And another beautiful day, weather today was blue skys and about 18 degrees have been in T-shirt all day after a frosty morning, tonight found a dirt track under a railway line bridge, about 15km out of Seymour, we're about 200m from the road but hidden by the raised rail line and just enjoying another red sunset over some sheep grazing land.

19th May
Brenda was still sore but insisted we move on, we are due in Melbourne the day after tomorrow and we don’t want to miss out on too much. We were on the move by 9.30 went to Wangaratta and were happy to find parking for long vehicles, including caravans on the placard, not many towns have them and sometimes it’s a fight to get a park with an 11mt + vehicle, we did our “thing”, we walked and walked looking at the buildings, mainly old churches and pubs, this time the Anglican Cathedral outshone the Catholic one in grandeur, and also at the wonderful town park built around a sports ground complete with lake and water feature we spent 3 hours in town just walking around, it is a lovely town.
After refilling a gas bottle and having lunch we headed for Glenrowan, famous of course for Ned Kelly and his gang’s last stand where he was shot and captured, naturally the town is and has everything Ned Kelly even a BIG statue of him in front of one of the shop.
We walked in part of his footsteps and also went into one of the museums, where as well as many artefacts, replicas of his armour and many displays there is also, out the back a replica of the homestead his family lived in at the time of his capture, with naturally items of the era including some having belonged to the Kelly’s, the site of the old homestead is on private property, still belonging descendants of the Kelly family, not Kelly by name as none of the boys ever had children, but it is not accessible to the public, the one thing that we were both shocked to find out was that, Ned Kelly did not say “Such is life” before he was hanged but said “Oh well, ... I suppose it has come to this”. Such is life is the common interpretation of his “famous” last words.
Having spent another 2 hours in Glenrowan it was time for us to move on and look for somewhere to settle and get some rest for Brenda, the nearest free-camp was after Benalla and we didn’t really want to go past the town only having to come back to it in the morning, we took the back road instead of the freeway, to not only have less traffic but, although being almost in spitting distance, it gives a more picturesque drive, as we were diving along I spotted a track which had been closed off, it actually looked like an old road which had been torn up but still infrequently used by 4WDs, so I kept an eye on it for a couple of kilometres and spotted up ahead, a gravel pit, one of those places where the roads department leaves piles of gravel for road repairs. It was partially hidden by a knoll and a bunch of trees, driving past the knoll I saw the entrance and went in, back tracked about 200mt and we were completely out of sight of the road we were on, in a large flat area looking over some paddocks, the highway about 700m away and a lake just past that, we were far enough from the highway not to be seen and also to only hear the swoosh of the traffic as it went past.
We set up there for the night, and when Brenda lay down with her Kindle, I went for a walk to get familiar with the surroundings, we are only about 6-700m from a farm, who’s paddocks we overlook I imagine, and in rabbit country, I’m going to have to keep an eye on the dogs, or both of ‘em will be off in a flash if they spot one, they only want to play with them because it’s fun chasing something.
Evening was soon upon us with a beautiful red sunset, meaning another beautiful day tomorrow, I cooked some Satay pork for tea and settled to watch “battlestar galactica” an oldie but a goodie, we’ve got 6 series of it so that will nearly get us home.


More later
Frank

Hey Frank, I reckon we must have passed you on the road today, going in the opposite direction! We left Eildon this morning, went via Benalla and are now sitting in the park at Glenrowan. Pity, I didn't realise where you were, might have been been able to catch up for a cuppa...

Ah well. Our trip is going well, although we've taken a few unexpected side trips, so won't get to Bonegilla until sometime tomorrow. Can't believe how cold the nights are here!!

Have a great trip mate.

