BRIDGEWATER

We have spent 13 days straight now doing volunteer work for BlazeAid and Peter has learnt quite a bit about fencing techniques although just about every fence is different. Lesley did go out for 2 days fencing but found it hard as both days were quite hot with little shade around. So she has been helping out around the base camp by cooking the breakfast (bacon, eggs, sausages etc...) on the barbecue for all the volunteers, washing and cleaning as well. We have met so many nice people from around Australia and the world here. Some stay for a few days and some have been here longer than us. A few volunteers left yesterday to help out at Charlton, which is about 70 kms to the north west of Bridgewater, as they were short of volunteers there. We thought about going up there, but maybe later. We had Wednesday and today off to have a rest and travel into Bendigo to do some shopping etc. Yesterday, Lorraine returned here to Bridgewater after going to Melbourne for a few days, so she took us out  to a property we had recently put up fences on and showed us how to use the  Metal Detector properly, but we only found some old nails and bullets, no gold yet! But now confident in using it so we may get to visit some old gold fields in next few days which locals have told us about.

BRIDGEWATER

Up again at 6am and after the normal breakfast and muster we joined our new team led by "Bob from ACT" and we ventured to a farm 10 kms north of Bridgewater to find that another BlazeAid team was already on the adjoining property and as the farmer here was sharing his tractor with auger attached. So we formed a big team and worked together, had an huge enjoyable lunch again put on by the farmers and their wives. Lesley felt a lot better today as she got on really well with the farmers wives and we met a member of the other team and her great Landcruiser (photo) - her name is Lorraine, she's 61, travels with a rainbow lorrikeet bird and been touring around Australia now for 35 years and she is such a great person! We told her all about Joe our friend in Adelaide who also has a Landcruiser. She said she was going down to Melbourne soon then going across to camp near the Murray Mouth in S.A. to do some fishing there. We thought about sending her to Joe's place too like the back-packers before, but decided that she might be too much for him to handle! (Con, please show Joe this pic of her 'cruiser if you can!) Lesley is going to have tomorrow off as she is a little worn-out from the work the last couple of days. Vodafone Mobile and wireless internet here is really bad, Telstra is poor, but Digital TV is good, so we aren't always able to get onto the internet at the moment, but tonight I put the USB Modem on the roof of Lucky Pigs with an 10m extension cable and it is a very poor connection so we will see how we go in future with it.

BRIDGEWATER

Up for breakfast at 6am (bacon, sausages & eggs, cereal & fruit, toast, tea and coffee), then our "muster" started at 7.30am where we all are allocated to our teams with a team leader who usually has had some previous experience doing fences etc. Today we both went in Doug's Landcruiser (our team leader for today) to a property about 20 kms west of Bridgewater to help replace and stand up washed down fencing. We both learnt a lot about what had happened here when the Loddon River flooded all the farms around here. The damage that the water and fallen trees floating downstream was tremendous. Just listening and talking to "Bruce" the farmer who we were helping today tell his story does a lot of good for them mentally as they all just feel so devastated. Lesley felt a little left out at lunch time (heaps sandwiches etc) as she was the only woman in our team and the farmer's wife was working in Bendigo but she toughed it out! We all thought it was so funny when Doug (our leader) got his bum all hooked up in the barb wire trying to cross a fence we were putting back up, so Peter had to unhook him but only after taking a few photos! Around 4pm we all decided to call it a day and drove back to our base in Bridgewater after giving Bruce the farmer all our email addresses etc., which he requested. After a rest and shower we later all met in the clubrooms for tea at 6pm (wine, shepard's pie & veges, fruit salad and ice-cream). At 7pm we then have another "muster" to discuss the days happenings from each team leader. Today there was about 9-10 teams of 4-5 people each. Afterwards we both retired to watch a bit of TV in the motor-home and pay Daisy a bit of attention as she stayed in the motor-home whilst we were gone. We both slept very well - even if there was so many semi-trailers going through with their exhaust brakes still on, they use them to slow down to the 60km town limit, so Peter counted semis instead of sheep in order to get to sleep!

