I had to start travelling again, or my feet would take root in the back yard. In the last couple of days of March I set off again and made it all the way to Mount Franklin. On a Thursday this time, in the hope that the noisy crowd from last time would not be there.
Day 1 - Mount Franklin (again)
I was right they weren't at the camping area, but a new noisy crowd was. Without the drones but with the music. The Wailers. Natty Dread e2e. Lively Up Yourself. No woman, no cry. And the rest. Early morning, midday, afternoon, evening. Great music but not really what I wanted, and not that many times. In one day.
So after one night I rolled my eyes at a fellow sufferer who kindly rolled them back, packed up and set off through Hepburn (road works), Ballarat (road works) and Lismore (road works) to Derrinalum, and bought a few nights at Deep Lake, scene of the impressive sunsets and pelicans last October en route to the Murray.
Days 2, 3 & 4 - Deep Lake (again)
Friday was cold and blustery so I stayed in the van reading for the remainder of Friday and all Saturday. Sunday was less blustery but more drizzerly. Along came some local yachties with their trailer sailers, hoisted the mainsails and shivered some timbers - very appropriate given the weather - and ventured out for a wee
Don't forget to click on any picture to get a larger view.
After a long while the sky stopped falling, the gusterlies resumed, and some more intrepids made their ways on to the lake.
That continued all afternoon, and it was very interesting for a few minutes. Then I got bored and went back inside the van. Later on the wind subsided again, much of the sky cleared, and the sun started to go down. This is looking
Looking
... the sky started to clear ...
... and we finally got a small amount of colour in the clouds.
Then after the sun finally disappeared the wind fell a bit and the water lost its choppiness.
Days 5, 6 & 7 Brodie's Camp, Rocklands Reservoir
That was enough of Deep Lake. Very nice spot but it wasn't where I wanted to be, which was further west in the Wimmera region. So I packed up again and followed a couple of highways through Darlington (which sports a direction sign to the left "Speedway. Recreational Reserve. Cemetary". In that order), then Mortlake, Hexham, Penshurst to Hamilton. This is a mid sized town with modern facilities like shops, so I bought some fleecy clothes, pharmaceuticals (legal), and some fuel, and set off again through Cavendish (pie and coffee) and Balmoral then turned northeast towards Horsham then east, onto some unsealed road. Which was getting "the treatment" by some very serious earthmoving equipment. I followed a don't-argue-with-me grader for around five km until it pulled off the road to turn around, then turned off this unsealed road onto the smaller unsealed Number 7 Track leading south to Brodie's Camp on the shore of Rocklands Reservoir.
So I levelled the van, sat back, and enjoyed a relatively uninterrupted three and a half days. There were two or three fishing and canoeing groups a couple of hundred metres away but they were very quiet and I mostly forgot they were there.
On the Tuesday a whole bunch of hi-viz vehicles turned up, including a long loader with a grader on the back. They had come down to the lake edge for lunch so 90 min later they made their noisy way back up the dirt. The vehicle weights and the way they were being driven could explain the corrugations all the way along the narrow No 7 Track.
My last day at Brodie's Camp was overcast and uninspiring, so I started to sort photographs for the blog - unposted news from last November!
Day 8 - Brodie's Camp to Edenhope
Packed up, drove up the corrugated No 7 Track and along the freshly graded access road, then took one left turn too many and ended up back at the reservoir (different picnic spot), but finally got myself untangled and headed west through Balmoral to Harrow (which was on ABC Back Roads in 2016 - I saw a couple of the "stars"!!) where I stopped for a pie and coffee.
Then further west to Edenhope, where I checked in to a motel and had a couple of very welcome showers. Ate at the motel (the only dinner patron) which was interesting - good food, and a couple of beers all alone in a very large dining room, watching the news on a very large TV on the wall.
Then I wandered over the road to Lake Wallace. When I turned around I found a very nice sunset.
Turning east again and wandering down to the lake shore I found the black swans organising all the smaller birds.
But after a while they grew tired of that little game and slipped away to their night-time hideaway, and left the smaller birds to enjoy the twilight.