Cheers
Gerry

Hope your trip goe well too, sorry we missed each other, would haave been good to catch up on the road, talk about cold we had 2 degrees inside the van a couple of nights ago brrrrrrrrr, ho[e you enjoyed Bonegilla, especially the "dutch" room thought i'd keep that as a surprise.
Frank
stay safe and enjoy

20th May
The nights are cold, but we have not only a track suit we wear to bed but also thick socks, a warm quilt and a thick blanket that Brenda knitted a year ago, so we are toasty warm we even have 2 little water bottles who cling to us to get some heat, they also have coats they wear at night (which they hate) and a blanket which Kia never uses but Jazz loves, in the evenings we have a small gas heater we run on low, before you think “oh that’s dangerous” we have 4 vents open slightly at the top of the van to let air in and 2 at floor level, which are law and built into the van design, to let out any carbon monoxide, we do not sleep with the heater on and only turn it back on in the morning when it takes a good ½ hour or so to get some heat in the place, especially when it’s only 1 or 2 degrees outside, which makes it 2 or 3 inside, this morning, we woke to a light fog all over the valley below us and a thick fog over the lake, we were in the full sun by 7.30 and by 8 the warmth of the sun on the van was enough to turn the heater off, we were done and ready to go by 9 and wearing T-shirts which we remained in all day.
As it turns out we were only about 1km out of the small town of Winton and headed into Benalla, a beautiful town where we stopped at the information centre and had a look at their Ned Kelly displays as well as a few other notable people of history including E. E. (Weary) Dunlop, the famous war hero, after an hour or so we took the dogs out of the van, and walked around the park, along the river, where there is the most amazing terra cotta sculpture, come amphitheatre, come seating, come ..... whatever, it is truly an amazing peace of ..... well art, I suppose, but which is not only a visual piece but also functional as it can be used by individuals to sit on, it can also be used by groups, and it is also a playground for children as well as a sculpture into which thousands of man hours have gone to create not only it, but all the small parts, that went into it.
We drove onto Euroa yet another lovely country Victoria town, with a great park and the Rotary clubs By-centennial five creeks walking trail, which covers 6.8km around it, After lunch we decided to only cover a small portion of the trail with about a 3km circuit starting at the BBQ area across the footbridge, the path we followed, meanders along the river through the park, sometimes into some bushland, others behind houses or past the recreation grounds. As evident today, it is enjoyed not only by tourists but also the local kids as there were a few families and groups of kids along the way and there are also many places where you can see where they have been fishing or setting Yabby traps. In a couple of places a tree has fallen across the river and the path worn on it by them has flattened a walkway across it, we weren’t game to give it a go though, I mean we had the dogs with us ......  .
By the time we finished the walk it was time to head towards Seymour and look for a place to settle for the night, we headed back to the freeway, looking for the turnoff to Longwood, that road goes through a few small townships before getting to Seymour, so we should find somewhere to sleep tonight, Longwood is a beautiful, clean, well presented little town which most people wouldn’t even see with the freeway only a couple of kilometres away, every lawn is mowed, including the verge right up to the street with trees, wether naturally grown or planted, to accentuate the landscape to the point where it looks like the whole verge area has been the work of a master landscaper, the large blocks without formal fencing seem to meld into one another with the houses also seeming part of the landscaping plan, we only drove through, as we are on a mission to find a place to settle but we will be back next time to have a good look around, through a couple of other small towns including Avenel, which also was a nice town, very spread out over a large area, not long after we found a dirt track which led under a railway tunnel away from the road and a nice flat area looking out at some sheep grazing land, a lovely place to pull up, we set up and made a coffee to, wait and watch yet another fantastic red sunset.
These last few days have been rushed, as we need to get to Melbourne to catch up with Brenda’s sister and brother-in-law, before they head off overseas for a few weeks, there are a few places we have missed, even before Wodonga, but we always say, don’t worry about the things you can’t do or the places you can’t see, there’s always next time