BRIDGEWATER

We awoke to rain again this morning! We slowly packed and hooked up the Suzuki and then after refueling etc. headed for Bridgewater, arriving at the Recreation Reserve there about 3pm, which is where we are to stay whilst helping as volunteers for BlazeAid. After registering and getting our name tags we found a good place to park Lucky Pigs on the other side of the football oval as there are some toilets close by, but unfortunately no water and the power is limited and showers are available in the clubrooms, so we will need to be self sufficient for awhile, we have over 300 litres of water on board, so we will be OK for awhile and will need to go fill up from a tap later as required I suppose. Our solar panels will keep everything electrical running and if not we always have the genset to fall back on.

We have tea provided for us at 6pm in the clubrooms (get to meet everybody then too) and breakfast is at 6-7am in the mornings. Lunch is supplied by the farmer on whose property we are helping on the day, so that should be quite interesting too, especially listening to the volunteers returning today and what they had for their lunches!

BENDIGO

Spent Monday & today lazing around reading at Bendigo showgrounds, did little shopping and looking around Bendigo as it was great weather for it. We went to the Bendigo RSL for a meal on Tuesday night as it was just across the road from the Showgrounds (no drink driving necessary) and it was really good food as well.
If you look closely at the photo you can see a bush-fire or probably
a burn off to the west of Bendigo in the sky.

BENDIGO

We awoke to another great day, had cereal & blackberries for breakfast and drove the 40 odd kms 
into Bendigo, which is really quite a large town now! We eventually found our destination - the
showgrounds where we intend to stay until Wednesday morning when we will leave for Bridgewater on the Loddon River, which was flooded in January like the rest of northern Victoria, so I suspect

this flood damage is what we will be helping the farmers with when we get there. Met two couples here at the showgrounds, one couple from Queensland who are traveling in a large bus, and another younger couple arrived this afternoon from Woodville in S.A. (they have rented their house out and have bought a newer but smaller Winnebago to travel around in, they also intend to do some work on the way). Great weather here this afternoon as you can see from the photo and they also had a market day here today, so of course Lesley was happy! Cost for powered site here is $20/night, so we booked for three nights.

CASTLEMAINE

Woke up to a great day - sunshine finally and after picking a bowl of blackberries from down by the Moorabool River we departed our camp mid morning and traveled via narrow back roads and 
one-lane bridges to Ballarat, where we went to the famous "Soveriegn Hill & the Gold Museum" only to find it was $41.00 each to get in and international tourists everywhere, so we gave that a big miss and watched the promo film on it and the displays in the foyer and gift shops instead where we bought some emu oil cream which is supposed to be good for arthritis, aches and pains. After having a look around we headed out to Krayal Castle then north towards Creswick where we had hoped to camp at a forest reserve there called "Slaty Creek", but after traveling down some really narrow fire tracks and getting lost we arrived at this narrow T-junction only to find it was closed due to the recent floods which had washed out roads etc. So after some careful reversing with the Suzuki in tow we managed to turn around and then continued on via Daylesford on to a quiet roadside stop for the night about 6kms south of Castlemaine called "Jessie Kennedy Reserve" (apparantly she was the first white person to be born in this area of Victoria). This part of the country is renown for it's gold, so might finally get to use the metal detector if we can find some-one to help set it up properly! Digital & Analogue TV reception was good here, but no Vodafone mobile or Internet, Telstra mobile was very poor too.

