Monday 27 November – Boomer 82 – Japan 58
Frankston – Sorrento – Queenscliff – Inverleigh – Rokewood – Skipton – Beaufort - Ararat
Big move today. This will be one of the longer treks we have had in awhile. I was surprised I was awake at 645am and relatively with it. We jumped out of bed at 715am and began the routine that is moving day. We were pretty efficient and by 815am, we were driving away from Frankston and heading to Sorrento at the tip of the Mornington Peninsula.
We had toyed with the idea of driving the route through the inner Melbourne suburbs, as we had done in the little car when heading for the airport last week, but in the end Paul felt more comfortable taking our big vehicle taking on the ferry and through Geelong.
The drive from Frankston to Sorrento took 50min, passing familiar landmarks on the Mornington Peninsula. We arrived at the Searoad Ferry at 915am, paid the $149 ferry fee and then sat on the dock waiting for the ferry to return. We took the opportunity to read our books for 30min.
Once the ferry arrived, we were loaded on and then I made a mad dash for inside where I knew there would be free wifi. I was straight into loading the last 10 day’s blog posts, not bothering with maps for now, seeing the iPad is not as efficient. I also got to loading Paul’s brewery reviews, as I am somewhat behind on those also. I was ¾ of the way through loading the photos for them, when we docked at Queenscliff and were ordered back to our vehicle. Nooo, I didn’t get to finish. Who knows when I’ll have internet again.
Once off the ferry, we made our way through the small Queenscliff settlement, following the GPS instructions towards Geelong. We still had 2 ½ hours of driving ahead of us. We skirted around the outer areas of Geelong, spotting the lighting towers of Skilled Stadium, before turning onto the B140 heading towards Hamilton.
Mum rang just before midday to catch up on where we were at and pass on news from home. As the conversation finished, we passed through the small town of Innverleigh. This must have been quite a stop in colonial times, with beautiful, old, brown stone buildings lining the main road.
The sky had remained grey, overcast and threatening for most of ur journey, but it wasn’t until we passed through Rokewood, with an hour left of our journey, that it began to spit. For much of the journey the greeny-yellow of the emerging wheat fields was highlighted due to the greyness of the sky surrounding it. We passed plenty of sheep farms, some ready to defleece the flock and send the cold and shivering animals into their paddocks to face the whiles of the weather.
At 1250pm, we stopped in Skipton to put fuel in the van and use the loo, we were then ready to finish the last 70km stretch along some pretty ordinary country thoroughfares. I had forgotten how bad the Victorian roads were once you get away from the city highways.
40km short of Ararat, we drove through the town of Beaufort. It looked like quite an interesting spot, with a largish centre. By 145pm, after seeing the cloud begin to separate as we rounded past a large range of land, we had finally reached our resting spot, Green Hill Lake. Thankfully, we were able to pull up in our well known spot and begin the parade of moving things from the car, after Paul managed to detangle the tyres from the tie downs.
I got in to making up lunch, before we both ate and thought about what next. Town it was. We drove to the Woollies to pick up a few bits, walked the Main Street, checking in the jewellers to see if Tracey was in, no and then heading back to the car.
We spied Robbo in the Kings car dealership, so we stopped to say hi and organise a catch up after work. It was great to see him again and he let us know he had gone to the trouble of mowing the patch we were camped on.
We returned to the van, where the sun was shining, making the lake sparkle. I rang the Moana caravan park to book us in for later in the week and then took advantage of the lovely weather, sitting outside reading. It was lovely to just go ahh. We did go for a walk, talking to some fishermen about the chances of catching trout, but became concerned we might miss Robbo and Tracey, so we returned to the van.
630pm came by quick and I started dinner, we ate as soon as the steaks were cooked and were in the middle of washing up, when Robbo and Tracey popped by. We sat outside talking about our trip and their holiday to Vietnam. It was so wonderful to get the opportunity to see each other again.
Unfortunately, they had a big day planned for tomorrow, Cat Stephens in Melbourne, so they said their goodbyes at 830pm and we waved them off.
We were still wide awake, it didn’t help that it was still light, so we took off for a walk to the lake wall, finishing the lap we started earlier. It was a lovely night, starry and cool. Once we were back however, we were ready for bedtime.
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