To 4-Dec-06 (Melbourne Vic to Yackandandah Vic)

MELBOURNE Vic (Apollo Gardens Caravan Park)
We enjoyed touring the City, checking out the Yarra Valley (where Rhonda found some excellent cheese) and caught up with friends Paul and Murray & Christina and Ken & Tricia. We also found time for some warranty work on the van and a little good, old-fashioned resting.



We saw a promo picture of these natty beach boxes at Brighton and just had so see them in person – they took some tracking down! But as the old saying goes, they can run but they can’t hide!!.








BALLARAT Vic (Shady Acres Caravan Park)
Ballarat must have been an impressive & wealthy town back in them old gold-rush days because there are still heaps of grand old buildings in the town centre. We checked out the Eureka Centre – those were tough times!



The drought is sure evident here! This is the (dry) Lake Windouree where they held the rowing events for the Melbourne Olympics (yes, those are boat sheds!). Would have a few problems running rowing events at the moment and might even need to adopt some rules from the Todd River Regatta to get a result.

We also went to a delightfully old-fashioned church on Sunday morning – it took us back years.



BENDIGO Vic (Robinley Caravan Park)
A short drive took us to Bendigo, which seemed to have a more modern feel than Ballarat. We enjoyed our time here and found a really impressive cathedral. A local told us that the cathedral had no cracks (unlike some more modern buildings in the town) – because they really knew how to build in the “good old days”. We also discovered that the van needed to go back to Melbourne for a little extra work and so we travelled to Seymour via Epping, Melbourne.



SEYMOUR Vic (Highland Caravan Park)
This was a delightful park owned by Hughie (a former Qantas aircraft engineer) and his wife Marie. Hughie had had enough of the rat-race and decided to try something different. We enjoyed a long chat.



Plenty of water here in the Goulburn River. Spencer discovered this park on an early morning run - which included meeting and then following a huge sheep along a bush track.












Here is Spencer doing his “let’s clean up Australia a bit at a time” thing while Rhonda made some delicious morning tea.









SHEPPARTON Vic (Big 4 Shepparton East Caravan Park)
Wow! Factory outlets are everywhere here in Shepp (that’s what the locals call it) - SPC-Ardmona, Pentel Soaps, Campbells Soups and the Nut Man to name but a few. We had a great time cruising for bargains (and still managed to squeeze our treasures into the van). We also really enjoyed catching up with friends Ken and Ruth – the almost three years since we had last met seemed to vanish into nothing.



This is the Ovens River at Bright (on the way to Mount Beauty). There seemed to be plenty of water flowing here and it looked cool and beautiful.









MOUNT BEAUTY Vic (with friends Jan & Don)
What a beautiful place (like the name says) – although the Tawonga Pass road from Bright to Mount Beauty was very steep (both up and down) – the car was very glad to arrive at Don & Jan’s.



This is Lake Guy with the mountains near Falls Creek in the background. It’s just below the little township of Bogong and a really pretty place.











YACKANDANDAH Vic (Yackandandah Holiday Park)
A short 63k drive brought us to this delightful place and a peaceful, friendly van park. We enjoyed another delicious meal at the Star Hotel and it was as good as our previous meal there over 2 years ago.



This is our own private seat just behind our van and beside the flowing creek. There were birds singing and playing around the water – it was very pleasant.










With best wishes & may God richly bless each person reading this,




Spencer & Rhonda

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