Countryside Victoria - Gone fishing

28/3/2015

Waking up at cool 5 degrees (the temperature dropped to a low of 3 degrees in the early morning hours) I had breakfast with Kaye's 89 year old father Sal. Kaye had to work at the local bank this Saturday.

I found 'The Storehouse', a fantastic coffee shop only 300 meters away from where I'm staying. Young barista's, amazing coffees, organic and paleo food and WiFi. Made that my designated office for the day to clear up my email backlog, post on the blog, get some banking stuff sorted out, and trying to book my trip to Tasmania.

The way to Tasmania is not a problem on the ferry to take the camper van on board as well, but the return trip is booked out until 24th May! Not good at all. So I'll have to make a call soon to either skip Tasmania for this trip and come back on a separate holiday (preferentially when it is warmer!), or fly over and explore with a rental car. I'll give myself some days to make that decision.

Greg and Kaye were keen to show me some stunning places in the Yarra Ranges in the afternoon and evening. We drove around quite a lot, had a look at one of the most artistic houses I've ever seen (think there is a saying the the line between genius and crazy is very thin) and then drove on dirt tracks to the Ada Tree – one of the biggest trees around. About 75m high, 15m girth of the trunk chest high, 225 tonnes heavy and estimated 225 cubic meters of volume in the main trunk. Huge!

To get to the tree there is a 3km hike through cool climate rain forest. Absolutely stunning! The Ada Tree itself is massive, I had to agree with Kaye that it was one of the biggest trees I've ever seen!

Bob's House - well, one tiny part of this whole installation!

The trail to the Ada tree leads through a small valley of cold climate rainforest. Many trees have moss growing on them and there are huge ferns all around

The Ada Tree

The Ada Tree - and Kaye close to the trunk

Some statistics: The Ada tree, a mountain Ash (Esche) used to be even higher!

The Ada tree - the upper part

We had dinner in a local pub somewhere in one of the small villages. Greg and Kaye are extremely good fun and we had a wonderful time.

Distance traveled: 0km in the camper van, probably 180km in Greg's car

29/3/2015

Greg is a keen fisherman and invited me to come along to go trout fishing in the rivers about an hour North of here. The drive there was great: beautiful hills, huge forests, winding roads and clear blue sky for a change! Everything looks so much better when the sun is out.

We started at a rather large, fast flowing river. Kaye had to untangle me a couple of times. Greg waded to a different spot and caught a trout to keep and some smaller ones to release.

We moved to two more rivers afterwards, both of them very different in size, shape and to fish. The second one was very difficult to fish for me as it was very narrow, lots of twigs in the water and vegetation all around it. Well, to sum it up, the only things I caught were twigs, bushes, leaves, trees, a rock and some experience. But some smart trouts ate many worms from my hook - I could almost hear them laughing! However, a great day of fishing!

Kaye and Greg

We hit beer o'clock and had a snack along the river. Wonderful outdoor Sunday!

All up we only got one trout so instead of fresh fish for dinner, we went to the Thai restaurant in Mount Evelyn. I followed the cricket final there and then later at Kaye's place, but the match was rather disappointing – Australia put New Zealand to the sword, they were just way too strong and won easily. Congratulations to the Australians, must be awesome to win the world cup in their own country and the atmosphere in the stadium was great, there were over 93,000 spectators at the MCG!

Distance traveled: 0km in the camper van, probably 200km in Greg's car

Geelong and Mount Evelyn

26/3/2015

Started relatively early to make a dent into the winding Great Ocean Road before breakfast. Stopped at Lorne for coffee, breakfast and some photos of the beautiful scenery.

Lorne beach

Lorne beach, other side and come clouds already forming again

It's a great road to drive, reminded me of my time delivering bread in the mornings in the Tyrol in Austria and in particular up to Falterschein and in Pitztal. You feel when you corner how the load in the back (back then bread and rolls, now a campervan full of stuff) starts to getting close to move and sometimes, when the corner is a bit tighter than expected, or the speed is a few kmh too quick for it, something really moves and shifts place. Had a water bottle and my shampoo bottle rolling around in the back today, but apart from that everything stayed at its assigned place.

