Road trip with dogs - Day 8

We packed up in showers which quickly cleared, and made our way to Melbourne.  Today's entertainment was to fing the Embroidery Den at Highett where I have been ordering Paternayan yarn for longstitch embroidery.  It was an easy place to find - easier seeing there was a parking area associated with the library just across the road!  I have now chosen the colours for my next long stitch tapistry - the sound shapes I use for early music classes need their own dedicated bag!

From Highett we went down the coast south east along Port Phiilip Bay to catch the ferry from Sorrento across to Queenscliff.  It was not a cheap ride but saved us considerable time seeing  I was determined to get to Highett.

We had a short stop at Queenscliff, then it was less than 1 and a half hours to Bill's cousin Dierdre's place at Fairhaven, just south of Airey's Inlet.  It was an incredibly hot humid day - worthy of a normal Brisbane summer's day!  We caught up with grand - neices we have never yet met.  We walked along the beach with the dogs, who were delighted to be off a lead for once.  We had dinner out at the local hotel for not too much!

The weather forcasts are not good.  Seems we have brought tropical air down south to Victoria and the weather bureau is anxious about some areas getting way too much rain.  Seems the same weather patterns that flooded Brisbane are also affecting us 2000 kilometres away!

Car ferry from Sorrento to Queenscliff

ON the ferry to Queenscliff

Lighthouse at Airey's Inlet

Another veiw of Airey's Inlet

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The sunset that evening.

The grand-cousins practising their knitting!

Road trip with dogs - day 19

Today we drove to Toowoomba to have lunch at my parents and drop off camping stuff, and to start catching up on news.  My parents had water through their house from the deluge that caused the flash flooding in both Toowoomba and the Lockyer valley, but it was not of a serious nature.  My sister was cut off for 5 days at her place near Helidon in the Lockyer valley, no water in her place but the creek that surrounds her place has cliffs gouged out around it now!  She had twigged to their being a lot of rain coming and had already dealt with the road to her place being cut by more minor flooding, and had stocked up majorly with supplies, including powdered milk.

The road into Brisbane was quite pot-holed, but basically in good condition, so we didn't have any problems getting back into town.  We could see the evidence of a lot of water going through places, and was surprised that things were looking as under control as they were.

We surprised my family by appearing early, DS Greg had just got in from his flight home from Adelaide, and Claire was going out for the evening.

School starts tomorrow, and there's lots to do to get an instrumental music program going again at school.  Tomorrow thai will feel as though it never happened!

Road trip with dogs - day 18

We ummed and ahhed about which route to take home from Coonabarabran, and decided to do the rational thing and follow the main drag through Goondawindi.  Only trouble was, we missed the turn just out of town and were headed in a different direction.  I had noticed we didn't seem to be annoyed that much by a lot of heavy vehicles!  So we made it official, and headed through the back roads via Texis and Inglewood.  We discovered in the back blocks that we couldn't access supermarkets on a Saturday afternnon, and in Queensland, where we would be by evening, there is no 24 hour shopping like the other states.  We knew the only way to be fed that evening was to eat out, but being coeliac and gluten free, that's not a simple thing!

We could see where all the water went through in the past few weeks.  There were many potholes nd ruts in the road, and raodwards to match.  We had to proceed somewhat cautiously, but at least the water was where it was supposed to be!

We camped at Inglewood and a somewhat down at heels caravan park, but it was late, we were tired and couldn't be bothered finding the out of town park and have to travel back for food.  We did find a nice cafe that tried very hard to provided wheat free food for me (difficult!) that was a cut above your average take away joint!

Road trip with dogs - day 17

We decided to keep driving until it started to cool in the evening.  We headed through West Wyalong (where is East Wyalong, we wondered - we think it died as the west side grew!)  and Parkes.  We stopped to take a photo of the radio telescope that is featured in the movie "The Dish", but it needed to have been cooler for us to get inside of the visitors centre and to leave the dogs in the car.

Coonabarabran was were we pitched camp for the night.  We saw the Warrumbungle mountains in the distance, but it was awkward to stop for a photo as I had traffic behind too close to safely do anything unpredictable!

We have found if we stay just a whisker over the speed limit for the road we have little trouble with the "double B" trucks, as we track between them and they don't catch up to us that easily.  It's not much fun with one on your tail, and we try to get them to pass us as much as we can!  Passing lanes are not for us to pass trucks, but for them to get by us!

Road trip with dogs - day 16

I guess today was the most boring drive of the trip.  We left the Murray region and tracked further the the Murrmbidgee River area.  This is the part of the world where i spent the first 8 years of my life.  The Murrumbidgee River is not as scenic a river as the Murray.  It runs through a "channel country" of small rivers that run only in the wet, and the area is referred to the "riverina".  The Murrumbidgee River is not one where there were nice parks on its banks.  Instead there was low laying muddy forested areas referred to as "overflows" along the banks, those of you who know the Poem "Clancy of the Overflow", it was that kind of country the poet was reffering to.  I must admit, as we went through the irrigation areas, it was mile after mile after mile of grapevines!  Unbelievable.  Not wonder we have a wine glut in Australia!  We went past the gate of the de Bortoli winery where my parents bought their first bottles of wine in the early 1960's, the same winery we purchased a bottle for my dad in the yarra Valley a week ago!

We camped in the heat at griffith.  We did not bother with putting the fly on the tent, just erected the innards and used it as an overgrown mozzie net.  The circadas were amazingly noisy!  My dogs had fun catching them and eating them!  Ihope I don't have dogs with stomach upsets from them!

Road trip with dogs - day 15

Today is the day to head home!  Somehow it seems to make me cheerful, although once I get home reality will hit fast and everything will seem like a dream.

Of course, the weather is beautifully fine and warming up fast!  Today we headed for Mildura, a major irrigation area growing fruit and vegetables inland on the Murray River.

Once we headed out of the Adelaide Hills we discovered that South Australia is flat, flat, and more flat, and looking very dry in spite of the rain they are getting.  But once we got to the Murray River the scenery became much more interesting.  Today we have had a Murray River crawl!  The river is very high, close to bursting its banks.  it is a lovely sight, and must be a great relief for the locals after years of drought and enviromental stress with too much water being taken for irrigation from the river under drought conditions.  We stopped at every town on the Murray that had a park at the river.  The dogs are in a good routine as now they accept a dring every time we stop.  We have found some wonderful quiet towns on the Murray that I would gladly go back to and stay a while in perfect peace and quiet.  At Mildura we found houseboats where people live permanently.  With the river in such good condition, it seems an idyllic lifestyle!

Road trip with dogs - day 14

We had a quiet morning where I caught up with details like doing the laundry, updating blogs etc!  This afternoon we travelled to Gawler, north of Adelaide to visit my Aunty Jan, who hasn't seen me since I was 13 and at her sister's wedding!  She seemed quite happy to catch up with a relative in the "lost" category.  I explained that I had never been to Adelaide before.  She could show off her grandkids (being babysat) and I could show of my kids (via photos on the computer).  The traffic in Adelaide was pretty bad getting to Gawler so we decided to take off directly to Mt Barker over the Mt Lofty ranges, a much better idea.  I am sure we did not take any longer to drive back, and the roads were peaceful and scenic.  On the way it became apparent that the place was setting up for a major bike road race, the "Tour Down Under"  so we are glad we are moving on tomorrow in the direction of home, and not getting tangled up in road closures, traffic, spectators and anything else that was yet to happen!