Vic – Cork’s Corner

Archive for the ‘Vic’ Category

Willis Campground

18 Dec

Posted in Camping, Travel, Vic | 5 Comments »

Monday we packed the camper and headed off on our camping holiday. We decided to take a route to our regular camping spot in the Snowy Mountains that we hadn’t taken before. We headed east, stopping in Traralgon for some lunch and so Andrew could buy a Lego kit that he couldn’t get anywhere else. After going through Bairnsdale we took the road north to Buchan and continued north to a campground on the Snowy River about 20 km past Suggan Buggan. The road was quite twisty a lot of the way, but around Suggan Buggan the road was rough as well as twisty, and Nathan succumbed to car sickness and we had some vomiting on a couple of occasions.

We finally made the campground quite late in the day and found a spot that we liked. It was a little removed from most of the other campsites and we were a bit further away from the river (Snowy River), but it was nice and quiet. We had a picnic table and a fire pit that we used for cooking dinner last night.

Nathan found a beetle that fascinated him and we took a photo of it. We identified it as a Honeybrown Beetle (Ecnolagria grandis). Then Toby also became fascinated with beetles and he found one that we couldn’t identify. He called it Buggy, and played with the poor thing for ages. He even took it to bed and put it under his pillow. Toby was very disappointed that we couldn’t take Buggy home. More bugs were found, but the first two were the best.

We stayed two nights at Willis. Our whole day was quite a hot one and we tried to have a picnic at the river but it was too hot as there was no shade by the water. We had to retire to the camper and went for a swim around 4:30 when the clouds had come over and the temperature was a lot lower. We all had a lot of fun in the water. The current was quite strong but it made for fun rides on the boogie board.

Our first stop, Traralgon.

Honeybrown Beetle

Buggy

View from the campsite

Kids playing in the water

Packed up and ready to leave this morning.

Hattah-Kulkyne National Park to Morgan

01 Sep

Posted in Camping, South Australia, Travel, Vic | No Comments »

Birds identified: mallee ringneck, sulphur-crested cockatoo

Nathan, who was so very excited about it being Father’s Day, told Andrew (in fact they were the first words Nathan spoke when he woke up) that he could choose whether he drove or not today because it was Father’s Day. Andrew prefers driving, so I couldn’t see it being any different to any other day in that respect. We had breakfast and packed up the trailer, making sure there was enough time to open the Father’s Day presents. Nathan had bought a couple of items at the Father’s Day stall at school which he had put a lot of thought into.

On the way out of the National Park we saw a beautiful Mallee Ringneck and also a few sulphur-crested cockatoos. When we got to Red Cliffs we had a wander around the monthly market and had a sausage each from a sausage sizzle and bought some more bread, milk, frozen vegetables and a few items of fruit. We knew we couldn’t take fruit and vegetables into South Australia, so we didn’t bring much of either. However, it occurred to us today that we could take frozen veggies and since our car-fridge is currently in freezer-mode we bought some frozen veggies to eat until we could find some fresh veggies in SA to purchase. It worked out that we needn’t have worried as there were plenty of opportunities to purchase fresh fruit and veggies across the border.

We crossed the border into South Australia and about 5 km further on was the quarantine station. Toby scoffed a banana during those 5 km. We stopped in Renmark to eat lunch and the kids enjoyed a splash in a fountain. Nathan said the water was cold, but it was lovely on a 31 degree day!

After lunch we drove on to Morgan and found a lovely spot to camp in the Morgan Conservation Reserve. We had thought that we could have a swim in the River Murray, but it was pretty cold and only Andrew was brave enough to completely submerge. And at night we were serenaded by frogs…it sounded like there was a lot of them.

Fountain in Renmark

Campsite

Melbourne to Hattah-Kulkyne National Park

31 Aug

Posted in Camping, Travel, Vic | No Comments »

Today we started our trip to the Flinders Ranges and had a long day of driving. We left home before 9:30 am and stopped at Wedderburn for lunch. Soon after we stopped at the steam train in Wycheproof. Toby had just fallen asleep in the car but he woke up pretty quickly when we told him that we were at the train. The kids spent half an hour running around and exploring the train and the turntable before we had to get back into the car.