The weather was changing frequently today, from lovely sunny to totally overcast, to some drops of rain. I continued on B100 Great Ocean Road until Torquay where I visited the library for the update of the blog and had another coffee.

From there I continued on to Geelong, and booked into the caravan park in Belmont. I did a quick run along the river and then got picked up by Ken.

Geelong is the second largest city in Victoria with about 180,000 inhabitants in the greater Geelong area. It's located on the other side of the Port Phillip Bay, about 70km west of Melbourne CBD.

Spent a great evening with Maika and Ken, had some tasty wines, a lovely steak, engaging conversations and watching Australia beat India in the cricket semi-final. All in all a wonderful evening. Ken and Maika used to work in various Asian countries and it was very interesting to hear their experiences form all these years in Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia and their travels to many more countries. No wonder Shannon, their oldest son and friend of mine, took up the challenge to move to Vienna with his wife last year. Good on him!

They offered for me to stay in one of their guest rooms and I spent the first night in a normal bed again for more than 5 weeks.

Distance traveled: 87 km

27/3/2015

Very different to wake up in a proper bed at normal room temperature. ;-)

After a coffee, I went for a walk with Maika along the beautiful Geelong foreshore and up into the Botanical Garden. The sky was blue but you could see the could forming already. Forecast for Melbourne is not too good for today and tomorrow. Let's see how we go.

Geelong Pier

Geelong foreshore walk

Protected swimming area in Geelong

Statues in the Botanical Garden

Straw man taking it easy

Driving all the way through the Melbourne metropolitan area was rather tough – lots of traffic and avoiding toll roads as I don't have that electronic ticketing thing set up, didn't make it easier. Melbourne is incredibly big and spread out, and Mount Evelyn, where Kaye is living is on the totally other side compared to where I came from. My plan is to explore downtown Melbourne using public transport. In Lilydale, about 5km down the hill from Mount Evelyn is the start of the train network that goes all the way to Federation Square.

Mount Evelyn, in the YarraRanges and close to the Dandenong Ranges is very hilly, some of them are extremely steep. Had one with 17% and one with 16% gradient, both up and down. I had to change gears quite frequently in the van to make it up the hill and not get out of control on the way down. The wet road certainly didn't help either. That would be hell for cycling is you're not extremely fit!

I had a coffee in Mount Evelyn to check out the area and find some fee WiFi and then had a look at one of the dams that feeds water to the Melbourne area a few kilometers outside of Mount Evelyn. The weather was wet and cold, so I didn't even take any photos. The area here is very lush and green, lots of huge trees, beautiful and pleasing to the eyes after all the dry land I traveled through in Western Australia and South Australia.

I met Kaye's parents at their house, had an afternoon tea and a long chat with them. Very lovely but very old people. As they have a huge block of land here, the van is nicely parked up and it feels almost like in a nature reserve there, green vegetation all around.

Went out to dinner with Kaye, her partner Greg, and friends of them, Collin and Alison from Scotland. How awesome was listening to thick Glasgow accent again. I can't allow my mind to wander or drift even for a second when in a conversation with a Scotsman, otherwise I risk totally loosing comprehension. Very nice people all of them and we were laughing a lot. Also very good tucker at the bistro where we ate, had some juicy medium lamb ribs and several glasses of red wine to wash it all down. (Thanks GRRM for using this expression frequently in your awesome books – I trust I adopted it right.)

On the way back to the house we drove up a mountain in the Dandenong Ranges, but the view wasn't too good because of the rain. But you could still see how huge the metropolitan area of Melbourne is. We saw a fox, just next to my camper van when we came back to the house.

