Homeward Bound

Sunday 20^th, Monday 21^st and 22^nd November

Sunday

A very interesting trip out of Melbourne today.  The GPS (Betty) is letting us down a bit because she is not giving us much warning of a change of direction, she is also taking us on some strange detours, some of which we refuse to take.  Melbourne drivers aren’t very tolerant and I reckon the first thing that would wear out on their cars would be the horn.  They like to use them a lot.  I reckon I heard a few different tones today.  Lucky today is Sunday and not a weekday where I would encounter a few more motorists.

Once out of Melbourne the freeway/highway becomes a more normal road and is quite interesting.  I can see why there is a thriving dairy industry because the pastures are green and filled with what seem contented cows.

We stopped in Sale to get some bread rolls for lunch and stopped in Lakes Entrance to have them.  It was nice to see a young family who stopped across the road from McDonalds and went and got fish and chips.  Although the scenery wasn’t as good as the Great Ocean Road it was interesting because the sea wasn’t all that far away.

As we got further through Gippsland we seemed to move inland.  We passed over some nice rivers that had boats and houseboats tied up at jetties.  They would be perfectly placed for a weekend getaway.

Eden was a nice place to stay.  Behind the Garden of Eden Caravan Park (where we stayed) there was a board walk that went around the shores of Lake Curalo.  There were ducks and swans there that we could see and fish that we couldn’t see but saw the occasional splash and noise from jumping fish.

Cabin at Eden

Boardwalk around Lake Curalo

Duck on Lake Curalo

Swans on Lake Curalo

Tomorrow we are off to somewhere around the west of Sydney.

Monday

Left Eden this morning and headed north.  Some interesting names like Eurobodalla, Bega, Moruya and Gerroa.  There were a lot of cheese factories on the way, Bega had one too.

The scenery up to Wollongong was interesting because the road passed close to the coast in a lot of places.  We chose the route out of Nowra that took us there purposely even though it added a little extra to the distance.  Nice scenery and lots more contented cows.  I would say that there had been a fair bit of rain there over the previous weeks because everything was so green and seemed damp.

We had our lunch overlooking the beach at Gerroa which is a small village on the coastal route from Nowra to Wollongong and it seems that the beach there is a very popular spot.  While we were having lunch a group of what appeared to be High School Students were being tutored in the finer points of surfboard riding while further along there were about six people windsurfing.  The wind was quite strong and the windsurfers seemed to get a real speed up.  I didn’t see any of them actually jumping the waves though.

Lunch Time View at Gerroa

Windsurfer at Gerroa

Another Windsurfer at Gerroa

Just north of Wollongong is the turn off to Picton.  We headed that way because we were going to stay in the Penrith area but because we got there with time to spare we headed to Windsor which would give us a bit of a head start in the morning.

Tuesday

We stayed in a van park in Windsor last night.  We have headed this way on a number of occasions in the past so there was nothing new for us to see.  The Putty Road still has lots of hills and bends.

We had a nice stop in Muswellbrook where we caught up with Heather and John Welch.  They were heading south and we were heading north so we arranged to meet.  Really good timing.  We only had to wait about 5 minutes.

It is sad to have finished such a wonderful trip but good to be home.

There will be one final blog when we will try and pick the best three things of our trip.

Deb and Den