ruckster

Monday

We left about 10am as we had to check out and drove to the Pyramid Rock. We took a small walk around Swan Lake and saw our first piece of wildlife, a Wallaby. We checked in at San Remo campsite and Lou was relieved that we had good facilities. We put up our tent for the first time that trip and went off for fish and chips at San Remo town. Next stop the Koala Conservation centre and we saw loads of them in trees and lots more wildlife, including a number of wallabies, Galahs, Kookaburras and Yellow breasted Robins. Lou was concerned - she had married a twitcher. We then drove to a walk out near Rhyll, into the mangroves, which was very nice except for the amount of Kangaroo / Wallaby road kill on the way.

Tuesday

We packed up and left for Wilson’s Promontory reasonably early after a supermarket run. We managed to get 12 bottles for $40 – about 16 quid – result. We thought we would stock up here as it was less isolated than the Prom and it turned out to be a good idea. We took a stupid route (me) to the prom so it took us longer than necessary. I thought it would be nice to take in a few views on the way built it meant long detours for short stops. When we got there we went straight to the park and paid for 5 days entrance. We did about a 12KM walk the first day, up to vereker’s outlook and then down to Chapman’s beach. Nice walk and great views over the Prom form the outlook. When we arrived at the highest point there were a few crimson Rosella’s flying about which added to the beauty. We saw a few more wallabies but we were beginning to get a little blasé about these.

Wednesday

Lou described the walk we did today as her favourite ever walk – I always thought that had been the 120metre walk from 30 Hollow Lane to the bar at the King’s Head. We were lucky as we had perfect weather, bright but with a cooling wind and virtually no humidity, and again the trail was empty. Not too much steep climbing and the views over Norman’s bay and over to Oberon bay were fantastic. We also did a couple of smaller walks to Squeaky beach and to Tidal River. All in all about 15KM.

Thursday

This time we walked the Mount Bishop / Lilly Pilly Gully route. A bit steeper but nice coastal views from the top. Unfortunately due to the forest fires in Victoria it was a little hazy. Nice walk, again wallabies and this time a snake – but it moved to quickly for us to attempt to identify it. At the bottom there was a bit of rainforest. We then walked to ___________ and here we saw Kangaroos but were not able to spot an Emu, much to our disappointment as I was becoming as obsessed as Roy Hull. A second 15KM day when we went to Whiskey Beach afterwards.

Friday

Our last full day at The Prom and we decided to walk Tongue Point – despite the poor weather. We were incredibly lucky and made the walk without getting rained on and the walk itself was beautiful, although probably the hardest of then walks and we were bothered by flies for the middle half of it. Again Wallabies and Echnida (hedgehog like animal) and another snake, maybe the poisonous “brown”. Good views from Sharpe’s point. We also walked the ____ river beach walk to ensure we topped 15KM again.

We really enjoyed our time at the Prom but it was quite quiet with very little to do at night other than drink the wine we bought and eat our own food in the Cabin on Yanakie campsite.

Saturday

We left at 10 again and drove to Tarra-Bulga National park. Beautiful views but again I don’t think Lou enjoyed the detour and she had had her fill of walking so begrudged the Suspension bridge and the Cynthea Falls walk that we did. Particluarly when the latter was dried up. Something I should have predicted as Australia was suffering it’s worst drought for 100 years. Saw a Wombat roadkill – our only spotting of one the whole trip.
We stopped off at Bairnsdale and injudiciously did some shopping here ( why buy goods on Dec 23rd rather than Dec 26th when everything was on sale). We drove to Paynesville and checked in and then took a drive about to see the sights. A bit of a wasted day

Sunday – Christmas Eve

We were lucky again with the weather as it was forecast to be cold and windy. It was relatively bright, if not warm. We hired a boat out for 3 hours. Saw plenty of coastal birds, including the impressively beaked Pelican. I managed to run us aground which Lou was delighted about. We went over to Ninety Mile beach and a few places around the Lake and then back. I caused a bit of Mayhem and was reprimanded by Yachtswoman – stuck up cow did a 180 degree turn and complained about me getting out of her way and then, much more culpably, steered the boat through 4 anglers lines. At that point we decided to call it a day.

