6 - Tarral Bulga National Park, Wilsons Promontory National Park Victoria & onwards

Entry 6 – Tarra Bulga National Park, Wilsons Promontory National Park Victoria – Continuing exploring the Gippsland Region – Journey to Adelaide. “9/4/18 – 19/4/18” 

Even the kangaroos tried to prevent us from leaving our much-loved Mitchell River National Park with a couple hopping out in front of us as we were driving out.

Interesting country side buildings

Our discussed plans for when it was time to move from Mitchell River had been, “options A, B & C.” We were on plan C with A & B no longer viable due to extended time spent at Mitchell River. We restocked the pantry at the town of Sale, continued to the township of Rosedale where we were going to spend the night at a free RV site. The setting on a large grassed area looked good but with Highway 1 travelling alongside the site, we had to raise our voices when talking to hear one another due to the constant road noise. With a bit of research, we came up with “option D” and continued to the township of Gormandale camping on the outer perimeter of the town football oval. It was a peaceful location, so we thought. At 4.30 am in the morning the local roosters started up with their chorus announcing the sun would be rising in a couple of hours.

Great camp location all to ourselves - fun & exhausting

We were ready to leave early the next morning, allowing us as much time as possible to explore the Tarra Bulga National Park during the day. Steve did his mandatory pre-departure walk around inspection of the caravan and tow tug to discover a flat tyre on the driver’s side rear of the tow tug. A small piece of wood had pieced the side wall of the tyre. With the spare and flat swapped we were on our way but not as soon as we hoped.

Tarra Bulga National Park had come to our attention from reading some information about several walks in the park with fern filled gullies, giant Mountain Ash and Myrtle Beech trees. There was no camping permitted in the Park other than a couple of caravan parks nearby. Looking at the maps the roads from different directions looked quite windy. We were unable to obtain definitive information about routes to the Park and decided to take the shortest route from Gormandale which included some dirt roads along logging truck routes.

All went smoothly till we arrived at our destination to see a large sign displaying “No Caravans.” We parked in the visitor centre carpark and started on some of the walks. Walk 1 was suitably named the Lyrebird Ridge Track. We were unexpectedly thrilled to see a Superb Lyrebird on the track not long after starting the walk. Next, we spotted a Crimson Rosella feeding in the centre of a fern bush. It wasn’t long before we could hear the loud screeching sounds of Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos above us and it wasn’t long before we were able to view them high up in the tree tops. We saw several different varieties of birds and thoroughly enjoyed our time amongst the cool temperate rainforest of Tarra Bulga National Park.

Tree came down over night

As it turned out we had driven partly along what had been touted as one of Victoria’s most spectacular drives the “Grand Ridge Road.” Unfortunately, we had to retrace most of our route back to Gormandale before we were able to continue south to our destination for the night at another interesting sounding location of Port Albert established in 1841.

Retracing our morning route with outside and inside temperatures at 23 C.

Leaving Port Albert early we made our way to Wilsons Promontory National Park, the most southern tip of mainland Australia and Victoria’s most visited National Park. It was the most expensive camp location we have visited in Australia with a powered site at $71 per night and a non-powered site at $63 per night, ($55 our previous most expensive at a caravan park in Queensland a few years previously). We planned to view as many of the main sites at Wilsons Promontory as we could fit in over a short time line. We arrived at 10.30 am and departed at 1.30 pm the following day feeling exhausted with aching legs. Our bodies were in need of a rest after spending the best part of a day walking at Tarra Bulga National Park, followed by the next day’s afternoon walking in the “Prom” and topping it off with the next morning spent walking another couple of tracks in the “Prom.”

The scenery at Wilsons Promontory National Park was certainly spectacular. It was the most organised National Park we had experienced in Australia with plenty of different walks on offer, well-maintained walking tracks with good signage and many locations to see.

Shy Swamp Wallaby

Beach at Tidal River camp ground

Leaving the “Prom” we stopped at the township of Inverloch where we spent some time in the information centre and decided everything was overpriced due to it being school holidays, so we continued travelling along the Bunurong Coastal route to the town of Cape Paterson. It was a very enjoyable route, a bit like the “Great Ocean Road”, in a condensed version. There were plenty of car parks at different viewing points keeping you happily occupied.

