Our Australia trip

We said goodbye to Herman and Renate and made our way back over the rough off road track and took our time to get to the bitumen.
Then it was on to Ballarat where we would get groceries at Aldi and we found a shop that possibly had a new micro switch for our pressure pump.

We saw some buildings.

And waited while Marjo did shopping.

And waited on the vet to give new medicine for Dotti.

Then Marjo got cravings and gave some subtle hints.

So you can understand that her eyes got a healthy shine when we had to detour to pick up Dotti’s medicines and ended up at another vet next door to a Hungry Jack’s. You can guess what we had for lunch.

We left Ballarat with a full stomach, the ingredients for a healthy pump and new groceries and drove towards our next stop. We saw pretty clouds

Quick passing road trains.

Salt lakes.

And then we came to Lake Colac where we stayed for the night.

And captured the sun setting over the lake.

Then it was bedtime.

A nice day.

Posted from Johanna, Victoria, Australia.

Time to go bush again and we want a nice spot to celebrate New Year. So we try and leave the dry fields.

And swap them for the bush.

We set up at a great spot, next to the river (well pretty much dried up) with plenty of privacy.

Makes us happy.

Tonight is New Year’s Eve and because we will miss Sydney’s stunning fireworks display our neighbours create their own fire work.

Well, I mean work for the Fire Brigade. The forest around this area has been the centre of gold mining and quite a while ago many Chinese prospectors came here and dug man-size shafts (1 x 1 meter holes, many meters down) all over the place and our neighbour’s dog walked unsuspecting about 5 meters from the path through the shrub and went straight down one of the shafts. Because they’re dark and of unknown depth the dog owners had tried Victoria Parks and Wildlife, then when they couldn’t reach them they rang the emergency number 000 and the police turned up as well as 4 fire trucks.
They got the dog out in no time with a ladder and a slim fire woman.

Nossi did his own attempt in finding gold, but after a few scrapes he gave up.

That afternoon Marjo and Nossi went for walks while I tried again to fix the faltering water pump. The pressure switch has now died completely and so the pump is now either on or off with the tap always open. It has to work that way until we get a new switch.

Later we met a couple (Herman and Renate) that moved many years from Germany to Darwin and were now caravanning around Victoria. I helped them with some electric problem in the van and in return they asked us over for New Years eve. She made Boerenkool (curly kale) with sausage and yummie pancakes with peaches and cream.

That evening we celebrated New Year sitting around a big fire and consuming wine, beer and port. We rang the kids just past midnight who all had a great time at the Sydney Casino. At 4.30 am we crossed the river back to our bus.

The next day we took things slow, went for walks and had a quiet evening.

A beautiful stay.

Posted from Cabbage Tree, Victoria, Australia.