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Afterwards, contemplating in my room, my brain fixated on the Wimmera region, and the way the word Wimmera sounds like that great South African song from the 1930s: Mbube (also known as Wimoweh, or The Lion Sleeps Tonight)
A-Wimmera, A-Wimmera, A-Wimmera, A-Wimmera
A-Wanderings, A-Wanderings, A-Wanderings, A-WanderingsIn Victoria, west Victoria
Stevie sleeps tonight
West Victoria, dry Victoria
Stevie sleeps tonight
A-Wimmera, A-Wimmera, A-Wimmera, A-Wimmera
A-Wanderings, A-Wanderings, A-Wanderings, A-Wanderings
In the small towns, the hollow small towns
The people sleep tonight
In the small towns, the dying small towns
The people sleep tonight
A-Wimmera, A-Wanderings, A-Wimmera, A-Wanderings
A-Wimmera, A-Wanderings, A-Wimmera, A-Wanderings
Across the highways, the busy highways
The wildlife moves tonight
On the highways, the lethal highways
The roadkill sleeps tonight
A-Wimmera, A-Wimmera, A-Wimmera, A-Wimmera
A-Wanderings, A-Wanderings, A-Wanderings, A-Wanderings
Wimmera, Wanderings, Wimmera, Wanderings
Wimmera, Wanderings, Wimmera, Wanderings
Ah well, we can't all be clever but I had to get that one out of my system.
(This version is much much better
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJuEuRCKq1s
Also this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V716rhitp1g - song starts at 2:00 watch for the girl in blue)
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Day 9 - Edenhope to Warracknabeal
Up fresh and thoroughly showered the next day, I headed north through Ozenkadnook ...
Found the secret Lego Stash ...
... turned right at Peronne ... past some geometrically plowed paddocks ...
... then stopped at Goroke to buy a pie and coffee at one of the two remaining shops in what had clearly - until recently - been a thriving town. There is a P-12 college and I'm guessing that's what keeps the town going.
Then a few km further east, turn left (north) and I found myself in the middle of the Little Desert. Don't blink.
I stopped at a small rest area and there was a walking track with a three-hour circuit (which I didn't follow!) but I wandered up a 100 metres or 2, and took a photo of the sand on the track. Ah ha! The Little Desert!
A bit past the Little Desert was a crossroad at a location called Winiam. No houses, just the usual Mechanics Institute (look it up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanics%27_Institutes#Australia) next to the CFA (look it up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_Fire_Authority#Fire_districts)
Behind the Mechanics Institute was a cricket oval (what else?) complete with a scoring shelter with special scoring desk ...
... and off to the right was a pavilion with emergency/temporary seating for unexpectedly large crowds. I got an impression that this was a pavilion for the annual A&P Show.
So I drove on to Nhill where I filled up. Very definitely a highway town on the main Melbourne - Adelaide route, with all the prosperity and industrial vibe that that brings.
Northeast again to Jeparit, another town that's losing its puff. It is next to Lake Hindmarsh. That dot at the far right of the track is a 4WD - a Nissan Patrol.
I zoomed out for a shot of the middle of the lake. That isn't water or cloud or mirage, it's dust.
I had planned to stay at Lake Hindmarsh but it was windy and dusty and unpleasant so I left it and Jeparit behind and headed east to Warracknabeal where I stayed in another motel.
Day 10 - Warracknabeal to Sea Lake
Suitably refreshed again, I headed northeast to Sea Lake. The drive was flat and uneventful.
At Sea Lake there was some sort of organised cycle race with marshalls and flashing lights and lots of hi-viz. I couldn't figure out what was going on. The jury's out and will return with a verdict later.
The nearby shallow Lake Tyrell usually provides spectacular "mirror shots" like this one from the Sea Lake website http://sealake.vic.au/about/lake-tyrrell/
But the lake is absolutely dry so there are no mirror photos and consequently very few tourists (very popular on Asian tours) so that affects the town.
Day 11 - Sea Lake
I spent the day doing laundry, food shopping and packaging / freezing food for the next eight days.
Went past the very well kept war memorial a few times - it is on the main junction.
The Australian Army must have had an awful lot of these field guns to give away. Either that or a secret posse of vets is following me around with a pop-up cardboard 25-pdr howitzer.
Day 12 - Sea Lake to Kilmore
I had noticed an increase in the number of caravans and campers on the road. At Sea Lake, being on the Calder Highway between Melbourne and Mildura, there was a big increase in travellers. I checked the calendar and sure enough it was the beginning of the school holidays, so I made an executive decision and headed home for the duration of the school holidays. I will resume my travel in Sea Lake after the holidays.
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