Oz Trip - Day 168

Day 168 – 16/10/2012 – Home

There was some mixed emotions this morning. It was a sad feeling packing up for the last time, but there was also a sense of anticipation that we couldn't wait to get home. It really started to hit home that the adventure of a lifetime was coming to and end. We were in no particular hurry so it was 9:30am by the time we pulled out of the van park and due to road works it took longer than usual to get to Bargara. We pulled into the driveway at 11:30am. The adventure was over :-(

Homeward bound!

Oz Trip - Day 167

Day 167 – 15/10/2012 – Hervey Bay

It was an early start for me this morning as I had to drop the Pajero off at the Mitsubishi dealer for a service at 8am. After walking back to the van park and some breakfast, I hired a Stand Up Paddle board from the Enzos. After a few fall offs initially I soon managed to get the hang of it and spent the next couple of hours, paddling up and down the beach front.

Oz Trip - Day 166

Day 166 – 14/10/2012 – Hervey Bay

The first job for today, was to go for a swim. Just a stroll out of our camp site and onto the beach for a swim. It was nearly high tide so there was plenty of water.

Oz Trip - Day 165

Day 165 – 13/10/2012 – Kilkivan to Hervey Bay

Probably one of the best points about the Kilkivan bush camping park was the free pancake breakfast on Saturday morning in the camp kitchen :-) . The owners cook up the pancakes on the BBQ and supply the jam, cream, maple syrup, hundreds and thousands etc etc, mmmmmmm. I managed to put away 5 or 6 before Jodie made me leave to finish packing up our camp site.

It was only a really short day for us. We left the camp ground at 10am and arrived in Scarness at 11:45am. One of the shortest days we have had for a long time.

After setting up camp and lunch we did a little bit of shopping and then spent the rest of the afternoon just taking it pretty easy and enjoying being right on the beach front.

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Oz Trip - Day 164

Day 164 – 12/10/2012 – Kilkivan Bush Camping

Because we didn't have a big distance to travel we could take our time packing up. It was still cold but at least the rain had stopped but it was very windy. We had heard that it snowed in Glen Innis! We had only passed through there the day before! If we had been a day later we would have seen the snow that we went chasing in Tumbarumba.

We arrived at the Kilkivan bush camp early in the afternoon. It was a nice place with a pretty relaxed atmosphere. There were powered and unpowered sites. The unpowered sites were pretty much anywhere that your power cord couldn't reach too.

At least someone was taking it easy.

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Oz Trip - Day 163

Day 163 – 11/10/2012 – Walcha to Warwick

We were able to pack up just in time before the rain started, and it didn't stop raining all day. We had planned to spend a night at Girraween National Park. When we arrived at the turn off to Girraween we had pretty much decided to keep pressing on but we thought we would go for a drive through anyway. It is lucky that we had decide not to stay at Girraween as it was pretty sloppy and wet and it was pretty full. There had been about 30mm of rain in the region so the camp sites were pretty saturated.

So we left Girraween and pressed on through Stanthorpe to Warwick. Even though it was only 3pm by the time that we stopped, we had had enough of driving in the solid rain. Jodie also wasn't feeling the best as she was starting to get the flu.

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Oz Trip - Day 162

Day 162 – 10/10/2012 – Bathurst to Walcha

Well you can't go through Bathurst without doing a hot lap, well as hot a lap that you can do in a turbo diesel 4wd towing a camper with a 60kph speed limit! On the way out of town be did a detour to Mount Panorama for a quick spin around the race track.

Pole Position!

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Oz Trip - Day 161

Day 161 – 9/10/2012 – Bathurst 

It was pretty hard to get moving this morning as it was still 0.4deg outside when we got up at 6:30am. It got down to 0.2deg overnight and there was frost on the Pajero. As we pulled out of Tumbarumba at 8:30am it looked like it was going to be another beautiful day for driving through the country side.