Our camp for the night was at another football oval at the town of Dalyston where we watched Thursday night training, with a $5 donation for the stay much more palatable than the previous nights $71.

Spectators in tree above us

About 20 kilometres up the road was the very publicized “Phillip Island.” We spent time in the Phillip Island information centre seeking out some pertinent information relevant to our current desires. Our assessment showed you couldn’t view anything on the island without first handing over money. We obtained a list showing the costs for entry to the attractions and assessed our $71 per night at Wilsons Promontory had been value for money in comparison to the outrageous charges demanded on Phillip Island. We were back in suburbia (still close to 100 kilometres from the heart of Melbourne) with plenty of people to pray on for money. With the execution of a U turn the Island had scared another potential customer away and we continued towards Melbourne propping at the last reasonably priced camp location available at $15 per night for parking in a boat ramp parking area at the NE top of the Mornington Peninsula in the township of Tooradin where we spent the rest of the day researching our options. The good weather we had been experiencing over the last couple of months suddenly disappeared with the arrival of rain and strong winds.

Bridge for Phillip Island

Tooradin

Our last meal whilst in Victoria

Initially we had been planning to head across the Sorrento ferry and follow the Great Ocean Road. With wintery weather forecast for the next week the attraction of the Great Ocean Road waned and we came up with “option E!”

We were mobile at 5 am the next morning, hoping to travel through Melbourne early to avoid peak hour traffic. It was a Saturday and the roads were very busy requiring heightened concentration, making for tiring driving. When we finally put the suburbs behind us we stopped at a service centre (fuel station with a McDonalds) where we each had a calming hot chocolate drink and retired to the caravan bed. We came to, two hours later with different trucks parked around us than when we arrived.

Travelling over the very high Westgate bridge

The comforts provided by our tow tug were appreciated driving in windy wet conditions helping with the decision to skip our planned stop over due to the wet weather that would have kept us stranded in the caravan if we had stayed. We kept swapping drivers and drove all the way to Mary’s sister’s farm at Naracoorte about 550 kilometres for the day, our biggest day of driving since pre-retirement days. Most of the day the outside temperature had been hovering around the 9 C mark with the Bureau of Meteorology site indicating the outside temperature felt like 0.5 C probably helped by the icy wind.

It was good to catch up with our Naracoorte family and pleasing to see Bill’s well-being progressing positively after his recent stay in hospital.

After spending the night at the farm, we travelled to the town of Kingston, spending the night in the carpark at “The Granites,” located about 20 kilometres up the road. It was still windy and wet which didn’t impede our activities as we were still in need of some R & R after our long days drive followed by socialising late into the evening at the farm.

Moving on we stopped at the township of Meninge where Steve got to participate in another great Australian past time.

With the continuation of wet and windy conditions we continued driving, next stopping at the beautiful camp location at Narrung, the location of our first, second & third night when starting our 2018 travels. We shared a camp fire with two other couples into the evening, continuing with social activities most of the following morning making it easy to allocate a second night at Narrung. It was a great way to finish off a couple of months spent travelling in a positive atmosphere.

From Narrung we travelled to the beachside township of Goolwa staying in the local caravan park where we caught up with Steve’s parents and both his brothers who were enjoying a family get together.

The old coal fired train travels along the track several times each day during school holidays

We spent a day at Goolwa before heading home for attention to maintenance and home duties including planning for our next adventure.

A brief summary showed - we had spent 70 days travelling, staying 21 nights in National Parks, 7 in caravan parks, 38 at free camping locations and 3 at showgrounds / low cost camping areas.

Our food expenditure was about $1500, fuel about $1300, accommodation about $300 with other living expenses at about $600. These costs averaged out to about $53 per day.

These costings don’t include other costs incurred along the way like driving home with a spare tyre requiring replacement at about $500, a new tow tug at around $100,000 along with other expenses incurred to support our current lifestyle.

On arrival at home, the caravan was promptly lifted up onto stands for under body maintenance requirements and further assessments, being readied for recommencement of our travels asap.