Day 13 - Ballarat - Sovereign Hill

Day 12 - Mt Gambier to Smythesdale near Ballarat

After a final visit to Grandpa, we drove towards Ballarat through lots of pine plantations and past the Grampians. We are going to have to come and send more time here.

We're spending tonight at a free (donation) camp about 13 km from Ballarat. Got to love these spots. 

Day 11 - Mt Gambier

I'll leave the story of our visit to Gradpa Mt Gamber to Kerrie and the kids. It was quite emotional for all of them. Grandpa spent a lot of time with the kids talking about a lot of things. 

Whilst in mt Gamber we went to a video presentation at the town hall about the volcanos and geology in the area.  I think you could spend a lot of time in the area looking at the different geology. 

Day 10 - Naracourte to Mt Gambier

Day 9 - Naracourte - under the Earth

Today is the big caving adventure.

Today we visited three caves at Naracourte.  A self guided exploration of the wet cave, a guided tour of the Fossil cave

, containing fossils of megafauna and a cave adventure crawling through the stick or tomato cave. 

The adventure cave was amazing. Crawling throw spaces barley large enough for your head, having to move by flexing your shoulders and pushing with your toes. The kids were great, I don't know that I could have done such a thing at that age. 

Day 8 - Rupanyup to Naracourte.

Well we are here. 

The night at the Rupanyup camp was brilliant.  There was even a hot shower for $1 for 5 min hit water.  Hard standing for the vans. 

The trip to Naracourte was fairly uneventful if very windy. The fuel consumption rose to somewhere around 14.4 l/100km. 

We're now camped at the Naracourte caves national park. 

Day 7 - Narranderra to Echuca and beyond to ...

It's raining, and muddy, and cold ( at least out side)

We can pack up in the rain without getting everything completely soaked. Well that is apart from us who are cold wet and muddy.   We're treating the guys with a purchased  breakfast. 

Time passes...

Well breakfast consisted of 3 snags 2 eggs and a tomato and chips. $9.50. Kerrie shared with Sarah. This was at a petrol station in Jerilderie. 

The trip to the border was uneventable. The trip from the boarder to Echuca was a little less so. 

I am sorry to that the population of Macropus giganteus has been reduced. 

There was a foggy drizzle and the driver glanced away at just the wrong time.  The co-driver called a warning just before the victim impacted the front drivers side wheel. The trailing wheels proceeded over the victim.  

We pulled over to assess damage as a police car who had been following us and had a front seat for the show stopped to clear the road. We checked the car and saw no damage (phew). The police pulled up to check how we were and reported the victim was killed on impact. The police were great. They had no issues and were understanding. They were concerned about any damage and our well being. Love Victorian cops. 

So on into Echuca, taking more care to not be distracted.  Sarah was a little sad, but understood how these things can happen. 

The rain continued in Echuca. There were few visitors and understandingly the wood turner was doing some housekeeping, not turning. We were a little disappointed but we took the opertunity to visit Kerries cousin Bobby. She walks in a pharmacy and we took the opertunity to do some shopping whilst visiting.  

We proceeded, taking the side roads towards Horsham.

We went through;

Logan

St Arnaud - great display in the visitors centre. Sarah loves the diararamas. 

Rupanyup -we are camped at a brilliant community supported camp here.  $10 for the night with toilets, water and power. It would have been at least $40.  Got to love this free camp gig. 

Tomorrow in to Naracoorte.  Definitely.