The Wilderness Coast - February 2008

This blog post has been waiting for a month. As the cliche goes, better late than never - hopefully the next one will be up soon.

At the end of February, we decided we were overdue for a road trip. Jessica had just finished working 9 days in a row and Steve had just had his busiest week yet. We decided to travel 300 km up the east coast of Victoria towards the border with New South Wales.

Unfortunately, at knock-off time (read: quitting time) on Friday, it was raining, and no one likes camping in the rain. So we waited until Saturday morning, checked the weather forecast, and determined the rain would stay in Sale. We packed the packed and headed towards the Wilderness Coast. To get there, we drove towards Bairnsdale, the western portal of East Gippsland, as well as East Gippsland's only city (in an area of 32,000 sq km). From there, we headed towards our first stop, Orbot. It is the 3rd largest town in East Gippsland, with a population of 2500. We stopped at the slab hut, which was built in 1872 and has since been turned into an info center. We found some post cards, and bought our first souvenir, a coffee table book titled: Images of Gippsland. It even has a picture of Jessica's workplace in it. A quick walk through the Forest Reserve (read: park), and then we were off to Marlo, a 10 minute drive down the Snowy River (yes, as in the movie, The Man From Snowy River). Marlo has a population of around 300, and its big slogan is "Marlo: Where the Snowy Meets the Sea". Here we pulled in and watched the fishermen fish, the pelicans bob in the river, and went for a walk down the river towards the Sea. It is a very picturesque little area, although our photos might not show it off all that well.
We took a scenic detour along the coast looking out to banksia trees and sand dunes, and stopped at Cape Conran National Park for lunch. We walked from the East Cape beach to the end of the Cape, and then headed on towards Mallacoota, still 3 national parks and another 150 km away. Mallacoota is a laid-back town of about 3000, nestled in Croajingolong National Park, and equidistant from Sydney and Melbourne (about 500 km). It is Victoria's eastern most town, and the warmest town in the winter, so we might just head back. We chose this location because the guide book mentioned a company that had kayak and mountain bike rentals, but because of insurance issues, they had since gone out of business. We enquired at the info center about renting a canoe, but again, no one was willing to rent out a canoe because of problems with insurance. Instead, we spent the weekend walking along the Mallacoota inlet - which the locals call top "lake" and bottom "lake" - and along the many beautiful beaches (including secret beach, which really WAS hard to find). The locals kept apologizing for the weather, as it was windy, but as long as we escaped the rain back in Sale, we were happy. Our campsite looked out at the inlet, and if we had wanted we could have had a waterfront site with mooring. It was a short trip, but overall it was one of our favorite spots we've been

Happy Easter. We're Off!

We're off to Torquay for the Bells Beach Surf Comp in a couple minutes. There will definitely be a blog post and new pics very soon!

Have a great Easter!

The Den of Nargun

Nargun is a mythological half-stone half-human creature of Kurnai tribal legends. She lived in a cave behind a waterfall in Woolshed creek, a tributary of the Mitchell River. According to legend, Nargun would abduct children who visited the rock pool below the waterfall. Nargun could not be harmed by boomerangs or spears, as they would be reflected back at the thrower. The cave used to be rimmed in Stalactites, but they have been broken off by tourists.

The Den of Nargun is located in Mitchell River National Park, approximately an hour east of Sale. The Mitchell river is the largest unregulated river in Victoria.


Photos of our day trip to the Den of Nargun are finally on the flickr account - it only took 2 months!

Settling In

We've been almost a month now in our new house. The past few weeks have been devoted to setting up the house with electricity, a phone line, internet, in addition to borrowing and buying all sorts of basic household necessities. Lucky for us, most of our furniture is on loan from Steve's boss which is good for two reasons. Firstly, it costs us nothing. Secondly, we won't have to worry about selling them in a year from now. Finally, our house looks like someone lives there.

