Wouldn’t you know it, another lockdown to dampen our plans. We had planned on visiting our niece in Portland tomorrow but now that has had to be postponed. Luckily Jenny got her fishing in this morning at Simsons Landing, a nice little boat ramp on the Glenelg River not far from our caravan park. Unluckily she caught nothing, apparently a common occurrence around here at the moment.
Looking down the Glenelg River from Simsons Landing
We don’t have any choice in the matter – either head home or wait it out here. The caravan park has well maintained facilities so it will be just a few days of enforced relaxation with just a walk out of the park for exercise. Things could be worse.
We dawdled down to the river so Jenny could go for a fish (but apparently he had left on the outgoing tide). Nevertheless, she persevered while I did my patient husband act, snapping a few photos and just enjoying the outdoors. We applied for a permit to enter South Australia and we got one but when I explained to Jenny that we would have to ditch all our fruit and vegetables because of the quarantine restrictions, she decided it may not be the best idea after all.
The view across the Glenelg River
We will stay here another day so Jenny can fight round 2 with the fish and we will stroll down the surf beach , hand in hand, to watch the time roll by.
It’s easier to catch things on the phone than in the water
We called into Portland to walk the streets before having fish and chips on the foreshore. We headed down the road to Nelson only to discover that the River Vu Caravan Park was choc-a-block and no room for these little black ducks! We ended up going to the Kywong Caravan Park. We’ve decided to stay two nights so that Jenny can go fishing tomorrow.
Just took it cruisy today, left camp at around nine before heading onto Hamilton for our morning cuppa. Had a tour around the lake there then moved onto Nigretta Falls for a walk down to the falls. Unfortunately there isn’t much water going over at this time of year but they would be spectacular in winter.
On our way to the bottom.
From there we travelled 8 kilometres to the Wannon Falls Campground and set up camp amidst the trees and the magpies. We’ll go for a walk down to the falls after another cuppa. We can’t rush these things.
Just a little fall 🙁
We spotted a local on our walk back from the falls
View from our camp on the southern shore of Lake Bolac
We left Geelong and headed across to Lismore then up to Skipton. It got windier as the day progressed. We stopped at Cressy for morning tea (just as well as we would have blinked and missed it) before heading to Skipton to lunch. Apparently Skipton’s most famous export was Henry Bolte who lived there until the age of 26. Despite all that he may have done or not done, he is probably most remembered as the the last Victorian Premier to allow an execution by hanging (that of Ronald Ryan whose conviction for murder at the time was seen by many as questionable given the trajectory of the wound of the fatally shot warder).
We moved on the short distance to Lake Bolac and inspected two camping areas before settling on the camp site near the boat ramp on the Southern Beach of Lake Bolac. A rather large Winnebago Longreach Motorhome had already set up camp (we thought we were being grey nomadish for setting up camp at 2 pm) It’s a lovely spot and we are sheltered from the wind making it very warm sitting in the sun. I’m not sure if Jenny intends to go fishing or not but I imagine I should get a rather nice sunset photo across the lake tonight.
Sunset on the southern shore of Lake Bolac
The motorhome is behaving itself and with the new solar panel setup we have loads of power available so we’ll only be stopping for showers at the Caravan Parks now. Unfortunately no fires permitted here.
We set off from home at 9.00 am and sauntered down to Andy’s home in Norlane. As usual Andy laid on the hospitality with a great meal and he had invited Gabes, Jody and Chelsea along as well. It was a great night with plenty of laughs and war stories about the “Good Old Days”.
It was great to catch up with Judy and Chelsea and for my first meeting with Gabes. We were well and truly wined and dined and hit the sack without noticing any of the Norlane night life that we hear of on the news!
