Lachlan's Birthday and Western Yorke Peninsula

9th February 2013 - 12th February 2013

After a very satisfying 4 nights at Bowy's Melaleuca Retreat, we decided that our next port of call would be 'The Gap' camping ground, a good couple of hundred kms from Marion Bay.  On the way we made brief stops at Yorketown and Maitland for supplies.  The girl from the IGA even brought our groceries to the car for us - now that's service you don't see every day!

'The Gap' was right on the ocean overlooking Spencer Gulf on the western side of the Yorke Peninsula.  This area was very dry and dusty - no grass to pitch our trailers on.  During our time there we swam, attempted to fish and celebrated Lachlan's birthday.  The one main problem we faced in trying to cook the cake that we'd promised Lachlan is that the whole of the Yorke Peninsula is subject to a 6 month fire ban from November to April.

Not to be defeated, we decided to cook the cake on the gas stove.  It took over an hour but the result was choice.  There was a beaming smile on Lachlan's face.  We had a great day of events such as 'pass the parcel' and 'musical chairs' as well as some excellent party fare.  All in all a great day.

After a couple of days the wind and dust were getting to us so a quick scan of the Hema Maps revealed our next stop, Mambray Creek in the Mount Remarkable National Park.  This park featured massive red gums lining a dry creek.  On our way were stopped in Port Pirie and had a great lunch in the park.  On arrival at Mambray Creek we chatted to a young lady who was a reptile expert while watching a Life Monitor slowly plod around the camp site.  She mentioned that there were also goannas in the area.

The facilities in this park were again first class.  Each night we cooked up a storm on the provided gas BBQs whilst keeping a watchful eye on some overly friendly kookaburras - they were in line for our sausages.  We also enjoyed the showers.

As the road through the park was bitumen we had the perfect spot to set up the 'Street Tennis' and the boys had some great tournaments.  We're glad we brought the set along as everyone loves a game.

One morning we set off to do an 8km return walk along the creek.  Along the way we stopped at Scarfe's Hut for some shade and a drink The last 400m was a hard up hill climb to a nice view.  Previous walkers had been adding to a cairn so we obliged with our own hand selected rock.  All in all a great walk.  That night we watched a great sunset and relaxed as we were heading off the next day.

Gavs and Marion Bay

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

We headed to the  park with Bowy, Adrianna and James to meet Gav, Lynda and the boys.  We enjoyed a lovely picnic and there was plenty of room to play cricket and Frisbee. 

Afterwards we went to Gavins house and sat around the pool catching up while the younger boys enjoyed a swim. After a huge day Kai and Lachlan were exhausted and had a fantastic sleep.

 

The next day we headed to Bowy’s beach shack at Marion Bay which Bowy had kindly let us stay at for four nights.  An amazing fact about the Yorke Peninsula is that there are a total of 85 shipwrecks scattered around its coastline, many due to extreme weather conditions and low lying reefs around the peninsula.

The boys at the Ethel ship wreck

 

Having the use of an oven was a godsend as it gave us an opportunity to make some of Brett's famous beef jerky.

 

During the days we visited some of the shipwrecks, a lighthouse some 80 meters above the ocean below and swam at the picturesque Pondalowie Bay.  The kids enjoyed diving off the pontoon and running flat stick down the steep dunes.

 

 

 As we had a big screen tv we all had a movie night and watched The Man From Snowy River.  The kids were excited to see "Craig's Hut" and other icons of the Victorian High Country that we'd visited in the weeks prior.

 

Catching up with Bowy

Friday 1st Feb 2013 to Saturday 2nd February 2013

As we were in South Australia it was now time to cash in the cans that all the kids had been collecting from the various campsites we had stopped at.  The Rippon kids requested that Adam went in to the recycling centre to report back on how the cans were counted and cashed in.  He let us all know that the cans are counted by hand and sorted through to make sure that they were all originally sold in South Australia.  After the count Adam was handed $78.20, that meant that the kids had collected and squashed 782 cans, what fantastic work by all 6 kids.

Afterwards we headed to Bridgewater where we met Bowy and went to his mum's place to park our camper trailer.  We then went to Bowys house were the kids were very excited to see that he had a PS 3 player with one of their favourite games "Call of duty", that is where Adam and Kai spent most of their time.  We took a walk along the railway track to the local park and checked out the Bridgewater Mill.  That night we made awesome home made pizzas in Bowys very own pizza oven which were Yummo.

 

Vanessa's mum comes to visit

Tuesday 29 January 2013 - Thursday 31 January 2013

As we were only 20km’s from the Grampions we decided we should go there for a drive and check them out.  We took a walk up Mt Sturgeon but as we didn't have proper shoes on we didn’t make it all the way up to the top.  We walked up about half way up and still managed to see some great views.  Afterwards we drove to Naracoorte Caves to meet the Rippons.  Vanessa had done her research and found a “South Australia Park’s Pass” which entitled you to 2 months of entry and camping at most of the National Parks camp spots in South Australia.   For $70 it was an absolute bargain as it almost paid for our camping at the caves that night.