GEELONG

Great to see you following our adventure J.B. - hope everybody well
at Galipo. Looks like you came back from New Zealand just in time heh? 
Today we drove the 22 kms into Geelong, but they got parking metres everywhere, so we drove around the waterfront and ended up parking up the road a couple of kms from the city centre, alongside the Botanical Gardens. Left Daisy in Lucky Pigs to have a rest while we walked into Geelong. I needed to buy a new piece of wire rope and catch for the Suzuki A-Frame brake cable as 
the original one had broken the first day we left Adelaide. After looking around the Westfield shopping centre we returned to Lucky Pigs, went and refueled across the road from "Skilled Stadium" (Home ground of GEELONG AFL club - you would've loved it Scott!) We managed to get Diesel for $1.38.9, as everywhere else was around $1.42, we then took off north west up the Midland Highway to a little town called Meredith, where we stopped for a coffee break. Just up the road we turned off the highway at a town called Elaine 
and traveled up this narrow bitumen & dirt road to a bush camp called 
"Hunts Bridge Camping ground"(photo). Nice remote little spot by the Moorabool River.
Two young overseas backpackers were also camped here in a Mazda van. But it was good to 
get away from the hussle & bussle of Geelong, as the Avalon Air Show is on there this 
weekend and we not used to it now after being in the country for some time now! 
No wireless internet & mobile coverage at all, but managed to get some poor analogue 
TV reception here.

TORQUAY

Woke up again this morning to light rain, but the thunder of the waves on the surf beach at night was nice. So about 10.30am we left Johanna's Beach(photo) and after some more of the Otway Ranges forests we emerged at Apollo Bay and followed the tight & twisty road along the cliffs with great views for which the Great Ocean Road is renown for. It was windy & drizzling rain for most of the journey as we past through Wye River, Lorne where we had a "yuppie" meat pie each for lunch , Airey's Inlet and Anglesea, most of these towns now are just week-end getaways for the yuppies from Melbourne now, so alot of street cafes etc. with prices that match! Although still saw a few "surfies" around as well. After detouring to take a look at Point Addis where there was great views along the coast both ways we traveled on past Torquay to a nice reserve for Grass Trees and will stay there tonight as we want to have a look around Geelong tomorrow.

After Geelong we think we might head up to north west of Bendigo to assist with bush-fire restoration. We found a request for help on the C.M.C.A. website (our motorhome club) for help by an organisation called "BLAZE-AID" (http://www.blazeaid.com.). We contacted them today and they were grateful for any help, so we'll give it a go anyway for awhile at town called "Bridgewater" or maybe "Charlton". We told them we will try and get there next Wednesday sometime, so we will have good look around on the way there. Joe managed to call today to tell us that the 5 girls did stay at his place in Adelaide. Very Poor wireless internet and Vodafone and Telstra coverage here.

JOHANNA'S BEACH

Departed Warrnambool Showgrounds about midday and after stopping at K-Mart, Hungry Jacks and refueling (Diesel $1.41.9) we traveled via the Great Ocean Road to Port Campbell where we went to most of the attractions along the way (with everybody from overseas as well! - all packed into large tourist buses), Places we stopped at were: Bay of Islands, The Grotto, Loch Ard Gorge, London Bridge, The Razorback, 12 Apostles(photo) - although I'm sure there is not 12 anymore, unless I can't count! After doing the tourist thing we traveled through the Otway Ranges which are covered in thick beech & stringy-bark forests with tree ferns - very pretty. 
Around 5pm we ended up at a remote surf beach in the Otway National Park called Johanna's Beach, 
which would be an excellent beach for surf fishing as well. It's about 15 kms from Laver's Hill 
down a steep hill. A few other campers and backpackers arrived later than us as well and yes it 
started to rain again. No Internet or Vodafone mobile but poor Telstra mobile coverage here.

WARRNAMBOOL

Well rain and so windy this morning, but cleared up later so we ventured around town to look at the sights. First we went out to Thunder Point and the breakwater - wild seas and very windy. Then on to the mouth of Hopkins River (photo) where all these eels gather at the end of summer before swimming from the river out to sea. Then went for a walk around the central business district looking for a bakery, but no luck only heaps of coffee shops.