Since Christmas, we've explored more of East Gippsland. We visited the Den of Nargun, a site of Aborigine importance, swum at the Blue Pools a couple of times, and rang in the New Year at Seaspray with Steve's boss and his boss's family. We visited Raymond Island, home to a colony of 80 - 100 koalas and counted 11, including a mother and baby combo. Unfortunately, in our koala pursuits, we happened to get ourselves a little lost, thus "enjoyed" a 3 hour walk up and down random dirt roads under a very hot sun. To cool off on the really hot days (ie 38 celsius) we've been frequenting the beach at Seaspray. There is a wicked rip tide there that just carries you down the beach so that half the time is spent fighting to stay in between the surf patrol's flags. Funnily enough, when we were at Seaspray for New Years, Steve's boss actually "saved" a girl that had gotten caught in the rip and was being carried down the beach. It happened just after 6 o clock and the surf patrol were off duty and engaged in New Years festivities in the beach bar.

Steve and I both started working this week. I've found a job at a nice restaurant in town and will start working full time hours in a week from now. Everyone at the restaurant is very positive and friendly, so I'm looking forward to working with them. Yesterday, I was wheeling my (new) bike down the driveway on the way to work, when I realized it had a flat tire, a major bummer. I had to call a taxi in order to get to work on time! Steve's at work right now (on a Saturday morning!) and, though I can't really speak for him, I'm pretty sure he's happy to finally be doing what he devoted the last umpteen years of his life to achieving.

Merry Christmas from Australia!

No chance of a white Christmas here, rather it is 17 degrees and sunny. It was a quiet Christmas morning for us - pancake breakfast, reading books, and uploading photos. We now have basically all of our photos onto the computer, sorted through, and uploaded onto the internet. They are available here.

To hear an Australian version of Jingle Bells, click here (Holden: Australian version of chevy, Ute: a mix between a car and a truck, Eskie: cooler, Kelpie: Australian shepherd dog).

Returns

It feels like it has been forever since we last posted. We returned to Melbourne, to meet up with Jessica's friend Amy who was flying in after a trip to Africa. We stayed at a wonderful caravan park (read: campground) North of Melbourne, which ended up costing only slightly less than the hostel we lasted stayed at in Melbourne. On the other hand we didn't have to pay as much for parking, and the facilities were exceptionally clean. We visited the Melbourne Museum which was enjoyable (and free) but overall unremarkable, but we still did not manage to get to the Immigration museum or the Ian Potter National Gallery, which we have been intending to do.

We met up for coffee with Amy in Fitzroy, Melbourne's oldest suburb. We hadn't managed to make it into Fitzroy yet, but were glad we did. We found great used book store to stock up on books (we spend a great deal of time reading), had lunch at an amazing vegetarian restaurant, and returned at night for some live music - Fitzroy is a hub for Melbourne's live music scene.

After three days back in Melbourne, we decided to return to Wilson's Promontory National Park for a couple more nights camping. We hiked over to Oberon bay, and did some short walks down to Whiskey Beach and Picnic Bay as well. We enjoyed "the prom" as much this time as on our last trip, but the flies seemed to be worse this time, especially on our hikes. Eventually we will have some great pictures to share from here.

Unfortunately, our relaxing time in the prom had to come to an end, and we returned to Sale, where we signed the lease for our new 3 bedroom house. Even though it is much larger than we need, it ended up being much nicer than the other options in the same price range. The house wasn't cleaned before the last tenants moved out, so our first day was spent trying to bring it up to our standards. We spent one night in the house, which was a nice change from the tent, especially with the stormy, rainy, weather. However, the electricity cannot be hooked up until after Chrissy (read: Christmas), so we will be spending the next week or so in Maffra, thanks to Steve's boss.

Steve is still trying to sort out the paperwork needed to practice in Australia - insurance quotations started at $12,500 for the year, but thanks to some advice from colleagues other sources which are up to 4 times cheaper have been found, but some require membership to Chiropractic associations - which means more paperwork. Registration with the State is also needed, but they are closed for Chrissy until the middle of January, so work will have to wait until then for Steve.

A few more photos have been uploaded to the address in the last post, and we will try and get some more added when we can

More Pictures

Check out this address for pictures - http://www.flickr.com/photos/54632595@N00/

Hopefully that works!

Also, see the ads on our blog? Aren't they pretty? They help us fund our trip. So far, we've made $5!