Stats Overview
Km's Travelled: 704
Km's Hiked: 7
No. of Campsites: 3
The Adventures
We have successfully completed another week of travelling throughout Victoria. It's crazy to think we have been on the road for 9 whole weeks! We are finding that we are now getting to the point where we can no longer remember all the places we have visited off the top of our heads. We both feel like we have seen so much, but then we open our map of Australia and realise we have barely scraped the surface of this big country!
We started our week off at Wilsons Promontory where we were hoping for some better weather. We got a bit of a mixed basket weather wise on our final day. The morning started with the clouds parting and the sun starting to peak through. We quickly put on our hiking gear to do the Mount Oberon summit hike where you can apparently get incredible views over to the ocean. Unfortunately, by the time we were halfway up the mountain, the rain came back and then the fog set in. By the time we made it to the summit all you could see was a blanket of white! Thankfully the sun did come out a bit in the afternoon and I was able to do a hike across to Squeaky Beach to enjoy some of the ocean views. While there we also got to experience some wildlife at our campsite. I got the nice kind of experiences like seeing a wombat wandering around at dusk. Will got the less nice experiences, like having birds steal his food! He had a kookaburra try to snatch a calamari ring right out of his hand and then had a seagull stole an egg right off his plate after he cooked a nice, hot brekky. I thought his bird encounters were hilarious...Will did not agree!
After Wilsons Promontory, we headed off to Bendigo to explore some of the gold country in Victoria. On the way through we stopped at Kyneton and were able to catch up with Mariette, who I worked with in Mackay and who taught Will Home Ec in high school. After nine weeks of travelling it was really nice to see a friendly face! The main attraction for our time in Bendigo was to complete the underground mine tour. Will was really excited for the tour - apparently he is missing his site trips to the mines for work! During our visit we got to go 61m below the surface to explore one of the levels of the mine, which still has gold in it. Bendigo mined 700,000kgs of gold during its time (by far the biggest haul in Victoria) and apparently there is even more gold in the ground, it just isn't profitable to get it out anymore. The immense wealth of the mines was obvious in all the grand, old architecture of the town.
After Bendigo we headed a little further south to the town of Ballarat. We found an awesome free camp at Lake Burrumbeet just outside of town. However, due to the long weekend it was absolutely chockas! We were lucky to find a site, however, we found a nice secluded spot which backs on to a farm and every evening we have a mob of sheep come down to visit us which is pretty cute. We timed our trip to Ballarat perfectly, as the Begonia Festival was on over the long weekend. I headed into town to check it out while Will stayed back and worked. I think he was secretly relieved he didn't have to spend his afternoon looking at flowers! The begonia display was insanely beautiful - the photos really do not do it justice. Ballarat apparently has one of the rarest collections of begonias in the southern hemisphere. Of course a trip to Ballarat would not be complete with visiting Sovereign Hill, which is a large historical village set up to represent the peak of the gold rush era during the 1850's. We both really enjoyed our visit there with the highlights being the blacksmith demonstration, the gold pour, wheel-making and the lolly making!
Kodak Moments
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| Rainbow - Wilson Promontory |
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| "View" from the top of Mount Oberon - Wilsons Prom |
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| Sunshine over the water - Wilsons Prom |
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| Preparing to find some gold - Bendigo |
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| Gold in the quartz seam - Bendigo |
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| Trying to make my fortune, unfortunately, it looks like I'll have to go back to work - Bendigo |
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| Beautiful begonia display - Ballarat |
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| More of the begonias - Ballarat |
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Sunset from our campsite - Ballarat
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| Playing dress ups - Sovereign Hill |
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| Will old school bowling - Sovereign Hill |
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