautiful.

At Princetown we pulled into the camping reserve, which turned out to double as the local cricket ground, with camp sites around the perimeter. This was a very popular stopping point with a full-time caretaker on site and at least 7 other sites taken when we got there. The bravest was the people set up in a large tent, which looked cold enough before I found out that they had been a stopping station for a walking group who had set off to do a 100km walk in a day. Apparently they came through Princetown at some stupid time in the morning for drinks and food and then kept on going. Given that the weather was terrible it can’t have been much fun. Anyway the people manning the tent ended up staying an additional night to make the packing up easier rather than having to rush through it, but I reckon it would have been pretty cold in a thin tent on an unpowered site.

That evening Harry and Liz were pretty tuckered out so Max and I took off for a couple of hours before tea. In the end we drove back to Port Campbell and dropped into a pub hoping to catch part of the Eagles/Dockers derby. When we got there however they had a delayed telecast of Richmond/Bulldogs on instead (bloody Victorians!!!), but we still enjoyed seeing the first quarter of football since we had set off.

Later that morning Harry was very excited. When he got up to got to the loo he found the oval covered in kangaroos. These stayed around until mid-morning without too much concern for the people camping. One of them was huge and they all looked a little strange as they are obviously slightly different to those we are used to with a shorter muzzle and rounder torso.

After breakfast we set off back down the Great Ocean Road, stopping at Gibson's Steps first. The kids had a ball on the beach here with water seeping down the cliff face, waves rolling in, driftwood and feathers all over the beach and plants clinging to impossible looking surfaces.

Next on the list was the 12 Apostles itself. While it took some of the spontaneity out of the exercise I was very impressed with the way this site was set up. Given the number of visitors it would get the potential for both environmental degradation and injuries and accidents would be very high. Having a very structured set of path and lookouts obviously mitigates both of these issues.

Loch Ard Gorge was next on the list. The Loch Ard was one of the coastlines most tragic early shipwrecks, with only two people surviving. Given the piece of coast that they were wrecked on even two people is somewhat of a miracle. For me this was also one of the most spectacular spot we stopped through this part of the journey.

At this point the kids were pretty much over the coast line so we headed for Timboon which was supposed to have a funky little cheese factory. When we got there we found that we had arrived on a day in which it wasn’t opening, which was a shame as it looked to be beautifully laid out and even the name ‘Mousetrap’ was attractive. we therefore decided to work our way back to camp for lunch, pleased with the scenery we had wandered over, through and around, but disappointed we had been unable to locate both the cheese factory and GORGE Chocolates, which Liz had seen a sign for the previous evening, but which so far had alluded our attentions.

After lunch we set out with the primary intention of finding the chocolate factory. As we made our way back down the GOR we found that our first error had been in missing a turn of the road. Where we had thought that a sign was telling us that the chocolate factory was 7 km’s further down the road it was actually telling us it was 7 km’s down a cross street. Feeling much better about our wayfinding ability we set of invigorated, only to find that we had been straight past the front door of it on our way back to the campsite for lunch earlier. We consoled ourselves with the fact that the signage on the property itself was awful and found on talking with  the owner that they were in the process of moving premises, having only bought the business itself a couple of months earlier.

While there, we were discussing our dismal late morning, with a closed cheese factory and then completely missing GORGE chocolates. The owner then told us that until buying the chocolate business she had been the cheesemaker for Apostle Whey Cheeses which was only a few k’s further up the road. After everybody ahd finished purchases (everybody other than me that is – I believe the chocolate was beautiful too but am purely going on conjecture since none of my family was polite enough to offer me even a small piece!!).

Apostle Whey Cheese turned out to be a small cottage industry set up on a 250 cow dairy with the majority of the mild sold on and only a small percentage maintained for their own cheese making enterprise. The cheeses here were based on soft brie’s and camembert’s, havarti’s, blue’s and fetta’s. Harry was very taken with the pepper Havarti while Max couldn’t leave without a slab of the smellier of the blue’s. The outcome appears to be a shift from Liz’s original intention of doing as taste test of Australia’s Vanilla Slice’s to a cheese and chocolate tour. Interestingly, my father provided the kids with a weekly allowance on top of their normal pocket money to make sure that they were covered for ice creams and lollies on the trip. As it has turned out it has become predominantly a cheese allowance, however we will see if this changes once we work our way into warmer climes.

