R.I.P
On 11th April 2018 we lost our beloved
beast!!
We were both shattered beyond belief over a car!!!
GM had generously lent an overseas guest the Beast to use
while GM was at work. Our young guest
had never driven on our roads, or probably even on a hill as he was from the
Netherlands. Maybe even had never driven
on dirt!! Might even have been a wee bit
jet-lagged as well but took her for a drive down one of our local country roads
that had been in poor condition, lost control and rolled the beast. Never to be driven again. 😭. Luckily our guest came out of it unhurt.
If you listen carefully, you can hear her pain..
And off she goes 😭😪
A local farmer helped strip the Beast and stored all the goodies like the Engel, the drawer system and the brand new spare tyre. What a champion!! People here will help themselves to whatever they can find and then set the cars on fire, so that's why we stayed to see her off. He's also the one who lent his phone so that I could be contacted to come and get our guest. GM had gone back to work over in Western Australia a couple of days before. Our tow truck driver Ernie got lost and took hours to get there, so we waited and waited and got eaten alive by mozzies. There had been 8 stubbies of beer in the Engel, and only 1 was smashed in the accident. Luckily there was also bottled water, as it was a warm day and night and I hadn't had a drink since lunch time.
It’s been a long time between adventures as it’s taken over
12 months and close to my yearly income to replace her and bring Bubbles up to
our travel standard.
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| Introducing Bubbles! |
Bubbles is a wee bit more luxurious than the Beast. She has been given the moniker “Bubbles”
because of her champagne colour and her luxury fittings and leather seats. She’s also automatic, so doesn’t require as
much personal effort. We weren’t
convinced she’d be as good a workhorse as the Beast, and Wingan Inlet was to be
her first test…...albeit an easy one considering where we’ve been before and what
we were planning for later in the year.
Bubbles passed with flying colours!!
And I hate to say it, was far more comfortable on the long drives. The seats are like lounge chairs and there
seems to be a bit more room inside.
There’s also the power of the V8 diesel…...wow does she move!! We were won over for now.
Wingan Inlet
Found in the Croajingalong National Park, 36km from the
Highway near the NSW border, 380km from home and a nice leisurely 5 hour
drive. East this time instead of the
usual west.
This was just a 3 night break that was well overdue for the
pair of us. It was an easy drive in from
the highway through an avenue of tall bloodwood trees that seemed to touch the
sky. The dirt road was well maintained
and although it’s recommended for 4WD only, you could bring a normal car in
quite easily. Just a couple of places
you’d need to go slow. There didn’t seem
to be too much undergrowth, so there must have been a burn off within the last
year or so. It was quite isolated, so
would have been scary in bushfire season if they’d not cleared it.
I had booked our camp through Parks Victoria which requires
a 4 night minimum stay at Easter. I’d
heard it gets quite busy, but we were quite surprised to find a lot of empty
camps available. There was several sites
that only stayed a night, so probably hadn’t booked. Large middle eastern family groups, but they
left the place clean and snuck out quietly very early in the morning, and their
kids were sweet and friendly.
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| Cheers! |
You weren’t allowed to have your own campfire, but there
were communal fire pits in the middle of the campgrounds. The sites were very private, and I picked
well considering we had no idea what we would be getting. The web site didn’t show pictures of the
sites.
The beach was beautiful and so pristine! Access was via boat or the Fly Cove Walking
Track that started in the campgrounds.
Wingan Inlet is also included in the wilderness coast walk. I’d really like to do that one day. Just gotta convince GM that walking is
actually good for you 😉
We had a daily visitor to our camp…. Joanna the Goanna…...she’d
come and lay in the sun and didn’t seem the least bit bothered with us being
there. She’d move with the sun, and then
disappear up a tree late afternoon, only to be seen again the next afternoon
when the sun shone down. The trees and
vegetation were so thick that not much sun managed to reach ground level. This also helped in sheltering us from the
cool wind that blew in from the water.
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| You can hear her coming way before you see her. She's certainly not afraid to make a noise :) |
We set up camp and went for a leisurely walk to the coast
along the Fly Cove walking track. A 3km
return windy track through the paperbarks, with boardwalks along the edge of
the inlet to stop you falling in and getting wet and muddy. Each time we came to the edge of the inlet,
hundreds of tiny crabs would scurry back into their holes. There were bright orange crabs, electric blue
crabs and lots of little black crabs. By
goodness they’re fast little critters! The beach had no rubbish anywhere. It was so very clean 😊. This is what happens when people can’t get
into places by car!!