That afternoon as the weather continued to be bright we went out to Lake’s entrance and looked at views over the lakes. We were going to walk on ninety mile beach but Lou swallowed a fly and it got caught in her throat. I tried to help but it was not too welcome, mainly as I was in stitches. On the way home we stopped off at Eagle point and I was delighted to see an Emu. We had a drink and a bottle of wine and were joined by an English couple who Lou had spoken to earlier. We ended up going for a meal with them and getting quite drunk on wine. We went to the Old Pub in Paynesville and had a nice meal there then continued on the wine.

Monday

Christmas day – Woke up groggily – but fortunately not with too bad a hangover. We had booked our dinner at the Old Pub and duly went down at 12. Unbelievable amount to eat. Entrées were 12 Giant Prawns and 6 oysters. Lou tried an Oyster and her face looked much as it had the day before during her fly swallowing episode. She spat it back out into the shell which may have been considered bad form, unless you are in a pub in Hicksville, Australia and yours are the first new genes to enter the town since transportation ended in the mid 1840’s.

Next we had a plate stacked with meat (Turkey, Chicken, Pork, Ham) and stuffing You then had to go and try and balance a few vegetables on these. To finish was pavlova and cream. Lou had to roll me back to the Mariner’s cove where we were staying. The rest of the day was wet, windy and miserable. It had been a cold night, a white Christmas in the mountains 30 miles away. It had actually been Victoria’s coldest Christmas since records began the news announced. This and the fact that I would have required a wheel barrow to cart my stomach about meant that we had a sedentary remainder of the day.

Boxing Day

Unfortunately the weather again was poor and it limited the amount of things we could do. Paynesville and the surrounds are based around outdoors activities and we hadn’t brought warm enough clothing to be able to go outside for too long. We took a drive and a short walk out at Wattle point but quickly were driven back inside by the weather. We packed up for Melbourne and walked out for dinner, having a nice pizza at a local shop. I watched a lot of the cricket which didn’t help my mood much. England were skittle for 159 and we were hoping to see Day 3.

Wednesday

It was a fairly straightforward journey to Melbourne despite a detour caused by a road closure due to an earlier fatality. The news keeps a note of the Holiday Road toll and you can’t escape the regular updates. England were running through the Australian top order and I was getting over excited. We made Melbourne in good time and I navigated us straight to our campsite, much to everyone’s surprise. We drove back into town having erected our tent and tried, unsuccessfully, to pick up our tickets for the next day.

That night we met up with Emma and Steve and had a few drinks with them and later Emma and Tim but we managed to get separated from the others. Fortunately I was sensible and said that Lou and I should catch the last tram and we successfully did so. We woke up early and decided to keep the car for the remainder of our holiday.


Thursday
We got the tram into town and picked up our tickets, met up with Emma and Steve all in time to see the first ball. It was my first Test Match ever, in the most impressive venue in the world. I predicted that we would get their tail out in an hour but would lose by the end of the day. Unfortunately my predictive powers were spot on. It was good to see Warne’s last ever home test performance and wicket and he was hoisted onto Symond’s and Hayden’s shoulders when Clark cleaned up Hoggard.

My diet of the day was two meat pies and 2 chicken kebabs and then washed down by lots of beer. Great days. After the match we walked down and found a cheap bar doing free sausages ( add 2 to the list above) we then went over the road to another pub and continued in there. It was a good night and we still were able to find our way to get the last tram home.

Friday
Met up with Emma and Tim for Lunch in St Kilda. We had lovely weather and a nice meal on the beachfront before we took a walk around. We decided to head back but to come back that night for the penguin tour and for a spot of lunch and duly completed both. We ate at the Pelican, a trendy little bistro place and had expensive tapas. We got off early as we wanted to get going early the next day.

Saturday

We headed up the road to the Falls Festival in Lorne. It took about 3 hours to get there and when we did we quickly set up and started partying. Lots of beer, good bands and a great atmosphere meant we had a cracking time. Me and Tim were even seen dancing for long periods of time. Unfortunately we were all 10 – 15 years too old.