The trip to the cheese makers finished by watching the dairy in operation, which was probably the first time the kids had ever seen a large scale milking occur.

Warrnambool

On the way to Warrnambool we stopped at the Penshurst Volcano Centre – another discovery based entirely around deciding to drive around the town for a look – and another very well put together, community run centre.

After spending time looking through then volcanic history of the area we decided on a trip to the top of Mt Rouse on the way out of town, which turned out to be a little more of an adventure than we had originally intended. We climbed up to the top from the carpark and the kids had a wonderful time running about, then, as we went to wander down again Liz asked me to take some photo’s as she was having problems keeping the camera still in the wind.

By the time we got to the bottom of the stairs the kids were nowhere to be seen, so I guessed they had already made their way down to the carpark. With the rain starting to come in I ran down to let them into the car and bring it up to pick Liz up before she got wet (we had found that the turnaround at the foot of the stairs was just big enough for us to get the caravan around), however still no kids. I drove up to Liz and then set off down a walk trail thaqt leads around the Mt until it reaches Penshurst below as that was the only other possible place they could have gone, as the wind and rain picked up I decided that a brisk run might be in order. Eventually I reached a fork in the track with no idea which way they would have gone so started my way back up hoping they would have appeared by then. My trip up the Mt started at a brisk trot, slowed to a brisk walk and finished as an agonised, wheezing slog due to having set out too fast on the way down and the initial return. Worse still – still no kids. This time I decided I had better go back down again and pick one of the two paths at the fork and see what happened. As I was leaving another family came down from the lookout and I mentioned that if they happened to see two kids in their travels. could they kindly ask them to come back to the car. This was somewhat galling at the time as they had about 5 kids with them and didn’t seem to have misplaced even one!

So, onto the second descent, this time at a much more controlled pace as I figured I was already wet so haste wasn’t going to assist much. When I reached the fork (still without sighting the kids) I figured that up might be the right way, hoping it would come out somewhere near where I had started so that if I didn’t come across them this time I could get Liz to head off back to town and I would take the second option and walk into town to meet her. Luckily for me the path ended coming out in a little parkland area near where we had originally parked so I was able to once again head up to the foot of the stairs, sans kids. When I got back to the car there were the kids – it turned out that my guess had been right and they had started heading back up, looking for the car. When they reached the park however they didn’t recognise it as the carpark and made the decision to start walking down the main access road. Part way down the people I had spoken to at the stairs came across them and sent them back up the Mt where they eventually found the car.

For all the stress involved (and the knackered legs – if we ever wanted a serious place for a cricket pre-season I reckon a week or so up and down Mt Rouse would sort us out! – I have to give credit to Max. By the time they finished their journey Harry was wet, cold, tired and well and truly in tears, yet Max kept him going and made sure he made it all the way back to the car. Apparently Harry had actually had it well before they got off the original trail. It also turned out that the kids had asked if they could do the walk trail but we had misunderstood and thought they had asked if they could walk back to the car – so they didn’t really think we would be missing them until they reached the end of the trail and got a little lost down the access road.

Anyway, after this we made it to Warrnambool – just a little later than intended. This time we were holed up in the showgrounds. Luckily for us we found a spot up against a stand of mature pine trees as the wind while we were there was fierce, with coastal wind warnings in all directions.

Warrnambool itself was very picturesque. The day after arriving we went for a drive up to port Fairy, which was a little underwhelming against what we had been lead to expect, and back around into Koroit for lunch. We then kept on touring around and came across the breakwater which had some magic scenery, although the Antarctic wind, as Max calls them, were well and truly present.

That night the Greyhounds were running at the Showgrounds so we wandered down for a look after dinner. In the end however the cold beat us after just one race and we headed back to the comforts of the van. It was an experience however as none of us had ever been to the dog races before.

The next morning it was time to commence the trip up the Great Ocean Road, so we packed up and set out.

Cavendish

From Naracoorte we headed into Victoria, heading for a small town called Cavendish, where Liz had found a small camping ground that covered all our needs in what appeared to be a quiet, picturesque environment. Cavendish is approximately 25km from Hamilton, where it had been organised for Max to do his NAPLAN testing.