Been reading a bit more of Marcus Aurelius' wisdom over the last few days and found some more quotes to share:

“18. Is any man afraid of change? Why, what can take place without change? What then is more pleasing or more suitable to the universal nature? And canst thou take a bath unless the wood undergoes a change? and canst thou be nourished, unless the food undergoes a change? And can anything else that is useful be accomplished without change? Dost thou not see then that for thyself also to change is just the same, and equally necessary for the universal nature?”

Excerpt From: Aurelius, Marcus. “Meditations.” Book VII

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“27. Think not so much of what thou hast not as of what thou hast: but of the things which thou hast select the best, and then reflect how eagerly they would have been sought, if thou hadst them not. At the same time, however, take care that thou dost not through being so pleased with them accustom thyself to overvalue them, so as to be disturbed if ever thou shouldst not have them.”

Excerpt From: Aurelius, Marcus. “Meditations.” Book VII

This material may be protected by copyright.

“59. Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.”

Excerpt From: Aurelius, Marcus. “Meditations.” Book VII

This material may be protected by copyright.

Distance traveled: 140 km

Great Ocean Road Part 2

25/3/2015

Yesterday evening I watched the ICC Cricket World Cup Semifinal South Africa vs New Zealand in the common area at the campground. Was quite funny as it was an entertaining match and there were a lot of older Australians around who were already in high spirits thanks to the wine and beer they consumed, and everybody had opinions about the cricket. Quite a cool match, ending in a win for New Zealand. Let's hope the Aussies make it past India on Thursday to play the final as well. Alex M, who I'll visit in Melbourne as well, will be working at the MCG at the finals this Sunday. How good is that!

Left Peterborough after a healthy breakfast and visited the London Bridge again, as the weather was slightly better than yesterday. Looks so much better with some light and a bit color and contrast!

London Bridge - take 2

Next stop was at Loch Ard Gorge. Quite impressive.

Then I visited the 12 apostles – what a shocker, mass tourism! But looks really cool.

The Lonely Planet has got a nice story about the 12 apostles: Until mid last century they were know as Sow and Piglets (Schwein und Ferkel), but then tourism people thought in order to market them better they need a more suitable name. Somehow they chose apostles. As Apostles in the biblical sense usually come in a dozen (12), they decided to go with that, despite only ever having 9 of them at any time, one of them collapsed in 2005. Even all that background information doesn't take away from this natural beauty.

The "12" Apostles

"12" Apostles with a hint of blue sky in the background

I stopped in Apollo Bay for coffee and stocking up on veggies for dinner. Found some crafty benches in the park:

The bench in the park, carved from a huge tree in a very artistic way

After Apollo Bay, the road becomes winds around the rocks and is quite fun to drive, I was using up all the horse power that I could find in the Ford (by far not as many as in my previous Holden!).

I'm staying at Kenneth River today, a lovely park full with wild life. There were several wild koalas around, one in the tree next to my camper van, munching away on the fresh Eucalyptus. They got also heaps of parrots and other colourful birds, quite a paradise for photographers. When I went to the toilet block I spotted two young wallabies grassing on the lawn next to the facilities.

The Koala in the tree next to the camper van

They are easy to photograph as they aren't the quickest of animals!

Colorful

Different Koala, different tree

Did I ever mention that I really like the Canon "L" lenses? Some people suggest that "L" stands for Luxury...

Climbing down the tree, only 2 meters away from me

Koala in difficult light

Walking to the next tree

And the Koala found a new tree

In the evening after dinner, I had a chat with Brian and Sue, two older Australians traveling together who are my neighbors tonight and had a glass of wine at their table. Was fun talking to them and got invited to visit them when I'm in Bowen, Queensland. Great!

Kenneth River - lovely spot on the Great Ocean Road

Awesome

Tomorrow night I'll meet Maika and Ken, Shannon's parents, in Geelong. Haven't seen them since the Talbots Block wine tasting by Bill & Alex in their apartment in Perth, an event that resulted in great acquaintances and a fantastic time in Clare Valley!

Distance traveled: 135km