Phoenix & Eric's Australian Adventure

After my walk this morning we packed up for our 170kM drive from Victoria to Mt Gambier in South Australia. We are being promised heavy thunderstorms by midnight, but it is very humid at the moment. We had a walk through town this afternoon visiting one of the sunken gardens, and mum feels ok. Back to the van for a rest. We are here for three nights so will maybe do more driving around than walking. Will let you know what we do.

We have rested with small walks with mum but no major outings and mum says her back is feeling a lot better. We have had a walk this afternoon to the local pub for a drink before returning to the campsite.

After my walk we decided we would leave Apollo Bay as planned and travel to our next stop at Port Fairy. We only had about a 140kM to drive so dad took it nice and slow and mum took her pain killers. Arrived on site and dad setup and mum chilled out. We are here until Thursday but will not be doing a great deal to allow mum to recover.

Dad took me for my walk this morning which was very wet under my feet and belly. On our return to Ernie i needed to be dried but dad needed the bathroom so mum got the towel to dry me. On dad’s return mum could not standup properly. Dad finally got her into the car and down to the Hospital. The Doctor found that mum had trapped something in the spine which he managed to manipulate back in but mum needed to take it easy for the next 4 – 5 days. So dad spent the day taking me on walks around the caravan park.

We have made our base for the next four nights at Apollo Bay. As we now have the car we are going to drive some of the roads that we were unable to do when we had the motorhome. This means we are going up into the mountains and forests and are visiting Stevenson’s Falls. I normally laydown on the backseat whilst dad is driving but because we are twisting and turning so much i am not getting chance to do that.

Last picture where did mum and dad go !!!

Today is a beautiful day, we are going to Queenscliffe where they have a train ride and walks along the old train line route. Up in town they have the Fort which was built to protect the entry from the ocean.

From here we drive to the lighthouse at Port Phillip where we find a WWI / II seachlight emplacement and another jetty to walk.

We walk the jetty seeing jellyfish and unfortunately a dead 11 star jellyfish.

Finally to Port Arlington where we have lunch before returning back to Ernie.

We are packed up and travelling to Sorrento to catch the 11am ferry. We where ahead of schedule so we stopped in Rye to walk the jetty.

We arrived at the Port about 9:58 and the ferry still hadn’t left so we were able to get on the 10am. After the 45 minute crossing to Queenscliffe we drove to South Geelong where we were staying for the next two nights.

The picture above is of me on the ferry.

Today we are having a trip to Sorrento which is where we will catch the ferry tomorrow across to Queenscliffe. This will save us having to drive all the way round the coast through Melbourne (140kM). Below is a picture of the ferry we will be on tomorrow.

We have got up to a dry day after a wet night so we are going to Hastings (15km away) for a walk along the river.

Mum managed to get pictures of this parrot whilst we were walking along the boardwalk through the mangroves.

We found this sculpture of John Coleman in the center of town.

We are travelling to Mornington where we have a walk along the cliff top which ended at the jetty. There are some divers getting ready to go into the water, mum asked them what was down there and one of the divers replied cans, bottles and a shopping trolley.

The dial says Melbourne is 45kM away so mum took a picture (this is the closest we will get).

Next we are travelling to Flinders Jetty where we look over the jetty and the bay.

Down to the beach and a walk along the new jetty (old one still on the righthand side but not safe to walk on). Back to Stoney Point as the heavens have opened. The rain has finally stopped after 3 hours so we go for a walk to the boat ramp and a few boats are going out fishing.