On the way we went through Edenhope and discovered a monument celebrating Australia’s first cricket team to tour England, an Aboriginal team drawn from the people of that area. This was a great lead in to our next stop – Harrow. It had been suggested to us that it was well worth the deviation in to Harrow by Mark Hogan and he was well and truly right. First stop was a small park on the entry to town for lunch.

Within the park was the original log gaol (used in the mid 1880’s) which was still in very solid condition (as Liz can attest to after misjudging the doorway and smacking into it with her head!). There was also an original settler’s cottage that had been relocated to the park with  furnishings intact and  overview of its history included.

In the middle of town is the Johnny Mullagh museum. Johnny Mullagh was considered the best of the touring Aboriginal cricket team and the museum is a fantastic celebration of his achievements, the touring teams story as a whole and the early days of Harrow itself. The man on duty at the museum that day explained that it had originally been set up as a joint venture between the town and the local shire, however recently the shire had wanted to shut it down so the townspeople had been running it for the past year on a wholly voluntary basis and were hoping to be able to continue to do so into the future. I just hope that enough people continue to detour in to make it viable for it to be continued as the display itself is brilliantly put together and the story is one people should be more aware of.

From Harrow we headed into Cavendish itself. The campsite is (was) administered by the local general store. Cavendish was large enough to house a local police station, footy/netball club and primary school, but when talking tot he shopkeeper she told us that they were closing down within a week as they had been unable to sell. The local pub was already community owned as the previous owners were unable to sell that and it was going to close until the community stepped in. It appears to me that there is an opportunity for the community to also take over the general store, combine it with the pub and maintain what I would think are essential services within the town. The fact that towns of this size are in this situation is probably indicative of the smaller distances between major centres in Victoria than we are used to in WA.

The camping grounds turned to be almost better than we were expecting, co-located at the local recreation ground there was 8 powered sites surrounding a well appointed camp kitchen, with almost unlimited unpowered sites available along the river. At $6 per person for the powered sites – with children under 12 free – this was possibly the best value we had found on the trip yet. For a small town the grounds were also well used with there rarely being a night without a couple of other sites being occupied, even though it was starting to get fairly cold and the numbers of travellers was reducing.

Our activities while in Cavendish were reasonably limited with Max having to spend three mornings in Hamilton at school, but we did manage to venture up to Dunkeld and through the Southern Grampions – which were magnificent - one afternoon and also wander around the Wannon Falls for another afternoon. The falls were created through volcanic activity and just beautiful, even on an overcast and drizzly day.

Hamilton itself appeared a very pleasant town.although it was hard to get a handle on its socio-economics. While appearing reasonably affluent in places there was also a feeling of socio-economic pressure when driving and walking around.

While at Cavendish the Auskickers all turned out one evening, which was the first time the kids had a visual reminder that they were missing out on footy this season. I don’t think it worried them however as it was raining and about 6 degrees, so we watched from the sidelines for a while, rugged up in coats and beanies while I also had my hands wrapped around a mug of coffee. It seemed a far better option than being out on the field!

Finally, after ending up staying an extra night on top of our original plans we headed out for Warrnambool.

Naracoorte

And we are on our way again, winding our way out of the hills and down to Naracoorte.
The trip to Naracoorte was supposed to be a leisurely drive with the opportunity to stop occasionally as we went, however after a later than desired start and a fanatical hunt for hot chips that were apparently only able to come from shop with a particular looking storefront the leisurely was removed.
We had already organised to stay at the showgrounds when we arrived and this turned out to be a great move as it was a lovely place to stay and very central to the town, meaning that the bikes got unloaded again. Interestingly, we stayed for four nights without anybody else around even though there was about 24 sites available.
The local visitor centre incorporates a fantastic little museum centred around a history of the Australian wool industry. Relocated around this are an 1800’s woolshed, a small town post office and an old schoolhouse – all set up with original equipment.
Not far out of town are a set of limestone caves, made famous due to the discovery of large scale fossils dating from around 500,000 years ago through the present. The importance of these was demonstrated through the presence of a colleague of David Attenborough’s, along with film crew, while we were there. The interpretive centre that has been built adjoining the caves is a fantastic source of information and the displays of important but extinct parts of our fauna appealed to young and old alike.
After looking at all the available cave tours we decided on the fossil tour, which turned out to be a great decision. Liz and I learnt things about Australia’s animal history that we had never heard of before and the walk through the caves itself was also a valuable and interesting experience.
Sadly Liz wasn’t well for the last day we were in Naracoorte which put paid to our plans to wander through the Coonawarra region and down to Mt Gambier. It did however result in me being able to say that I had visited the Clare Valley, Adelaide Hills, Barossa and Coonawarra without stepping foot into a winery – although I’m not sure I see that as being that much of a positive. For the first time on this trip we were also on something of a timetable which meant we couldn’t spend the extra day needed as Max was due to do his NAPLAN testing in the coming week and Liz had organised for him to do it at the North Hamilton Primary School, therefore it was off to the Hamilton area. I say area as we hadn’t actually yet fixed on where we were staying, but I am sure we will sort that out by the time we arrive!

