Wonthaggi

13th - 15th January 2016

We had a final game of bowls at Morwell BC and enjoyed a lovely lunch in their restaurant. We free camped at the Boolarra Community Pub overnight on the 13th.  The next two days were spent at Leongatha Apex Caravan Park.  We played a great open pairs comp on the Sunday taking out third place.  Picking up a handy $180!!

16th - 27th January 2016

We had a hard time finding a good caravan park in Wonthaggi, both parks were horrible.  Luckily we found the Daylston Rec Reserve, 5 minutes out of town.  A great price too, $10 per night for a powered site.  

We did quite a bit of touring around the South Gippsland area, Phillip Island and the Mornington Peninsula.

Powlett River entrance

Coastal drive between Cape Patterson and Inverloch

We even managed a game of bowls at Wonthaggi BC, taking out the monthly triples comp with a little help from one of the locals.

We had a lovely day touring the Mornington Peninsula and visited Arthur's Seat.  We met up with an old mate from Townsville and had a great ride on the chairlift.  The views were spectacular.

Arthur's Seat chairlift, Dromana Mornington Peninsula

Sam and Ferg

 We also spent several days visiting Phillip Island exploring various cliff top walks and lookouts.

Pyramid Rock, Phillip Island

Nobbies penguin reserve

 I had a lovely day for my birthday on the 24th.  We had a nice lunch at an Italian Restuarant overlooking the water at Cowes.

Birthday at Cowes

Locals!

Cape Baron Goose

Importantly the main reason we were staying in Wonthaggi was to catch up with John's mum (Joan) and sister (Kim).  We enjoyed spending time with them.

Traralgon - Central Gippsland

6th - 12th January 2017

Found a great little caravan park halfway between Traralgon and Morwell and decided to base ourselves here for a week.  

We visited the Tarra Bulga National Park and did some amazing walks through the rainforest, crossing a large swingbridge and walking amongst giant tree ferns.

Got the tree hugging bug!

Road to somewhere??

We played lots of bowls at Traralgon BC, Moe BC and Morwell BC.  The Morwell club was brilliant with 2 synthetic greens, one undercover similar to Mooloolaba BC.

We also visited the old gold mining town of Walhalla up in the mountains north of Traralgon.

We spent our last day watching the finals of the Yallourn Classic Singles.  It was a fantastic game between Barry Lester and Aaron Wilson.  It came down to 24 all with Barry trailing jack for shot on his last bowl.  Great finish!

Barry Lester

Aaron Wilson

Winner winner, chicken dinner!!

Happy New Year

1st - 5th January 2017

On the move again this morning down the last stretch of the Great Alpine Road to Sale via Bruthen and Bairnsdale.  Pulled into the Sale Showground late morning.  It's a good spot to camp and decided to stay for 5 days.  The Sale Greyhound Club is next to the showgrounds and fortunately they were racing on the night we arrived, so we had dinner at the club and watched a few of the races.  Ferg picked the first three winners but sadly he didn't have a bet on any of them!  

Over the next few days we played bowls at Sale BC and Maffra BC.  Even ran into one of Shoey's rellys, old Uncle Don!  It was good to have a few games on the synthetic greens.

We didn't do much touring or taking photos as we were too busy bowling.  We did take a drive out to the old swing bridge and met up with three gorgeous locals.

The end of 2016 in Omeo

31st December 2016

The last day of 2016 dawned, the sun was shining as we drove out of Bright heading for Omeo.  The road took us up over Mt Hotham with stunning views in every direction.  The Pajero did a great job hauling the van up and over the mountain, and the driver was pretty good too!

The red poles show where the road is when under snow!

Coming into Mt Hotham ski village

Arriving into Omeo late morning, we found a lovely free camp behind the Hilltop Pub.  We were able to leave our van there and take a scenic drive out to Benambra and along the Mitta Mitta River.

Benambra in the distance

We had a very quiet New Years Eve, a couple of drinks at the pub then homemade pizza in the van.  

A not so bright....Bright

27th - 30th December 2016

We got wind of a bowls carnival being held at the Bright Bowls Club so high tailed it down there.  Stopped just out of Bright in the small village of Wandilligong.  It was a great little campground backing onto a creek.  The town of Bright was very busy with tourists and cyclists.  It has beautiful tree lined streets and is very popular in Autumn when they turn all shades of orange.

Unfortunately the weather was unkind to us, with rain most days we were there.  We did manage to play one day of singles comp on a very heavy uneven green.  It was extremely challenging, had a good time though.  The rest of the bowls carnival had to be cancelled.

We did a tourist drive over to Mt Beauty passing lots of cyclists doing the hard slog up through the winding mountain roads.

The town of Mt Beauty.

We also did a short walk through the old chinese gold claims in Wandilligong which features a lovely chinese bridge.