It was late in the afternoon when we reached our campsite. We quickly put up the camper and had a wander to the lake before getting dinner ready. Nathan wrote in his diary and then copied what he wrote onto his Nathan’s blog. It was the first blog entry he had ever written by himself.

We are staying here one night, so tomorrow we will pack up early and keep moving west.

My boys at the lake.

Camping near Elmore

09 Jun

Posted in Camping, Nathan, Toby the preschooler, Vic | 2 Comments »

We decided to go camping for the weekend at a free campground called Aysons Reserve Camping Area on the bank of the Campaspe River. The weather forecast was for fine weather and it isn’t very far from Echuca where there is a Steam Rally on this weekend which we thought the kids would enjoy.

The campsite is relatively busy, particularly compared to last time we visited when there were very few campers. But there is a big area and it doesn’t feel too crowded. We first pulled up at the same spot where we camped last time, but a ranger came to talk to us and we were told that you have to camp further than 20 metres from the river (and if we were camped there when he got back we would receive a fine). There are no signs up, however, advising of this rule.

There has been quite a bit of work done to the camping area since our last visit. There is a long row of bollards along the edge of the road stopping people from camping too close to the river (they didn’t go as far as we were going to camp), the toilets have been upgraded (byo toilet paper) and there is a dump site for black water.

We set up the tent and Nathan started his regular trek around the neighbouring campers to chat to them, and he discovered that we were camped next to some people who had taken their 5-year-old granddaughter, Isobelle, camping for the weekend. Isabelle was taking a couple of small dogs for a walk and Nathan rode his bike beside her and chatted, and by the end of the day they were practically inseparable.

It was quite a chilly night, getting down to around 2 degrees overnight. Nathan sat on his bike for ages this morning waiting for Isabelle to come out of the caravan and ended up deciding to write her a note…there is a photo of it below. Originally he was going to sign it ‘Love from Nathan’ but in the end he left it unsigned.

Nathan and Isabelle

Morning mist on the river

Andrew and Toby with their warm morning drinks

Australia Day long weekend

27 Jan

Posted in Camping, Family, Travel, Vic | No Comments »

We decided to go camping for the long weekend and on Friday at about 3:30 pm we left home and headed towards the Otways. We were about 3 hours later than we had hoped to leave, and we just hoped we would find a campsite somewhere. We knew it would be busy on the coast, eing a long weekend and the last weekend of the school holidays, but we were a little unprepared to see caravan parks on the way full to bursting! Luckily we managed to find somewhere to set up the camper at Aire River, and even though the campsite had seemed full when we got there, many, many more caravans and camper trailers arrived to squash in with their friends who were already camped there. It was a very busy and very noisy campsite.

Saturday morning Andrew took the kids for a walk and after a while Nathan came running back really excited that we could go canoeing. He was literally jumping up and down while he told me all about the canoes we could hire. So it was into the bathers and over the bridge to the canoe hire trailer for some life jackets and a canoe. We hired it for an hour and the boys had a great time.

After lunch we went for a drive to see if we could find a beach to have a swim at. First we went along a sandy track across the bridge just to see where it went. It was good to have a go at letting down the tyres for sand driving and then pump them back up again with our air compressor. Then we headed to Johanna Beach which was really, really rough. Nathan was disappointed that he wasn’t going to be able to have a go with his boogie board. The campground at Johanna Beach was as crowded as the one we were camped in at Aire River.

It was a very noisy night. Some people had a fire going just behind our camper trailer and they had a big night with loud music and drinking.

Sunday we went to visit my aunt and uncle at Timboon. We got there in time for lunch and we were certainly well fed. After lunch Leonie took us to see the horses and both kids fed them some apple and she got Nathan up on the back of one of the horses. He was a bit unsure about it but I think he enjoyed being up there. Ray took each of the kids in turn on a quick quad bike ride just before we left which they loved. Toby fell asleep on the way back to Aire River. I put him in the tent when we got back and he slept for 12.5 hours!

Monday we packed up the camper. It was pretty wet but the sun was hot and the camper dried quite quickly. Toby fell asleep in the car soon after we left Aire River and so we drove until we got to Aireys Inlet where we had some lunch. We were heading for a beach at Point Roadnight which was just before we got to Anglesea. One of the other campers told me about it this morning and it sounded perfect for the boys. In fact, it was perfect. It was shallow and sheltered and the small waves were perfect for Nathan to try out his boogie board on. Toby even had a go in the water with his pool noodle but he preferred to play in the sand.

