Strathalbyn
DAY 6 - MENINGIE TO VICTOR HARBOUR

Left Lake Albert Caravan Park early and stopped on the way for a coffee at Strathalbyn 
and picked up a few groceries.  Strathalbyn is 57 kms from Adelaide and is a pretty little place with beautiful stone buildings and lots of history. It seems to have a thriving art and craft community and we found a little organic market shop where we picked up some fruit and veges and some home made muesli and had a nice coffee there too. Continued ontoVictor Harbour arriving about lunchtime. Went for a walk and had a look at the shops. Staying at Victor Harbour Beach Front holiday park which is in a fantastic spot right on the bike trail about 5mins ride into town. Did a couple of loads of washing and got that dry seeing the rain had stopped for a while. Had a chat with our neighbours about their travels. It was good to talk to somebody. A couple even gave us the rest of their drying time in the laundry which was really nice.

DAY 5 - FRIDAY 2ND MAY - KINGSTON TO MENINGIE

Today was spent travelling along the Coorong which derives it's name from the Aboriginal word 'Karangh' meaning narrow neck. It stretches from the mouth of the Murray River near Goolwa to just past Salt Creek. It is between 200m and 3km wide up to 4m deep and 3 times more saltier than the ocean. It is teeming with bird life and is a bird watchers paradise.
The weather has been 4 seasons well and truly today from sunny and almost warm to freezing and hailing. We stopped to do a walk at Salt Creek seeing black swans and ducks and then drove on to Meningie where we have camped at the caravan park. We learn't something today that if you park right on the lake it costs $2 more that if you park one row back, that's why most of the vans are parked in the middle and we have an almost uninterrupted view of Lake Albert. Well, you live and learn. Like last night when we stayed in the caravan park with power at $32 whilst a kilometre down the road at the jetty all these vans were free camping. Not that I mind at the moment it's freezing and I like being warm (it comes at a cost though) we are going to have to do a few free camps over the next couple of weeks. It's all a learning curve.

Pelicans and black swans at Long Point camp site.

 

Pink Lakes.

DAY 4 - THURSDAY 1ST MAY - KINGSTON

Drove straight through to Kingston from Mount Gambier as our fridge had been off overnight and we needed to power it up again. Left 9am and arrived about 11.30am. Tonight we are staying at the Kingston Foreshore Caravan Park. A nice little park. Very neat and tidy and we have a fantastic view right over to the Southern Ocean.

After a bite to eat and enjoying the breeze and a bit of sunshine we took a drive down to Cape Jaffa and Robe. Whilst in Robe we saw the old gaol and the Obelisk. It was very windy and the sea was a lovely blue green colour and choppy because of the wind.

DAY 3- WEDNESDAY 30th APRIL

We left Hamilton about 10am and drove to Coleraine. We visited the historical railway station which closed in 1977 and the Eucalyptus Arboretum which contains the worlds biggest collection of Eucalypts in the world. The Arboretum is high above the town and affords a good view of the valley and town. We observed some pretty New Holland Honeyeaters sucking the nectar out of a flowering gum tree.

We visited the Coleraine Chocolate shop and bought some homemade choclates on the way out of town.
On  arrival at Mount Gambier we visited the Umperstone Sinkhole one of many around Mt Gambier.

We ended up staying the night at the Mount Gambier Showgrounds on an unpowered site $15 night. Nice quiet site but very cold as we couldn't run our heating. There are only 9 powered sites here so it is first come first served and you need to be quick.
The Blue Lake is very picturesque as is Valley Lake and Brown Lake with numerous scenic places to picnic.

Blue Lake

Valley Lake

DAY 2- HAMILTON 29TH APRIL 2014

Still raining and feeling cold. Well I'm always feeling the cold anyway. Went into town to look around. Had coffee and foccacia at Roxburgh house which was an old house with an antique shop attached. Then we had a stroll through the botanical gardens. These were developed in 1881 by William Guilfoyle, the curator of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne and are small but perfectly formed and the autumn colours are spectacular.