Lou fell over coming out of the toilets and landed in human effluence which put a dampener on her night and a strange smell to our tent. Also Tim’s arse had gone nuclear. We were woken at 5am by some knobs trying to fight each other and as a result we were miserable bastards.

Sunday

We went into Lorne to clean up but the girls had decided that one night was enough so we booked out a chalet nearby. We had a good new year’s eve there drinking and having had a good Barbie finishing up at about 2am.

Monday
Tim and I had to get the car and we did so with a minimum of fuss or hassle compare to what we were expecting. We hitch-hiked to the campsite and drove straight out returning within half an hour of setting off. We decided to drive then to Apollo Bay for breakfast/ lunch. The trip with the bending roads was a little too much for Lou and she had to get out to be sick. Having driven half way there I assumed the plan was to continue on to the 12 apostles, however, as the weather was poor it was decided that we would drive back to our new place in Torquay. We did and got caught in the traffic that we would have avoided if we had headed that way straight away. We went out that night in Torquay to a wine bar, Growlers, where I had a spectacular steak and then a few cheeky beers

Tuesday
We had hired a plane ride over the 12 Apostles for 3 o’ clock because we were concerned about hangovers and poor early weather. This did rather limit the rest of the day though.

We went to the shops to get a wetsuit for emma and then onto Bell’s beach – a famous surfing beach – and back to Torquay for Fish and chips. We arrived at the airfield and found the 3 seater Cessna ready for us. Lou and I went first, we were lucky again on the weather, and from the plane we had fantastic views of the coastline. This was one of the highlights of the holiday. I had taken well over 100 pictures by the time we landed. Tim and Emma went up after us and we then went back to the house. This was to be their last night so we decided to have a few drinks. We went back to Growlers and Lou had the steak this time. We had a few and continued on back at ours but decided to call it a night relatively early as someone had to drive.

Wednesday

Lou drove and we dropped both them and the car off on time. We were both looking forward to seeing Melbourne as we liked the taster we had had during the cricket. We thought we would be tourists for our remaining time and so we booked ourselves on a boat trip first up, down the Yarra River. Next stop up the rialto towers and to have a look from it’s observation deck. It was probably the best weather of the 3 week trip and the skies were cloudless. Great views and a good start to Melbourne. We checked in then did a bit of shopping for Lou down Bourke’s street. We headed back and then went out at the local market which does a good night market on a Wednesday. I ate Croc, Emu and Kangaroo in a burger – it was awful. That night we tried to find pubs but we were being fussy and kept changing our minds. In the end we settled on the Stork Hotel that was opposite us and had a few drinks.

Thursday
Our last day of the holiday so we decided to continue on the tourist thing. First stop was the Market again as Lou and loved it the night before. We walked to the Museum and spent a couple of hours there. En route we saw the Exhibition building which is one of the few manmade world heritage sites in Australia. In the Museum they actually had the Ashes urn on show and I lined up and saw these and read up about the history. There was a good aboriginal display. Australia has a bit of a crisis of identity with regard to aborigines and what is the best way forward with these groups.

We then went onto The Old Gaol and saw Ned Kelly’s death mask and where he was hanged. Lou has a macabre fascination with such stuff and was keen to go along. She loved it and even tried on some of the Kelly's gang armour - meant for primary School children. It was quite a spooky, old place and it gave a lot of incidental history about the social conditions of Melbourne in the nineteenth century.

We then went and did a bit more shopping as we had a few dollars left and went back to our Hotel. We Stopped off at the Meeting Place Tabaret – a bar with loads of fruit machines in on the way back. We freshened up and went back out again we tried a couple of bars but again ended up at the stork hotel.

Friday
Got up early, got airport minibus and had a very stress free journey to KL.

We both loved Australia. Fantastic Scenery and wildlife. We found the people very warm and open. People would just speak to you because they were interested in you and it is the done thing. They were only gently abusive about the cricket as well and they were well informed. We both liked the food, I love spicy Asian food but I had been getting pangs for Fish and Chips, Chicken kebabs, good steaks and Meat pies.