Brr....Flood....Snow, an amazing rescue! THE END!
Trip Start
May 14, 2010
1
16
Trip End
Ongoing
Eden, New South Wales, Australia
Monday, September 20, 2010
Today we left the slowly rising flood waters of the town of Echuca (last night a big red river gum fell into the water and damage one of the wharfs). The radio made it sound like it was a big flood but the locals were not worried at all, they were just so happy for the rains as they have been in drought for 10 years. We drove to the town of Glenrowan, this is where the infamous bush ranger Ned Kelly had a shoot out with the Victorian Police! There was a huge statue of Ned Kelly in all his armour and we watched a moving display of the actual events, it was pretty cool with characters hanging from the wall and ceiling and it felt like a real storm with winds and rain dripping, the fire place magically turned on and the piano played by itself, we went from room to room and it felt like we were in the crime scene itself. We heard the pretend gunshots, there were holes in the wall and smoke was billowing out of the hotel where it happened (well it was actually steam but it looked real), it even scared us when the roof collapsed and the final scene was when they hang Ned in the Melbourne gaol and he fell from the roof, it was pretty funny though. We then drove down the Great Alpine Road and set up our van in the pretty town of Bright. This is where we bought "BRUCE" our new best friend. He is a blow heater as we are at the base of the snowy mountains and we knew it would get very very cold. We are all very excited as we are going to go SKIING tomorrow so we hired all our gear, skis, boots, jackets etc YAY YAY YAY now our record of going skiing every year is still intact (thanks Dad).
Wed 15 September - Bright - Falls Creek
Today we drove up the windy mountain road to go skiing at Falls Creek YAY!!!!!!!!
We got our lift tickets, then went up the Falls Creek Express chair lift to the top we started off easy doing Drovers Dream and then we found a trail through the trees and over jumps called Fox Trails this ended up being one of our favorite runs and we kept coming back to do it again and again, we absolutely loved it! We also did Scott's run a few times, lakeside and a few others, then we got stuck in a bit of a snow storm (it was sunny for most of the morning but came over now and again with clouds and even snow) so we headed into Cloud 9 for some lunch and a rest, we had a few more runs and back to fox trails until the last lift then we headed down the bottom to the car and the windy drive back to Bright - we were all so tired after a huge day of skiing.
Thursday 16 September - Bright - Falls Creek
Today we again headed up the mountains for another day of skiing, it took about 1.5 hours to drive up the mountain. We bought day tickets from Gebi's and skiing Wishing Well on our first run, it was snowing today and it was a bit hard to see where we were going, the top of wishing well was a black run that turned into a blue run, it was a nice long run that was very pretty, we caught the International pomma which turned a corner 1/2 way up the mountain, Matty was lifted off the ground by the pomma as it turned the corner and made him fall off so we all jumped off and skied down skyline to the gully lift and back up the Eagle and back to our favorite run through fox trails and Scotties. We had loads of runs. On one run up the Towers lift Matty got to the top and asked dad if he knew where his stock was........"ah NO" said Dad, luckily the people on the lift behind us told us that he dropped it.... so we skied down and found it. We didn't have much luck with our stocks as on the next run I left mine at the bottom whilst I was getting on the lift, then later that day Matty lost his again luckily we had some nice people bring it up on the next lift. We also found another great run called "last hoot" it was a nice long run all the way to the bottom and a quick ride back up the top, we did this a few times before the day came to an end and we had to drive back home.Matt and I made a snowman each It was another great day of skiing, we went out for dinner at the Bright Alpine Hotel.
Friday 17 September - Bright - Harrietville-Hotham-Dinner Plain-Omeo VIC
An action packed day.......
We packed up the Van from the Bright Big 4 caravan park and went for a walk around Bright, they had a cool water slide that went straight into the cold river (for Summer use only) and a great playground. Dad spotted a platypus and called us over we watched him for a while and Mum noticed that it didn't look right, he we walking and swimming in the middle of the day (you normally only see them at dusk and dawn) then Mum noticed that he had a sore on his neck, we followed him for a few meters and he came out of the water and was shaking and trying to dig a burrow but he was shaking so much. We were all a bit worried so we decided we needed to get some help, we walked to the information center and told them, they rang a vet and the wildlife services and we went back to wait the wildlife volunteer. The poor little platypus decided to move again so we followed him to the bridge where he went under some vines, the wildlife volunteer Kirsten came about 1 min after he hid in the bushes we tried to find him but we couldn't, we hung around for a while but we had to get moving so we asked Kirsten to let us know if they find him and to let us know how he is. She gave us a message about 1 hour later saying that he came out just a few min after we left and he ran across her shoe, he had hair band wrapped around his neck and a deep sore from the hair band. They were able to fix him up and after a night in Kirsten's care for a rest they would release him the next day. She said we saved his life. COOL it was so excellent to see a platypus so close up. It was just Amazing. We drove on and came across a sign that said Trout Farm - "STOP WISHING, GO FISHING, FREE admission" we thought that was a good idea.. the lady told us what to do and where to go. We grabbed a bamboo pole each with a hook on the end and some fish food. We feed some fish first and decided what pond we would fish in (we didn't want the fish too small or too big). There were heaps of trout jumping out of the water when we threw in the food, it was amazing. I ended up hooking 2 fish but they let go before I could land them, then Matty got one, it was a good size. Dad had to hit it on the head with a piece of wood to kill it. Then I got a big one, I pulled it out and as I was swinging it out it fell off the hook and slid down the hill and straight into a mud puddle it was very funny, the fish was so slimy we had trouble picking it up. We all had a great time. We then took the fish to the lady and she gutted them, she showed us the heart and the swim bladder (a bag that the fish fills with air when they want to come to the surface or deflate when they want to go deeper). She then weighted them and we paid for the fish. Beats going to the supermarket.