21st May
We moved from our little hideaway at about 10 and we arrived in Seymour by 10.20, straight to the visitor centre, which is in the old court house, it has the first lockup next to it which is a log structure with bars at the high, small windows and no other way for light to enter, even the door is solid, it was used next to the police residence, right up until 1962, when the new police building went up, and it was moved to its present location.
With the historical walk map in hand, off we went to see Seymour and for the first time this trip we were almost disappointed, Seymour felt like a sad town to us, a good size, and a few old (pre 1900’s ) buildings, but it looked dirty and felt sad, other than 3 or 4 of the old buildings, the only thing of interest, strange to us but interesting was the pioneer park, it’s the old cemetery which has some graves still intact, but others whose grave stones were small or broken have been moved and re-arranged to form a windy path on the outside leaving a large area for lawn and a monument in the centre, those graves surrounds have been used to for the “edge’ of the park and part of the monument in the centre, I’m not a superstitious person, but one should just not move graves willy-nilly and I wonder if the moving of the head stones and leaving the remains “lost” in the park, has anything to do with the “feel” of the town.
After about 2 hours we headed off towards Yea, this is where we have had the biggest change in scenery of the drive, since we left home we have travelled on mostly flat ground, some very dry from the summer heat, some which had some green to it and other places lush green from either rain or irrigation, the last few days have seen the return of green pasture, but almost as soon as leaving Seymour we arrive into undulating hilly country, with lush green pasture dotted with small forests of either Eucalypt or pine filled with mainly cattle, dotted here and there with one or two deciduous trees in various stages of losing their leaves giving a flash of yellow, or orange, or red, or sometimes even all three, making for a pastel of colours to strike the heart of any artist, and be a photographers delight, but alas the road is too narrow to pull over and capture on ‘film” what the eyes are imprinting into the mind to remain but a memory that will not be seen in a photo later.
The road winds its way ever so slowly upwards and we see in the distance some fog trapped in a valley, way higher than where we are now, once again, oh but for a photo opportunity, little did we know that within 10 minutes we were to pass through that fog and up over the mountain to go down the other side into the township of yea, the last ½ hour or so has been a wonderful drive reminiscent of out trip to Tasmania in 09.
Yea is a pretty town with some historical buildings but though is seems almost sleepy today, I can see it as a bustling little place on a warm summers day, only just over an hour’s drive from Melbourne, it is filled with cafes and has 2 bakeries, who even today, though it is only about 15 degrees outside, are all doing business, we stopped at one of the bakeries and enjoyed a warm lunch instead of our usual sandwich back in the van, after Lunch we got the dogs from the van and walked around the main part of town, taking in the historical side of Yea, before returning to the car and heading toward Healesville, we have heard so much about the sanctuary there and have never been to it, even though we used to live in Melbourne for 4 years and have many times, visited Brenda’s sister who lives a mere 45 minutes from there.
We called in to the small hamlet of Toolangi, looking for our freecamp for the night what we found was a small area at the bottom of a valley, near a creek, surrounded by tall trees, an oval next to it, but closed off, leaving a beautiful area to park in, unfortunately, because of the creek, time of the year and tall trees the whole area is covered in about 2cm of black sludgy mud, I tried to find a spot to park, which gave us a small area of grass outside the van, but with the dogs and their love of adventure, I could see not only them ending up as black as the mud but us, the van and our bed as well, a quick look at the book showed no further freecamps between us and Healesville, so off we went looking for somewhere to stay but with not only the hilly countryside, but this being all private grazing land, there was to be found before we arrived at Healesville, our only choice was to pull into a caravan park for the night, where we quickly settled before the sun went down.