Naracoorte was just a one night stop so the next day we packed up and headed toward our next camp spot in Coorong National Park.  We were told that once you drove into Coorong National Park you had to drive all the way out again around Lake Albert and Lake Alexandrina to get back towards Adelaide.  To our surprise there was a ferry service that not only took you across the lakes but it was free and ran for 24 hours !!  There is actually 11 free ferries on the Murray River in South Australia. That was great as seeing Mt Barker was our next stop and the ferry trip was going to cut off about 70km’s of driving.

 

The kids waiting to get across the ferry

Vanessa’s mum came to visit us and brought us some alcoholic supplies from Adelaide as we were running a bit low.  While she was here we made a yummy cake in the camp oven, took a trip over on the free ferry and walked up to the light house, had some fun kayaking and shared some stories over the camp fire.  After a couple of nights us Elphicks headed off to stay with our mate Bowie.

 

Trying to keep our balance while heading over on the ferry to the lighthouse

 

 

                 Yes, we are eating well :)

 

Sunday 27 January - Monday 28 January 2013

The next morning we headed up to Hamilton to stay at Mary and David's property which has an amazing view of the Grampions. After indulging in a very nice chocolate cake that Mary had made we were taken by "Ute Back" on a tour of the farm. 

 

 

Our first stop were the 'Doogles' (as affectionately known by Craig's family) and David stopped to let the kids jump from one to another.  We then had a look at some of the amazing farm equipment and also went to the shearing shed where the boys got a lesson in how to shear sheep. 

 









 

That night we indulged in lamb roast, red wine and port while watching the Tennis.

The next morning we had toast with home made apricot jam and coffee while sitting on the back deck enjoying the view of the Grampions.

As we were only 20km's away from the Grampions we went for a drive and had a walk up Mt Sturgeon.  After lunching in the park we met the Rippon's at Naracoorte Caves and camped there for the night.

Friday 25 January - Saturday 26 January 2013.

The next day we took in the sights of the Great Ocean Road.  It was extremely windy and cold and I am surprised we didn't get blown off the cliff.  The first thing that Lachlan said when he saw the Twelve Apostles was "I remember these, Ms Coutts taught me about them at school".  It was great for him to see something in real life that he had learnt about.

 

 

 



Our next stop was the Arch;

 

 

 

then we headed to London Bridge where kids learnt that when "London Bridge" was originally crumbling two people got stranded on the bridge and had to be rescued by helicopter.

 

Afterwards we made our way to Warrnambool where Craig's cousin Mary and her partner David were renovating an old pub into their new 'home away from home'.  The pub was featured in a movie called "Charlie and Boots" which starred Paul Hogan and "Kenny" (better known as Shane Jacobson).  Mary and David had kindly let us stay there for there for the Australia Day long weekend.  That night the girls and kids left the boys at the RSL so they could watch the Federer v's Murray game.

 

The next day was Australia day so we headed to the park for a slap up BBQ.  Then we played the traditional game of cricket and had a swim at the beach.  While the kids played in the park the adults had a couple of rounds of the card game five hundred and to top off the day we took the kids to the fair, where the younger two loved the Magic Circus ride.  

 

 

Our next visit was to Tess who lived in a little country town called Pomborneit. After catching up over a drink we were joined by her mum and cousin and had a wonderful roast dinner that Tess had cooked for us. After putting the kids to bed Tess, Craig and I got into her 10 person outdoor spa, which couldn't be more appropriate for us Elphs and we enjoyed a few drinks under the stars.

After breakfast the kids helped Tess around the farm and Adam got a ride on the quad bike.  We headed in to Camperdown to have a look around and then went for a drive up Mt Laura and checked out the view.  When we got back I whipped up a cob loaf dip and that night we had a BBQ dinner.  Craig got in the spa while us two girls sat around and chatted to him. I retired to bed and Craig and Tess sat up to watch the tennis.

We packed up from Tess’s and headed towards our next destination “The Great Ocean Road”.  By chance we passed the Rippon’s  on the road so we pulled over to discuss our plans for the day.  They were on their way to do the Triplet Falls walk so we followed them in along a windy dirt road that seemed to take forever.  I had woken up with Gastro that morning so I did not cope with the drive too well.   Everyone except for me went on the walk and Craig got some photos of the kids at the base of some amazing Mountain Ash trees.  We then headed to our next camp spot Aire Beach.

 

 

 

At this camp site there were two koalas hanging around in the trees sleeping and eating.  It was becoming common place for us to see koalas in the wild.  As it was coming up to the Australia day weekend there were many people camping with their Australian flags and cans of VB.  We started up a game of cricket which seemed to attract all of the other kids around the camp site which was great fun. 

 

One day Craig and Brett kayaked down to the ocean while the 6 kids and I walked along the sandy track to meet them. The ocean was really rough and there was no way we were going swimming in that so the kids amused themselves running up some very steep sand hills and running down them again really fast. They thought it was unreal. 

 

 

 We also went along the Great Ocean Walk for a few Km’s and encountered some fantastic views.  If you were to walk the whole Great Ocean walk it would take you 9 days to complete.