6 MONTHS IN THE VAN - BACK IN MELBOURNE
Trip Start
Oct 05, 2009
1
78
322
Trip End
Oct 31, 2013
Where I stayed
sister annie's place
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Mileage: 13750kms
Journey: Wilsons Promontory, Koonwarra, Berwick, Melbourne
Weather: 20 degrees at 10am, mostly sunny day.
April 1 marks 6 months in the van, so a quarter of our 2 year journey is done! Wow that went quickly!
Leaving Wilsons Promontory, we stopped at the tiny town of Koonwarra for coffee because it was very picturesque and close to the highway. The town is described as a contemporary rural village actively demonstrating sustainable living from organic food and wine to clothing, art, accommodation, health and well being. The pretty buildings were tenanted by like minded businesses and we took some time to explore their wares.
With the 4 day Easter break beginning, the roads out of Melbourne were busy with traffic but we were travelling against the flow and the traffic on our side was minimal.
There was a lot of smoke around from burning rubbish and this created a rather unpleasant atmosphere and seemed to interfere with Tom-Tom, our GPS device which spat out some pretty weird directions. We stopped off at Berwick to have lunch with an old friend in her fabulously decorated home and impressive garden; it was a lovely afternoon.
Then it was off to the Berwick shopping centre to stock up for Easter. Are we mad shopping at 5pm on the Thursday before Easter in a strange town 40 kms from one of the busiest cities in Australia and needing to get to the other side of the city (Melbourne) to sister Annie's place? Well, happily it all went well with the GPS and we reached our destination within the hour. Watching the slow moving traffic leaving Melbourne on the M1 as we sped along in the opposite direction, reminded us of driving out of Brisbane on a Friday afternoon for a weekend on the NSW coast when you were tired from a weeks work and a bit tense, sometimes questioning the sanity of not waiting until Saturday morning to take off; especially frustrating prior to the opening of the Tugun bypass.
As mentioned, we are back in Melbourne for Easter and school holidays; as our plan is to follow the coast road west to South Australia we took advice from locals that accommodation and facilities are stretched to the max at this time. Our research shows that there is not much free/cheap camping along the Great Ocean Road but the Otway National Park may provide a camp site here and there. We plan to set out on Sunday April 11.
Melbourne is a great city to hang out for a while and we made the best of our stay. The weather has been mild and sunny. We tried a few new restaurants and cafes and stocked up on wine at "Get Wines Direct".
