I’m wearing down friends..
I’m tired, I’ve had enough of these Blokes and the closer I get the more I want to “just go home” Short drive today, we couldn’t decide where to go spoilt for choices, as long as we stayed inland.. because the coast is going to be wet windy and miserable.
So we headed in the general direction of “Jeparit” the Bloke made some calls yesterday about different areas we “thought“we might like to visit for example the Pink Lakes at The Murray Sunset National Park, which would be another night of no power and no showers, but I’m up for the challenge, at least I was till the voice on the other end of the phone said “There’s no water in the Lake” the same we found out for “Lake Albacutya” and then again for “Lake Hindmarsh“… these are small out of the way places that are names on the Map of Victoria and if we do anything for the rest of this trip we want to add more black lines to the Map of Victoria. So we drove on and we would figure it out as we went.
First stop was Ouyen let me tell you this… NOTHING is open on Sundays.. I feel so like we are back in the 70’s.. they were not helpful at all in the Bakery, so we kept on going.. One of the places on the map that sounded funky was “Patchewollock” repeat that a few times it sounded fun, so when we saw the turn off we detoured to “Patche” as the locals call it.. I have NEVER been more disappointed in my life… ok, I probably have but I was devastated.. there was nothing there. it resembled a ghost town.. OK… there “used” to be a Service staion there, which had burnt down and was now a gravel space with a solitary single charred petrol pump behind a chain link fence. There was a shop of sorts, with a sign that listed “bakery, milkbar, post office and general store” REALLY?! we didn’t even bother we turned Heidi and Tilly around and went back the way we came… “blink town” if you Blink you’ll miss it…
The map showed a Lake with free camping in a town called “Hopetoun” so we decided we’d stop there for lunch and check it out and see how we felt, we had no better offers… One pub in the town was boarded up, everything else was locked tightly up, but there was some kind of speed boat racing thingy on at Lake Lascelles and so we went to look, only to realise that it was where the “free camping” was. On one side of the sign you camped for free, on the other side you had power and a toilet for something like $15.00 per night.. hmmm… we drove around the lake picked out a good “spot”and decided that this would be “home” for tonight…we then decided to go into “town” and find some lunch… there was “one café” and I reckon most of the town were in there, so I stayed in the car and trusted the men to buy me a “pie” well, I don’t know what they were thinking but really? cheese in a pie.. it was not a good combo, but I was hungry I ate it..
So it’s been one of those hot, grey and over cast days, which I kind of don’t mind, because it’s not so hot when the sun stays away.. but then as we decided to set up the tent, out came the sun, up went the temperature and hello flies!!!
The place where we were camping was on sand, so the tent pegs were not going to stay in very well… to be frankly honest with you I hated the place on site, but then I thought I was having a “spoilt little brat” moment so I bit my tongue and set up camp. Then as the afternoon rolled on the wind started, you’ve read previous posts about the wind while camping, it’s not a good mix. Then about 6.00pm the sky grew dark and the rain started first it was big fat juicy drops, that splashed up on the sandy ground and dried quickly.. then the thunder started and the lightening and I’m muttering under my breath about being in the wild! (at least in a camp ground you have a camper kitchen to run and hide in when it thunders)
Before bed that night we removed the annex/ tarp because we feared we might fly away. The wind whipped up waves in the previously pretty little lake and the temperature dropped until we were cold! so by 9.30pm we were in bed with lights out, trying to go to sleep and wondering if we would still be in the same place in the morning, It was the longest night in the history of nights. The wind howled and bellowed ALL NIGHT long and by the time it was light enough to see I was growling at the Bloke “How long did YOU say we had to stay here?!!” he got up, looked around, saw the wind was too strong to even light the stove to boil the kettle and said “Let’s get out of here now!” So by 8.30am we had packed up 3/4’s of the camp and woken Star Son who had slept through it ALL and said “We are LEAVING NOW!”
Where to go next? we pulled over on the side of the road found some internet access and decided that we were about 2.5 hours away from our holiday place which is an onsite Caravan called “Bel Far Niente” with an enclosed annex and a toilet and access to a shower and heating and safety.. we said “Let’s go to our other “home” and off we went.
Kim L Hine 