Hahndorf

The Adelaide Hills are certainly the most picturesque place we have stayed up until now, although some of the rugged beauty we have already passed through rivals it as far as the spectacular goes. One of the outcomes of staying in the Hills was the fact that once again we were without Telstra coverage, something we certainly didn’t expect since we were only 25 km’s from the centre of Adelaide,  but underlines the difference between measuring the coverage as a percentage of the population versus a percentage of the country.

Cudlee Creek Caravan Park turned out to be right on the creek itself, which was a decent sized body of water. It had enormous potential, however isn’t yet taking full advantage of this. Cudlee Creek as a place is different from the perspective that it appears to consist of the caravan park and a co-located tavern, a wildlife park, a cafe and a church – spread out along about 3km’s of road, so there is never any certainty about when you have actually arrive at Cudlee Creek itself.

The caravan park had a large grassed recreation area, plenty of mature trees and a lot of room, but looked somewhat run-down – with the ablutions block being in need of significant work and a number of dilapidated and unused building around. Part of the park also obviously used to be tennis courts, with some of the bitumen still in place and one of the fences remaining, which provided a strange barrier across the middle of the park. It does appear however that the new owners are making an effort to improve the park over time. Personally, the park felt a little like being in Manjimup, with a quite beautiful forest surrounding, but a pervading feeling of dampness ever present.

The first trip we made after spending the afternoon at the Toy Factory was to Hahndorf. I had often heard how beautiful/interesting Hahndorf was but didn’t have any real preconceptions on exactly what to expect. Hahndorf turned out to be a mixture of Dunsborough/Margaret River/Subiaco, but better than all of them. On the way to Hahndorf we visited Melba’s Chocolate Factory in Woodside. This was a fantastic little business which was set out in a very inviting manner. As we had actually got going fairly early in the morning (not one of our normal strengths) we arrived right on opening time, which was a little unfortunate as the kids didn’t see a significant amount of activity in the production areas, but as we were visiting just after Easter this was more than made up for in the kids minds (and Liz’s I think) by the fact that all the left-over Easter stock was half price. This resulted in us walking out with significantly more packets than we had intended. Next door to Melba’s was Woodside Cheese Wrights which was much more up my alley. The lady running it was exceptionally generous with her tastings and in the end we bought more than we probably should have, but part of it was based on the fact that we thought she should at least recoup the value of the full morning tea she had provided to the kids by way of the tastings. This was also the first time I had enjoyed goat’s cheese which proves rather than not liking goat’s cheese itself, I had obviously just not tried decent cheese before. As we walked out Max decided that while Melba’s had been a good place to visit he had enjoyed the Cheese Wrights far more.

Next on the list was Beerenberg’s, which was the other side of Hahndorf. There were lots of things that were very inviting, but unlike the other too places the we didn’t get a feeling of value for money from the experience as a whole. In the end we left with just a tiny jar of Hot English Mustard as the kid’s were still sure they liked it and I didn’t see the point in buying anything too big. Interestingly, they did like the mustard and I have had to invest in a much larger jar as I am now sharing it.

From here we headed back into Hahndorf itself for lunch. As we had everything we needed with us except for bread Liz jumped out when we saw a bakery and arrived back with some beautiful, heavy German style rolls (apt as Hahndorf still trades heavily on it’s status as Australia’s first German settlement). We found a little park near the centre of town and then proceeded to eat in the car as the rain set in. After lunch however the rain lightened up and we were able to spend a very pleasant couple of hours wandering around.