OZ - Melbourne to the Outback!

OZ

The much anticipated arrival in Melbourne, Australia was somewhat stressful for us but we eventually arrived in our hostel on the very cool Chapel Street and had ourselves a well-deserved Aussie beer to celebrate.
The next morning we awoke early and headed out to get our new campervan – a Spaceship campa. This little beauty is smaller than our last van but comes with a DVD player and fridge, it's also easier to drive. On our way to pick it up we stopped by the centre of town and had a quick look around. Melbourne is really nice, very open, attractive buildings and a lot of character. The people are really friendly and the food is good and quite cheap so we're happy.

We jumped in our new campa and headed off in search of a map to guide us out of town in the right direction. You would think this would be easy... but for some reason finding a map of Victoria in Melbourne proved to be very difficult. We stopped at about ten shops and petrol stations before finally finding one and realising we were half way out of town already but in the wrong direction! We picked out our route and headed for Maldon, near Castlemaine, (original home of Castlemaine XXXX (beer) and home of Lou (my cousin), Nick, Angus and new arrival Dulcie (and my auntie Rosalie who was visiting) at Steam Train Cottage.

We arrived around 6pm and settled in with a beer and greetings all round. Nick drove Al, Rosalie and I to their farm ten minutes away. They have bought a patch of land, about 6 acres in size and Nick has been hard at work planting a vineyard, avocado trees, peach trees, plum trees, cherries... the list goes on, and a dozen others. They also have a “choock shed” – chicken hut (without chickens at the moment) and a large pond with crayfish – which Al and I did some kayaking on. They also have a plot for a house marked out. It will be really amazing when its completed and Al and I will be back in a few years to sample some of the homemade wine and goodies.
On the way back we stopped off to view a field of kangaroos – this was our first proper viewing of a mob of kangaroos and it was pretty amazing – finally we really felt like we were in Australia! Lou and Nick's dog Jindi decided to jump out of the window and made it across the field at lightning speed to catch the kangaroos – luckily for the kangaroos she wasn't successful and luckily for her she wasn't given a kicking. On the way back a black wallaby jumped right in front of the car – amazing! Apparently this happens a lot and it's really easy to hit them. We really hope this doesn't happen to our nice shiny rented campervan...

The evening was wiled away playing the dijeridoo
cuddling sleepy babies and checking out Nick's skull collection – kangaroos, dingos, possums, dolphins, you name it; and staring at the creepy poisonous spider in the bathroom – luckily it doesn't really move beyond the curtain rail.

The next couple of days were spent chilling out with the Aussie cousins, spotting steamtrains with Angus driving round the area and playing with the children – such a nice change from the usual backpacker routine... oh and more dijeridoo - Al was becoming quite a pro:

We went on a pub crawl of Maldon's three local pubs – one is named the Kangaroo Hotel which we liked and it was our first taste of a real Aussie country pub.

We were also introduced to Bundaberg Rum – Australia's national spirit.
The next day we visited a town called Bendigo. It has an old colonial town centre, complete with a street called Pall Mall (which we thought was quite funny):

On our last night Lou and Nick treated us to a proper Aussie barbie at the farm
and Nick took us hunting for a huntsman spider, which we found under a dead tree trunk, fishing for yabbies (crayfish), we also got to plant our own tree (a judas tree) which we can come back to see in a couple of years. Later on we went up the local watch tower overlooking the whole region – we could see all the way to Melbourne. Later on and after a few more beers Al discovered some of Nick's more unusual house decorations: (can you spot the huntsman spider behind Al's head?)


We had an amazing time with Lou, Nick and the family but it was soon time to hit the road again. On their advice we decided to head to the outback, rather than see Victoria's coast. The coastline is meant to be amazing but we decided that we would rather get a feel for the real Australia as we will be seeing a lot of coastline later in our trip.

The roadtrip was fantastic! We drove up to the Murray river and checked out a town called Echuca which has an old-fashioned port with paddle boats. We continued along the river and came to Mildura where we checked out the locals and wiled away Friday night in a bar and then camped in the town (not actually sure if that's allowed but no one noticed!)


The next morning we reached the outback area – red sand and shrubs stretching as far as the eye can see – amazing and very beautiful. We saw wild goats, wild emus, kangaroos and lizards.



We reached Broken Hill, the old mining town of the area and had a look around. It was decorated with Christmas decorations which looked quite funny against the blue sky and desert heat.

From there we drove as far as the road would take us to a small town called Silverton.
Here we really felt like we were in the wild west. There were a few buildings scattered around the dusty roads – an old gaol, a church, a museum and a couple of houses. Best of all was the Silverton Hotel (pub) which we popped into for a quick drink – I noticed a very cool looking car outside and Al remarked that the pub looked like all the typically Australian hotel/bars he had seen in the beer commercials. We entered to find that we had actually stumbled across a very famous little pub. The walls were covered with memorabilia from the numerous films and adverts that have been filmed there – Mad Max, A town called Alice, Castlemaine XXXX beer... and many more. It was pretty awesome and we were thrilled that we had ended up in such a cool place.

We spent the night camped at a scenic viewpoint 5km north of town and in the desert. We thought it would be deserted but as we were cooking 15 cars pulled up and parked at the viewpoint next to us. It was a vintage car club on their weekly get together. They pulled our tables and chairs from their cars and started laying out picnics. They were very friendly and it was nice to see all the old cars lined up against the outback sunset.

The next morning we awoke to see a kangaroo hopping just metres from the car. The sky was a beautiful blue against the red sand of the outback. We took time to relax for a while in Broken Hill and then set off again to find our way back home, back through the outback - time to take some final pictures of the stunning red sand against the blue sky:







On the way back we spent the night off a small country road next to some fields.



The flies here were terrible, everyone knows that the flies in Australia are bad but we hadn't expected them to be this annoying! They try to fly into your eyes and up your nose and just don't leave you alone. The next morning we awoke to find that we had a slight problem... the car battery had died. We were slightly concerned as we were in the middle of nowhere. Al had a fiddle with the engine but to no avail. We had no choice but to flag down some cars and ask for a jump lead. All three cars we flagged down stopped for us (again showing that Aussies are very friendly people) and luckily the third guy was able to start our car for us – phew!!

On the road again, we headed back to Melbourne via my cousins' house where we were able to have a very welcome shower and relax with the children in the sun. Nick took us yabby fishing again


and this time we caught something – wooo!!

9 little yabbies and we took them home, cooked them up and ate them – yummy!


The next day we had to return the car by 4pm so we headed off early to get to Healesville Sanctuary – an animal sanctuary just outside Melbourne where you wlil find loads of Australia's native animals. We fed a kangaroo and a wallaby, saw koalas,
tazmanian devils, platapus, emus, saw crazy giant pelicans, fresh water crocodiles, wombats, dingoes howling, and... fruit bats – ewww! They reminded us of dracula and were pretty creepy!

All in all our trip to Victoria was excellent. We really liked Melbourne, Maldon and the outback, it was great to see my cousins and everyone we met was very friendly.

Next stop Sydney...