Decision today to head home. My health has gone downhill, so need to get home and to the specialist asap.

All this means is unfinished business.

Left Meredith Park on Saturday morning and visited the Botanical Gardens and Lake Colac. Then headed off and stopped off at Red Rock Lookout with 360 degree views. This is an amazing area with an extinct volcanic landscape and Lake Corangamite which is the largest inland salt-lake in Australia. Because of the volcanic activity in this area the huge amounts of basalt rocks were used to build dry-stone walls from the 1840′s onwards. These walls are a unique feature of this area.

Well, you never know what you see on the road. Last weird one was the hanging teapots, this time it’s a tree with hanging bras! Right.

Continued on past Cobden and are staying tonight (& Sunday night) at a free-camp Lake Elingamite. So far only us and another caravan here – a nice couple from the Gold Coast. This is a well maintained, quiet site with views of the lake – beautiful at sunset. Will relax today and head off to Warnambool tomorrow morning.

P.S. The old boy is not well. We may have to go home early. It depends on the doctor. We shall see over the next few days.

Spent the day travelling and arrived late afternoon at Meredith Park camp site. This is a great site next to Lake Colac which is fantastic (C6-571). Colac is inland from The Great Ocean Road. We are doing  a combination of relaxing plus catching up with work, plus Greg needs a rest from all the travelling so far. We stayed last night and will be here again tonight. Will be heading off towards Warrnambool tomorrow morning.

Left Jugiong around noon (had to catch up on some work). Stopped at Gundagai for lunch and checked out the famous Prince Alfred timber/truss Bridge built in 1867 and the 1903 built railway viaduct/bridge. These LONG bridges carried Hume Hwy traffic over the Murrumbidgee River and floodplain for over 110 years.

This place was flooded only a week ago, and we saw remaining sandbags and how the water had risen so high it had knocked over fences. Saw the “Tree of Many Teapots” (see pic). The things you see when you stop for lunch! Some bright spark must have had a brilliant idea (or too many teapots)!

Travelled onwards and arrived at Casey’s Weir free-camp near Benalla around 6pm. Its OK for an overnighter, plenty of room, flat, and next to a river – although there is a bit of truck-noise at night. Tomorrow its onwards to Colac.

We finally made it out.

The driveway was a muddy mess. Looks like some major roadworks is going to be done to make it usable. It is no longer passable by ordinary cars.

We left at 4pm! There is so much to consider with the business, packing wise. We were tired to start with. Needless to say I was a useless as t*ts on a bull. Karen did most of the work.

Karen did the first half of the driving as I was not really capable. I started to feel better except for my bad back which made driving painful…enough already!

We headed through Bathurst then down through Cowra and Boorowa to Yass. If we had of had more time, then a quick visit to Young to see some bloke and his lovely family was on the cards. Sorry pal, maybe on the way home. I was bad company anyway (wasn’t there a band called that?).

I must say it is a lovely drive down the Lachlan Valley Way.

A huge relief to hunker down for the night.

Today, we head down the Hume into Western Vic.

We are packing. About bloody time. We will be heading out of here Monday morning.

Well, this is very frustrating. We want to go on our honeymoon and next trip, but the mud! There has been lots more rain in the last 36 hours. Our driveway (300 metres long) is a mess. To get out to town in the Nissan, we have to lock 4wd. The mud in places goes halfway up the wheels! No chance of getting the McBago out. As well, the local gravel roads are significantly damaged from the water. All we need is 48 hours of no rain and we are away.

It’s a waiting game now…

Today at 11.30am Karen and Greg got married at Machattie Park, Bathurst. Well, you can’t rush these things – we have been together for eleven years you know!!

But it wasn’t without drama as we had to plow through traffic and water on the Great Western Highway to get there. K had a hairdresser appointment at 9.00 and was 45mins late aaahhh!!!
Got to the Court House on time and learned the Great Western Hwy would be closed soon as the water was rising fast. Well.. can’t worry about that now – got to get married first!
Accompanied by the marriage celebrant and 2 lovely ladies from the court house as witnesses, we walked to the beautiful gazebo in Machattie Park. Yes it was raining, yet peaceful, serenely beautiful and kind of surreal with the colours of the garden and the raindrops falling all around (not on us thankfully). The marriage celebrant and our 2 witnesses were wonderful and we couldn’t have asked for a more lovely setting and nicer people. The pics of us were taken by one of our witnesses and aren’t the best quality, but at least are something we can share with family and friends to give you an idea of our special day.