22nd May
Even though we had a warm start to the day, due to having the heater going, we still didn’t get out of the van park before 10.30, but then there was no rush all we are doing today is going to Healesville Sanctuary, and then into Boronia a mere 40 minute drive.
The one thing I didn’t want to miss out on if any was the flight arena where birds fly freely in a show, so we attained the time for that, which was 12 o’clock, and set out to have a look at the other exhibits. Healesville is part of the Zoo network of Victoria, sort of a cross between an open range and conventional zoo, but for Australian native animals only, we have been to a lot of places such as this but the Australian animals hold a special place in our hearts as they do with most people, we of course started with what is probably the favourite of our furry friends, the Koala enclosure, here quite a few of them are lazily spending their time sleeping in the trees and slowly moving around till they hear the keepers car signalling the arrival of breakfast in bed.
For an extra cost you can choose to have close up encounters with some of the animals, such as, kangaroos, koalas, and Dingos but at $10 per person per animal it would definitely blow the budget we have for this trip, as it is we have the cost of getting in, but this is something we both had on our intended itinerary before leaving home, besides, we have had many close encounters with most of the animals on display, including Dingos, in other parts of this wide brown land.
We enjoyed not only the animals in their open habitat and the walk through the huge aviaries, but also the setting of the park which is mostly natural bushland with Badger creek running through it, other than the landscaped area around the animal hospital, which too is open to the public, while we were there a Possum was receiving some surgical attention and a cheeky, hand reared, Echidna was receiving medical attention for a possible tummy ache which she may have just been feigning just to have a bit of “special” attention. A group of local school children were also being shown around and were in an aviary attached to the hospital with a keeper who had a Tawny Frog mouthed Owl, the weather today has cooled a lot and there is a lot of threatening cloud around, showing signs of the occasional downpour but the heavens held for the time that we were there.
At 12 o’clock we were seated in the flight arena, to see the bird show, in most other places we have been to the show is usually only with birds of prey and we have seen before the Wedge tailed Eagle and the Black Breasted Buzzard but haven’t seen an Owl or cockatoos in such shows before, the birds were well trained and very healthy specimen, the screech of the school children when the birds did low a flypast as they went from spot to spot added to the excitement of the show and all too soon the 20 minute spectacle was over, it was a show well worth seeing.
Another hour and a ½ walking around looking at the exhibits such as the retile house, swamp aviary and Dingo area saw our time at the sanctuary come to an end, we got in the car and headed to Boronia, to organise ourselves to a stay in a house, quite a change to the tiny surrounds of the van we have been used to for the last 3 weeks, but with the weather threatening to rain for the next few days, we thought it was great timing on our part.
We will spend the next few days in Melbourne, after that we had intended to head to the Gippsland area, but with some personal problems arising in Adelaide, we will be heading home over a 2 or 3 week period, to give our Daughter and son-in-law some support against a third party, Gippsland will have to wait for another time.

There wont be any more reports till we're out of Melbourne catching up with family and friends

Thanks Frank and Brenda for your travelogue. I pray all goes well with your daughter.

I had the extreme pleasure of meeting Brenda, and Frank, today, over coffee. It's great, just meeting nice, down to earth people, isn't it.

Yes it was a pleasure to meet you too, another member I can picture when I "speak" to them on the forum

We're away from the big smoke after spending some time with family and mates.


23rd - 27th May
Life in the city is always so hum-drum after being on the road, and other than meeting up with family and forum friends that’s what the last 5 days have been like, the odd trip to the BIG shopping centres, the walks with the dogs and that’s about it, it was good to catch up with Lynda and Clive and spend some time with them, we are always made to feel welcome in their house and we are thankful that we were there, when the storm which hit South Australia and Victoria came through, with wind gusts of up to 100kph and 50mm of rain being dumped on the 2 states, it was just as well we were not in the van at the time, quite a stroke of luck on our part.
In the 3 days we were at their place I arranged to meet up with Badger, a forum member who I’ve been conversing with for about 5 years but have never met. If you remember last year on our big trip up north I was sending him reports on caravan parks, along with the emails I was sending you all, He has a website on caravan parks where, if you are travelling anywhere in Australia and want to stay in a caravan park or cabin, just Google Badger’s caravan park reports and you’ll be directed to his site, which will give you unbiased reports on many caravan parks around Australia. We spent well over an hour talking about general things and getting to know each other a little better, while Brenda did some retail therapy after meeting him.
Lynda and Clive are getting ready to go overseas for a couple of weeks and we didn’t want to be in their way as they prepare to leave in a few days so I had rung Cliff and Alison, some friends who had previously kindly offered to put us up and we organised to stay at their place Saturday night, while we caught up with them and also Lance and Annee. We had spent some time with all of them before, including in Katherine NT, last year, we had a really good night, sharing a meal and a couple drinks, some great company and a few jokes, all that was missing was the campfire, 9 o’clock saw time for Brenda to retire it had been a long day and her back was really complaining, I stayed on and shared a few more drinks and a few more jokes and before we knew it, it was 11 o’clock and time to retire, we may be on holidays but Annee had to go to work in the morning.
Morning came and saw Brenda unable to move much, the late night had been way too much for her, we wanted to move on as we hate being in the way or putting on people, and the last thing we want to do is outstay our welcome. Cliff and Alison insisted that it was alright for us to stay till Brenda was good enough to move on, so in the circumstances and after some discussion, we decided the best thing to do, was stay another day and move on Monday. Cliff and Alison we great hosts and looked after us really well and we hope to be able to repay the kindness when they visit Adelaide next, they even provided, a much appreciated but unexpected, dinner for us that Alison prepared and even brought it to Brenda in the van, I ate with them and after another chat we retired to the van early, to give them some peace and settled for the night.