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Oz Trip - Day 160

Day 160 – 8/10/2012 – Tumbarumba Rest Day

A nice cool night again which was perfect for a sleep in. The temperature went down to 0.6deg over night. Our body clocks were all over the place due to travelling a the different time zones over the last couple weeks, getting back to normal for a few days and then day light saving started with through us out again.

It was pretty much our first relaxing day of the whole trip so far. We didn't have anything planned. No jobs to catch up on and no driving. We walked up to a local cafe for lunch and then pretty much just sitting back taking it all in before we did the final push for home :-( .

Oz Trip - Day 159

Day 159 – 7/10/2012 – Mt Selwyn and Cabramurra Day Trip

Because it was pretty cool overnight, (min 1.4deg), and for the last couple of days, and there was plenty of moisture around, we decided to head up to Cabramurra and Mt Selwyn to see if we could find any snow – unfortunately we didn't. We might have if we had headed to Thredbo instead. It would have been pretty cool to do desert to snow in one holiday.

I didn't end up taking any photos of the day trip either as we had covered all of this ground before. So here is the link from the previous day trip around this area.

http://blog.sjbowden.com/2011/04/snowy-mountains-trip-day-5.html

On the way back to camp we stopped in at Paddy's River Falls. Due to the rain over the past few days the falls were running really well.

Paddys River Falls

Oz Trip - Day 158

Day 158 – 6/10/2012 – Tumbarumba

Again another day of driving through a lot of small towns in picturesque countryside. It was just a shame that it was pretty much raining all day. We packed up in the wet and it pretty much rained all day until setup that afternoon.

When we left Cobrum we headed out through Yarrowonga

Yarrowonga

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Oz Trip - Day 157

Day 157 – 5/10/2012 – Cobram

We left Geelong and headed for Cobram via Ballarat, Bendigo, Tatura and Shepparton and a lot of smaller towns in between. It was beautiful and varying scenery the whole way. It is certainly an area that we would like to spend a lot more time exploring.

Ballarat

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Oz Trip - Day 156

Day 156 – 4/10/2012 – Rest Day

Today was pretty much just a rest day and catching up on jobs day before we hit the road again. It was extremely windy so we took the annex walls down while they were dry and to stop them acting like big sales and flapping around. It was also a head start for packing up in the morning.

Later that afternoon we went for a drive through the Geelong CDB and Esplanade on the way to a nice little family owned pizza place, Erics Pizza & Pasta, that we had heard about. The pizza was fantastic and the atmosphere was great. In between making pizza orders Eric came and sat down with us and was chatting to us while we ate, telling us all about the sights to see in Geelong. Unfortunately we couldn't talk him into “retiring” and opening a pizza shop in Bargara.

A Geelong main street

Oz Trip - Day 155

Day 155 – 3/10/2012 – Melbourne Day Trip

We caught the train from the South Geelong station to Melbourne at 9:25am hoping to miss a bit of the peak hour rush. Unfortunately earlier that morning a computer problem caused the closure of two of Melbourne’s tunnels, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-03/tunnel-closures-cause-traffic-chaos/4292378. So even though we were only one or two stops along the line, we were only just lucky enough to get some seats. Pretty much from our stop onwards people had to stand. I imagine it is what the Brisbane to Gold Coast “Bombay Express” is like everyday. The trip took just over an hour.

Flinders St Train Station

Oz Trip - Day 154

Day 154 – 2/10/2012 – Sorrento

We didn't have much planned for the day so we were in no rush to get moving. We headed back to Torque that we missed the previous day for a bit of a quick look around.

One of the beaches at Torque

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Oz Trip - Day 153

Day 153 – 1/10/2012 – Geelong via the Great Ocean Road

As we left Port Fairy we felt a we could have spent a few more days there just relaxing and wandering around the town.

It was going to be a big day, not so much kilometres wise but a lot of sight seeing on the way, lots of stops. First stop was the Bay of Islands.

The Bay of Islands