 We also visited the Nigretta falls which are about 20kms out of Hamilton. There are picnic and bbq facilities here, fishing and I am told good swimming though not today.

Below are the Wannon falls which are not far from Nigretta. I thought they would be flowing quite well because of the rain we have had but no. They are spectacular after heavy rain I believe.

day 1

DAY 1 - 28TH APRIL 2014 - D DAY HAS ARRIVED

As I sit here listening to the rain teeming down outside our van on Day 2 of our adventure I reflect on the day before and our goodbyes to friends and family. Our DIL Sarah and baby Grandson Braedan, our daughter Sarah and niece Katie and baby Evie. Also goodbyes to our wonderful neighbours the Harris's the best neighbours ever. After some piccies of family and us in front of the rig we are off.
Our trip through the city was uneventful and as we crossed the Westgate Bridge we were on our way.
We headed towards Hamilton a small town in the Western district of Victoria. Mainly a wool town it is situated near the Grampians. We stopped for lunch in a small place called Inverleigh and had our soup which I premade and put in the dreampot (great invention). Then it was on our way again. Stopped for a toilet break and checked the van lucky we did as the fridge had opened and stuff had come out lucky no breakages or spills. We had a 40km detour around the town of Derrinallum. The road was still blocked due previous explosion of a house.  As we drove on the sometimes bumpy road I could see smoke in the distance (backburning) and it made the distant Grampians look like eerie monoliths as they rose into the sky. We drove into Hamilton just as the sun was setting and we could see the coming rain behind us as we arrived. We are staying two nights at The TopTourist Lake Hamilton park. Hope rain eases so we can explore.

NOT LONG NOW

The time is just flying now and we have both gone through a range of emotions as the time draws ever closer. I think it is a fear of the unknown eg,. what will it be like, will we enjoy it, do we have enough money, what if we get stuck somewhere and run out of money, are we ever prepared enough. Maybe we think too much at least I do but I wonder if the experienced travelers out there just take it all in their stride. I think it probably comes down to being prepared but how prepared do you need to be without taking everything and the kitchen sink.
A few people have asked me what do you need to organise before you go surely there wouldn't be that much. Well you'd be surprised it all adds up really. We just started off deciding whether to rent our house through a real estate agent and store all our household goods, but when I started looking into storage there are so many options it is mind boggling. Then we would have to clear the whole house and probably hire a truck to take the stuff to the storage place and fill the container ourselves. It also concerned me who would be renting my house and what would they do to it, (I've never rented a property out before let alone my family home and to strangers). I would have been thinking about that all the time. In the end we decided to get our dog minder/housesitter (who we trust implicitly) to come in and put it to her would she be willing to stay for an extended period. Thank goodness she said yes and that was the dog issue taken care of as well. The dogs coming with us was good and bad. I love my dogs and I would have taken them but we intend on working while we are away and it concerned me that we might have to leave them in the van for long periods and besides being taboo with the caravan parks I couldn't do that to them. Our 2 whippets do tend to fret and feel the cold and the heat more than some other breeds too.Oh no, I've just read this and I sound like a anxiety freak!! I really do need a rest from my mind sometimes.
These above things were the biggest issues. As well as that there are some other things to consider:

• bills things we pay for, things they pay for eg. gas/elec, water, rates, 
• insurances - car, house and contents, health insurance
• putting things on direct debit - mobile phones, rates, water
• cancel paper delivery, gym membership, union membership
• mail
• rent and how that would be paid
• renew drivers licence
• do any courses needed for jobs on the road 
• print out resumes
• food, flea and worming treatment for dogs for 12 mthshttp://mixandkarrotsaussieadventure.blogspot.com.au/

It's nice to know our friends and family care about us and whether we might disappear off the face of the earth as they are madly organising farewell dinners, lunches, drinks etc. I've never felt so popular bring it on!! The waistline is suffering a bit but not to worry just got to exercise more.