28th May
Brenda was still sore this morning but well enough to move on, Cliff and Alison insisted that it was OK for us to stay but not wanting to be in the way we decided to move on, after a shower and getting van ready and more chatting we finally left at about 10.30, with our kind hosts escorting us to the Ring Road, via streets Cliff knew would have less traffic, after a final farewell and another invitation to Adelaide we headed off toward Bendigo.
Another stop in Sydenham to visit Brenda’s cousin Jen and her husband Tony saw us share lunch with them and after a good visit catching up on family gossip it was after 3 o’clock before we were back on our Route, with the weather getting cold and the days so short these days we didn’t want to start looking in the dark for somewhere to stay, so by 4.30 we had found a nice road side stop with plenty of room to not only park but also let the dogs run around, being on a busy highway there was plenty of traffic close by, but trees sheltered us from the noise, so we were had no problem settling for the evening and had a good nights sleep.

29th May
It was such a good night’s sleep in fact that I didn’t wake up till nearly eight o’clock, something I haven’t done for ages and the temperature wasn’t too bad at around 8 to 10 degrees, 3 semis had pulled up not far from us and although I disturbed in the night, I can’t really say that it was them who woke me up as I don’t remember.
One of the truckies had parked his rig not far from us and I was outside when he woke up, I offered him a cup of freshly made coffee which he accepted gratefully, after a chat about travelling, he used to own a motorhome, we headed off in the same direction.
We were on the freeway for only about 5 minutes before taking the first turn off and stopping at Gisborne, a great little town which was a stopover between Melbourne and the goldfield back in the gold rush days and still retains many of the old buildings such as, shops and churches dating back to the 1850’s which are made of local bluestone, there are also a lot of old houses here, some of stone but a great many made of weatherboard and most have been well looked after. Gisborne is at the bottom of a valley and today it is cold enough to make us thankful we have warm coast as we could feel the cold biting at our faces, it is also very touristy.
We fuelled up, before leaving town, at 67.9cpl as I have already spotted a couple of stations along the way at around 72-75cpl, sure enough the next 2 we saw were at 78.9 and 82.9cpl respectively.
We chose to stay off the freeway and follow the Old Calder Highway to the next town, here as in many Victorian towns is the Avenue Of Honour, where trees are planted on either side of the road, one for each person from the area, who had died in war time, a lasting tribute to the fallen. As well as that, being away from the highway, there is a lot less traffic and it doesn’t matter if we drive slower in order to take in the scenery which is usually better along the country roads.
Before long we arrived at the next town which is Woodend, the first part of it, is actually mostly large blocks of woodland, with the houses well hidden in what appears to be a forest and unless you happen to catch a glimpse of one of them, you are for all intents, driving through a forest, with even many of the driveways well camouflaged. Woodend is a thriving town in yet another valley, and it is a great mix of country and city life, only 45 minutes or so on the freeway to Melbourne, which some people opt to commute each day for a slice of country life.
The park that has been beautifully laid out along the creek which runs through the town, offers not only an exercise track with some work out stations but also a great walk around the edge of town which we took in after our walk in town to have a look at some of its buildings, including the Old Court house and the Jail, after having spent nearly 2 hours here, we got back to the car and headed off.
Still travelling on the side roads we made our way to Kyneton, another beautiful drive with trees in their autumn colours, there is not a blade of brown grass with the pastures being a rich deep green and due to the hilly terrain around here, there are many creeks criss-crossing the road with large eucalypts flanking each one, the native trees are all in their glory and the many, many deciduous trees dotted singularly or in groups are from lemon yellow through to crimson with only a few having already lost their leaves, leaving a wonderful natural carpet of colour to add to the kaleidoscope of wonder tantalising the senses.
Kyneton is also touristy but it has a lot of old buildings and adding to the charm of the town, it also has a botanic garden, after lunch we walked around town, starting with a mosaic mural on the wall of the shire offices, the mural is in memory of the 175 people who lost their lives in the atrocious bush fires endured by Victoria a few years ago and it is a beautiful sight to a sad event, the lady at the tourist info office had told us that there was a place just outside of town where we could overnight, so we took our time walking around town and went into many of the old churches, and even took in the botanical gardens, it was well after 4 o’clock that we got back to the car, well and truly, roo ..... er, stu ..... er ..... tuckered out, even the dogs had slowed their pace and gave us a dirty look at each corner they didn’t spot the van. Back in the car we headed for the rest area, which turned out to be really nice but directly in front of a 24hr petrol station, and a handful of houses, just on the outskirt of town, not feeling right with its location we headed toward our next destination in search of a place to park for the night. We have never left it so late to look for a place but because we thought we had one, time had gotten away from us, finally as the sun was about to start disappearing over the horizon we found a place, off the road but still close to it, not the perfect place as a lot of our camp finds have been, but good enough to settle for the night