We then drove further up the mountains through the small towns towards Mt Hotham. We seemed to go up up up, our car was right on top of the mountains at nearly 1900m. Mt Hotham was cool with ski lifts on both sides of the road and we even went through a tunnel with a snow boarder sliding over the top of us. There was heaps and heaps of snow everywhere, luckily we didn't need chains though (even 4wd cars need to carry chains in VIC). We then stopped at the next town called Dinners Plain where we went for a walk and then built our family of snow man, we used gum nuts for eyes and buttons and twigs for arms - It was fun building them. Then just before we got in the car Dad started a snowball fight..... it was cool we all got Dad and then he got us. It was such a fun day. We drove to Omeo and put up our van, we helped mum prepare the rainbow trout and dad cooked it on the BBQ it was really delicious but it did have a few bones in it.
Saturday Sunday 18 & 19 September Omeo - Eden NSW
On Saturday we did a long drive to Eden. Along the drive we passed the NSW-VIC border and crossed the snowy river and saw where the snowy river meets the sea, we visited a nice man in the information centre, it was an old slab hut and we also saw a cool kangaroo sign, someone had drawn a set of skis on the kangaroo so it looked like he was skiing. We finally found a caravan park our campsite was right on the beach plus the park had a jumping pillow Matt and I spent ALL AFTERNOON ON IT !!!
Sunday we went to Eden Killer whale Museum and saw the skeleton of "Old Tom".Old Tom was a killer Whale (The only type of whale that eats other whales/ mammals) Old Tom and other killer whales would bring the big baleen whales in to shore for the whalers to harpoon them in return Old Tom and his gang got to eat the lips and tongue! When the whalers harpooned the baleen whales the sea turned red with blood!!! The Whalers knew the names of old tom and his gang by looking at there fins! Old Tom Died On the 18th of Sep 1930.We had a walk along the wharf , saw the old whaling site and Boyd's tower a big tower that the whalers would climb up and look for whales, we even saw some whales way off in the distance. The I had roast pork for dinner at the fishos club!!!
Monday 20th Sep Eden
Today we skimmed stones on the beach and played bomb the boat (we got a heavy rock and tried to make the floating stick sink) We then went to the Oyster farm and learnt how they farmed oysters in the old days (they used wood but know we use plastic coated bags) I got to try a Giant oyster as big as an apple!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
While mum and dad read their books and sat on the beach Matt & I spent all afternoon on the jumping pillow. We had dinner at Old Toms restaurant again (the fishos club).
Tuesday 21st Sep Tilba Tilba Turros Head South Durrus
Today Matt & I had one last jump on the jumping pillow before packing up and driving to Tilba Tilba we went to the ABC cheese factory,candle shop,LOLLY SHOP and studio corner! We then drove to Tuross Heads to visit Auntie Fay and Auntie Lea who live there, we had some yummy chocolate biscuits and told them about the last week of our adventure, they have been following us on the blog. The we drove a little further to ..........................................................................................................................................
SOUTH DURRUS and in our caravan park called the Mummurrang eco resort we were surrounded by eastern Grey kangaroos! HOW COOL! And we were right on a beautiful beach. We got to cooked dinner for Mum and Dad again, we had fresh Tilba Cheese and seaweed biscuits, fish and salad and desert was top deck chocolate with strawberries YUM
Wednesday 22nd September South Durrus -HOME
Today we patted some cute eastern Grey kangaroos before leaving South Durrus, on the way we popped in to say hi to Ma & Pa (Pa was not there) we gave Ma some old fashioned slate sticks and aniseed rings from Tilba Tilba, we thought she would love them!!!
We also ran into Nanna & Poppy as they were mowing our lawns!!! (How nice).
You Nanna & Poppy for taking care of our house!!!!!!!!!!!!
We have started cleaning the van but no where near finished.............Its going to take a while to get all that Lake Eyre MUD off....
THE END!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I really enjoyed this trip we did so many amazing things. Thank You for taking your time to read my blog!!!!