There were rocks
fairly close to the shore. These are
called the Skerries and are home to Australian and New Zealand Fur Seal
colonies. I zoomed in as far as I could,
and it wasn’t until I saw the photo’s that I realised how many there were.
There was a local fella fishing at the mouth of the inlet,
and he seemed to be catching some nice sized mullet for dinner. There was a cheeky pelican trying to sneak up
and pinch the ones he’d caught. It kept
me amused for ages 😉.
Back to camp for a couple of lazy drinks, nibbles and then
dinner. I vaguely remember starting to
read a book, but I had my recliner chair and ended up having a quite pleasant
nanny nap instead. 😊
Day two saw us hop into Bubbles and go to do the Wingan
River Rapids walk. This was only a 5km return
walk and supposed to take 2.5 hours. We
snorted at that, as the track is already cleared by Parks Victoria, so there’s
no way it should take that long right??
WRONG!!!! What the guide didn’t
say was it was an almost vertical walk on damp and sometimes slippery
ground. It was hard work just getting
down to the river…the walk back out and up, up, up!!!! was far worse than
imagined. It was so hard, and we were so
out of condition, but it was very beautiful in there amongst small patches of
rain forest. We sat on the rocks for a
little while, had a snack and drink and then made our way back out. GM slipped and fell hard on the rocks. Thank goodness he didn’t do any damage. I’d just told him to be more careful, when I
went down, landing on an elbow and head.
A little bit shaken and nothing was broken thank goodness, or I’d have
had to be choppered out. The wet rock
was the same colour as the shadows, and deadly.
The ground was very rich with rotted plants and some of the fungi was
amazing, their colours incredible.
Day 3 we went for a walk to Elusive Lake. A 6km return walk that was far easier than the
Wingan River Rapids walk. This walk meandered
through the bloodwoods. It was quite warm,
so we welcomed the shade. Elusive Lake
was quite a surprise. It’s completely
hidden from view right up until you break through the trees and there it is
right in front of you, surrounded by forest and lined with sandy beach. The lake is 22m deep in places with no
surface water flowing in or out. All
water entering or leaving the lake is through rain or seepage. It was so peaceful and sheltered here and you
couldn’t even hear the ocean, although it wasn’t too far away. This was a good walk for us as it loosened
the old joints and muscles that were painfully paying for the previous days’
efforts!
Wingan Inlet is a lovely place to relax and the facilities
were clean. I would have liked to have
taken the kayaks, and if we ever return, that’s just what we’ll do as the inlet
was perfect for that.
We went home via the coast, through windy bush tracks to Thurra
River campground where we nearly had a quick peak at Point Hicks Lighthouse (closed
for Easter!!) and decided a 7km walk uphill in the drizzle and wind wasn’t on
the agenda for the day. Then through the
windy bush tracks to Peach Tree Creek which has a fantastic looking camping
area, with boat launching, beach and inlet, so that’s been put on the list of quick
short weekends…. maybe a boat and tent weekend.
A pity we can’t tow both the boat and Barbara!
We slowly wound our way through the windy
roads and back to Cann River where we stopped for lunch at the bakery. The place was mobbed!! Everyone heading home from their Easter
break. I wonder if theirs was as
relaxing as ours?
A great place for family groups and far enough away from the main
road to be peaceful. A lovely part of
the country!
The only thing I didn't like was the sound of the wild dogs at night. They're killing an awful lot of the native wildlife, but Parks Victoria are baiting, so hopefully they will be able to eradicate them before too much damage is done.
We made it home in time for dinner and work the next day!
Next stop……Simpson Desert…...can’t wait!!!
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| So smokey. Left overs from the summer fires. |
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| Our new flat pack fire pit.....it's a beauty!!!! |
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| Cheeky currawongs were trying to get the dripping from the BabyQ while it was still cooking. These cheeky fella's were super friendly and kept our site so clean, there were no bugs! |
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| Kept my feet quite warm!! |
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