The drama continues…..
We had planned to have a celebration lunch in Bathurst but hear on the local radio station The Great Western Highway is now closed plus most other routes to get out of town are closed – except for Eleven Mile Road (which is a bit of a goat track) skirting around the north of the town. Quick let’s get outta here fast!! Everywhere we went the traffic was banking up and in some streets at a stand- still cause anyone who wants to get out of town needs to do it now. The last thing we want is to be stranded in Bathurst and not able to make it home. Finally make it to the last road out of town and with patience find our way out through the water-logged road.

We stop at a great little boutique cafe at O’Connell, with the best coffee! Have a great lunch and we’re feeling good We are home now, with rings on our fingers and smiles on our faces.

Well we have our McBago back and we arrived home 15 minutes before the rain started.

The issue here is that once the rain really starts, the road up to the front gate becomes like jelly, traction is a real issue. Hauling 4 tonne up a steep hill over jelly does’nt work. If we tried now, no way would we even get to our driveway. Anyway all good.

The mods were done perfectly. The Sydney RV Centre guys really know their stuff. A big thanks the Colin, Chris and the camera guy (sorry didn’t get your name).

So whats it like to live in a motorhome on a day to day basis?

Let’s start by saying EVERYTHING is a compromise. It has to be. You don’t want a van too big otherwise there are so many place you just can’t fit into. The main areas inside are the bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, dining and front cabin. If you make any one area perfect, something has to suffer. The trick is to work out what balance works for you.

We thought long and hard before deciding on the vehicle type (ie caravan, motorhome) and then the design.

Now that we have done a few trips, we are thrilled with what we chose. We love the separate shower and toilet, the island bed etc etc.

I have found the Fiat Ducato fantastic to drive. Dead easy-peasy and suprising economy. Last trip to Victoria through mountains etc we averaged for the whole trip 11.8l/100 kms. Smacko!

We have no trouble parking in a town, we are able to park in most outdoor car parks and street parking, angle parking no issue.

We find the interior most comfy and well insulated. The design has been very well thought out by Winnebago. It show that they have listened to customer suggestions.

The new trip next week will be interesting as it will be our longest trip so far, so good test.

Looks like the loose plan at this stage is to head south again, this time western Victoria via the Grampians, then onto the Great Ocean Road through to south east SA maybe as far as Victor Harbour, then head back to the Murray River and Ecuca to ride the paddle steamer there.

If anybody has any questions, fire away. The answers will be delegated heh heh.

Oh and welcome to our latest member ‘J’ – hey girl

Ok, McBago is in the RV Centre Penrith for the work. The work will make our bubble more liveable.

Since we bought the McBago, what mods have we done, here goes:

• 2 x Solar panels (the ones which stick on the roof – nice aero flow)
• 2nd House battery (100a/h)
• Bullbar for those pesky roos
• New GPS (Garmin) and phone cradle, bluetooth hands free (BlueAnt)
• Bullbar antenna. RFS 9db (long range envelope). Splitter in the cabin so that this antenna works with the phone (not an Apple iEvil) and the Telstra NextG modem.
• 1 x desktop and 2 x laptops.
• 2 x Kindle Fire
• 2 x OzTent King Kokoda chairs – comfy these
• Satellite dish for TV. Gives us all free to air channels around Oz.
• Shuttle Chef Thermal Cooker
• Cob cooker
• Honda eui20 generator (always starts 1st time – brilliant)
• Levelling blocks
• Maxtrax recover gear just in case + snatch strap
• Sat phone (secure phone number so don’t ask)
• Presso Coffee maker – Oh Yea…and no Aldi shit crapola.
• Tool kit.
• CGear mat. Works a treat.
• Gasmate BBQ
• Collapsible bucket – clever
• Lambswool seat covers
• Camp 6 book plus the Caravan one.
• Yagi Antenna – 22db directional for 3g and 4g networks on a pole. Gets a signal when nobody else get it!
• Enough already!

Is there anything else we are think of? Not sure at this point. We would like another water tank, but will think about that. Also considering 2 checker plate boxes on the back to hold a few things such as the gennie (permanent mount) and collapsible poles for antennas. Besides that maybe nitro for the engine heh