lovin' the weather, cold nights (snuggle time) and the days are cool but glorious

30th May
It was a cold 2 degrees inside the van this morning and very hard to get out of bed, but after having made coffee and turning the heater on for a while, it was a little more pleasant, the daily log, breakfast, and house work were all done and we were on the road by 10 and into Castlemaine by 10.15.
A few kilometres before Castlemaine is a small town called Chewton, though we didn’t stop here, the majority of the town seems to have been built in the early century with most of the houses being the small cottage style of the era and you can see that they are old, not made to look that way, most really well looked making it a pretty little town.
Castlemaine, is a touristy town, with lots of history and many old buildings with the old market place containing the visitor information building as well as an art gallery, the market place is surrounded by no less than 6 bank building, a testament to the richness in gold that came out of the ground in the surrounding area. With 40 + buildings dating back as far as the 1850s, most are really well looked after but one in particular which was a hotel but is now a private residence needs a lot of work. We had a great walk around town which took us the best part of 2 hours; we then got back in the car and headed for the old goal. Unfortunately, though it has at some time in the past been open to the public, is now closed and used only for a community radio station, the goal was built in the 1860s and would, we thought, be a great tourist attraction, but alas it is not so, the goal is up for sale and has with it 2 heritage grants totalling over $430.000 for the wardens residence which is attached, so you would have a place to live if any of you are interested, but I didn’t ask the going price, thought I’d leave that to you LOL. We did walk around it looking at the architecture, and noticing the few additions which have been made since its opening. There are plenty of smaller towns in the area with a similar history, Maldon being one, but we just can’t get to see all of them, we have to leave some for next time, so after lunch on the prison lawns, we headed for Bendigo.
We knew to expect a bigger town than most we have been to on this trip, but didn’t realise just how big it was, as we headed for the showgrounds caravan park, we realised that we would have to spend at the very least 2 days here, the city centre is like a step back in time with all it grand old buildings and especially the amazing Catholic Cathedral built on a hillock, overlooking the city and commanding the skyline. We arrived at the caravan park and booked in for an initial 2 nights, being a showground rather than an actual caravan park it has only bare amenities and it is less frequented by travellers, because of that there are only 3 other couples staying here, it means more room and more freedom, we set up away from others and put out the awning and while Brenda did some washing, I hooked up to power and water and also put up the dog enclosure so that they too have a little room to move without being on the lead all the time. It was only early but we just sat and read for the afternoon, the next couple of days are going to be busy.