Besides the crowded, noisy campground full of people drinking, smoking and swearing, we had a lovely weekend. And I’m keen to go back to the beach at Point Roadnight again, that was a great find. 🙂

Johanna Beach

Excited Nathan ready to try out his boogie board

On you get Nathan….

Hooray!

Toby is a bit unsure about the ocean….

But he loves the sand.

Exhausted and freezing Nathan warming up on the sand.

Additional holiday photos

18 Nov

Posted in Camping, NSW, Travel, Vic | No Comments »

Here are some photos from the big cameras taken during our holiday. Andrew edited them when we got home, and I have had a go at identifying all the birds we managed to snap. I’m pretty confident with most of the identifications.

Major Mitchell’s cockatoo

Nankeen Kestral

Walls of China, Mungo National Park

Toby taking photos

Fun on the board walk

Sunset

Wedge-tailed eagle

Monitor lizard, probably a Lace Monitor

Look at those pretty markings!

Emu and chick

Another favourite of mine, rainbow bee-eaters.

White-plumed honeyeater

White-breasted woodswallow

Australian Ringneck – race barnardi, or Mallee ringneck.

Little Friarbird

Singing Spiney-cheeked Honeyeater

Emu with four chicks

Red Kangaroos

Galah

Little Corella

Sturt Desert Pea

Yellow-rumped Thornbill

Peaceful Dove

Male Brown Treecreeper

Emu drinking

Apostlebird

Mungo National Park to home

11 Nov

Posted in Camping, NSW, Travel, Vic | 1 Comment »

Today we drove all the way home. It was a long day, stopping in Swan Hill for lunch, Kerang for an icecream, Bendigo for the kids to run around at a playground and we got home about 7 pm. Toby fell asleep twice, Nathan once.

We had a great holiday, the new fridge worked well…it was brilliant having a fridge with us. And, of course, it was so convenient having it hooked up to the second car battery. Getting the battery installed and wiring up the car was really worth Andrew’s efforts. The camper towed well, though we did lose the wheel jockey handle somewhere! I’m looking forward to the next trip. 🙂

Hattah Lakes to Broken Hill

04 Nov

Posted in Camping, NSW, Travel, Vic | No Comments »

It was a beautiful warm morning and it didn’t take long to pack up the camper. We were on the road by 8:45 am, headed towards Mildura and Broken Hill. We stopped in Red Cliffs to look at Big Lizzie, a huge old oil powered machine that was used to clear land in the area nearly 100 years ago. There was also a market (Red Cliffs Country Market) that we browsed, buying a huge tub of locally grown cherries for $10. Yum! Toby’s face was stained with cherry juice for the rest of the day!

The wheat in the paddocks was left behind, and instead there were rows and rows of grapes. We crossed the River Murray on our way into Wentworth and the Darling River before we left Wentworth. Then we left the grapes behind and drove through a dry, scrubby landscape on a burnt orange coloured soil for the next 200 km. We saw many emus and goats on the side of the road, and also a lot of falcon-type birds soaring in the air while we drove.

We had lunch at a stop called Popilta Roadside Stop where we met a nice couple who ate lunch with us at the table we chose that was in the shade. It was about 37 degrees, so shade was a prerequisite! We were also visited by numerous apostle birds that were very noisily eyeing off our food, but they weren’t brave enough to try to steal it. The lake was fenced off, so we couldn’t walk down to the water.

We finally make it to Broken Hill and went to the Tourist Information Centre to try to work out where we should go. First we went to a Cafe built on the highest part of the Line of Lode remnant mullock (skimp) dumps which transverse the City of Broken Hill. There was a great view of the town and a Miners Memorial that was built in dedication to the miners who have lost their lives in the mines.

From there we went to a playground where Nathan was excited by the flying fox in particular. Then we drove to Silverton where we paid for a campsite for two nights. It is beside a dry riverbed and is quite bushy and nice.

It was still over 30 degrees even at bed time, and more than once today I was thankful for our fridge where the biggest treat was having a nice cold bottle of water out of the fridge!

Big Lizzie

One of many emus we saw beside the road.

Our lunch spot.

We made it to Broken Hill!

Nathan showing how thick the cables on an old mine shaft were.

Nathan driving some machinery in front of the cafe (called Broken Earth)

View from Broken Earth lookout

Miners Memorial

Toby at the playground

Camping Holiday

03 Nov

Posted in Travel, Vic | No Comments »

We are off again with our camper trailer. We were planning to leave earlyish, but Toby slept and slept and slept. The boy, who is normally awake at 6:30 am at the latest, slept today until 8:45 am. Not that it really mattered, we were finishing off packing the car and trailer, and doing odd jobs around the house.

We left before 10 am, bought some bread rolls and a loaf of bread at the local shops, and started driving. By midday we were just south of Bendigo where we stopped for lunch. The rest stop was spacious and very well laid out. it was also the first time we had used our kitchen on the side of the road, and it worked very well.

We stopped again in Wycheproof because we saw an old steam train and turntable that the kids climbed on. Toby, being the steam-train obsessed child that he is, was very excited. The dominating feature of the towns in the mallee was the silos. There seemed to be silos with their train tracks everywhere, and flat paddocks full of wheat inbetween.

We stopped for the night at the Lake Mournpall campground at Hattah-Kulkyne National Park just south of Mildura. We have a very sandy campsite, but it is a lovely place. There are pit toilets and rubbish bins, and the fee is $17 for a car with up to 6 people. We saw a goanna walking around on the ground and then heard and saw some birds getting excited about it and swooping it. The goanna didn’t seem bothered by them and climbed up a tree.

We had a dinner of spaghetti and bolognaise sauce, and then it was bedtime for us.

Lunch Spot

Steam Train

My three boys on the train

Look Mummy, this is where the coal goes!

And this is where the coal was stored!

The turntable

A silo.

Goanna up a tree.

Camping on the Murray

01 Oct

Posted in Camping, Food, Nathan the preschooler, Toby's third year, Travel, Vic | 3 Comments »

Our camping trip at the River Murray was great! We ended up finding a spot near Ulupna Island which is in the Barmah State Forest near Cobram. This was after carting the trailer along a track that ended up quite rough but we couldn’t turn around, so we just had to keep going and hope we could get out again. The official camping area was on a sandy beach where the river is wide and is relatively slow moving, but we were camped on the river bank about 1 km downriver where the river ran faster. It was nice and peaceful with no one else around, until our last night when some people camped some 50 metres from us and we were subjected to listening to the Rugby commentating as well as the koala grunting.

Our first full day there was relaxing. We stayed around the campsite, and went for some walks and a short drive around the immediate area. Our other full day was a driving day where we drive in a loop through Cobram and Tocumwal. The river had been rising since we had arrived, and the road into our campsite was nearly under water when we returned. We discussed what we should do and Andrew, with much more confidence than I had, said we would be able to get out in the morning. Thankfully we did get out.

The weather, which wasn’t great the first couple of days with lots of cold wind, improved during the last two days and we had some lovely days, but a little too cool to go for a swim. We enjoyed having a campfire every night and even cooked our breakfast on the fire the last two mornings. The kids rode their bikes like crazy, and we all enjoyed koala spotting. We were camped up on the bank of the river, with a fairly steep drop to the water. The boys liked going down to the water on foot, but yesterday afternoon Toby decided to ride down but didn’t make it and ended up scraping the side of his face. He tearfully told us he would have been ok if he had pedals, so hiding our smiles we solemnly promised him he could try the little pedal bike when we were home. We had fun despite our few scrapes and spills. 🙂

the Tent Mahal

the kids making a train out of our kindling

Toby cooking breakfast

eating pancakes with strawberries for breakfast

Toby was a bit obsessed with setting the ends of sticks alight

playing on the ‘beach’

fishing

dinner, roast chicken and veggies

getting out of our campsite


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Archive for the ‘Vic’ Category

Willis Campground

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Hattah-Kulkyne National Park to Morgan

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Melbourne to Hattah-Kulkyne National Park

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Camping near Elmore

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Australia Day long weekend

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Additional holiday photos

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Mungo National Park to home

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Hattah Lakes to Broken Hill

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Camping Holiday

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Camping on the Murray

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