Part 2 of our trip-land the down under - Lakes Entrance, Australia
Lakes Entrance, Australia
Where I stayed
Eastern Beach Tourist Park
Australia, October 10, 2010
Howdy Mates:
Here we are halfway around the world in the land down under. The hop across the big pond was 12 hours long. Our flight was not until 23:30 on Tuesday October 5th and William was so excited that he could not go to bed and therefore missed his bedtime by more than 4 ½ hours. It wasn't until after we boarded the plane that he then proceeded to puke (on Mario) from mere exhaustion. He finally settled to sleep at around 1 a.m. After our onboard meal was served, everyone settled to sleep around 2 a.m. I’m glad that we saved up all of our Areoplan miles for this trip and as a result we were able to purchase business class tickets. This was really nice and so before boarding the plane we were able to use the V.I.P. lounge and traveled in comfort. I loved the fact that the steward came by after dinner to turn down my bed, place a mattress cover on my now bed, fluff my pillow and covered me up with a duvet….hmm so comfy! Our flight was not direct to Sydney and we had an 8 hour layover in Auckland. Again we spent time in the V.I.P. lounge awaiting our next flight. Our 3 ½ hour flight over to Sydney was mostly uneventful except for the landing briefing from the captain. He proceeded to announce that the ceiling was very low and that although it was an instrument guided approach, the pilots would likely only see the runway in a short time before landing in a crosswind. He asked the stewards to take their seats earlier than usual. I must admit that I was a little nervous after that announcement and asked Mario to ensure William’s seatbelt was well secured around him. Mario didn’t pay attention to the announcement and was oblivious to any cause for concern. However, as soon as we come of the clouds the very first thing I noticed as I gazed out the window was the Sydney Opera House. How appropriate was that? I shouted at Mario: "Look the Sydney Opera House", which confirmed to all of our fellow seatmates that we were obvious tourists. The pilots landed our flying bird with no concerns at all. We had finally arrived at our destination. Kevin, the gentleman with whom we made our RV swap with was waiting at the airport for us. When we return to Canada, he and his wife will fly to Canada and borrow Gabby for a few months in exchange for using their car and trailer. As a result of landing in Sydney we crossed the dateline and that means that we missed out on an entire day. For us October 6th, 2010 did not exist. We left Oct. 5th and arrived Oct. 7th. This means that on the way back on March 31st we will relive that day twice. It reminds me of the film with Bill Murray, Groundhog Day were he relives the same day over and over again. Fearing that we would suffer from jetlag, we pre-booked a condo just south of Sydney for a week in a place called the Moorings.
Yesterday we saw our first wallaby and unfortunately saw many as road kill as well. We didn’t point those ones out to Will. Today we took a drive out to Canberra, Australia’s capital city. It was a typical clean government town. We drove around to see the Canadian Embassy which is actually a consulate but missed it the first time around because the Canadian sign is so small, it is embarrassing small. All the other countries have nice beautiful signs and Canada has what looks like an 8” X 11” sign on the side of the fence. Who does one speak to about such matters? Canada, get it together. It is spring here and we attended the Floriade festival which is the equivalent to the Tulip Festival in Ottawa. We then took a walk through the Botanical Gardens which was quite interesting because it had displays of all of the native plants of the country and they were for the most part all in bloom. I didn’t see anything that looked like a plant we have back home except for one…clover. I guess it grows all over. It is hard to wrap our heads around the fact that it is spring here. My brain is still trying to tell me that it’s autumn and that the snow will be flying soon. Oh well, I guess we will just have to put up with the fact that we will endure another summer yet again this year! Keep warm everyone.
Australia continued…
October 18, 2010
We thought that staying in touch while oversees would be very easy but it seems that Australia is a little behind on Wifi access in their campgrounds. The connections are sketchy at best and they charge an arm and a leg. We did manage to find the current campground with good connections but for a maximum of 3 hours per day. That may seem like a lot but when you are trying to catch up on 2 weeks of travel and book tickets, it’s not much.
While making our way down the southeast coast of Australia we have been experiencing windy, windy weather along with some rain. That is something we are not used to. Before leaving the Moorings we ended up having to take William to the emergency department at the local hospital to be checked out for a fever and bad cough. I was sure he had pneumonia but the doctor didn’t think so but sent us off with a prescription to fill he wasn’t better in a couple of days. Two days later, he still had a fever and a painful ear and so I filled the prescription and started his medication. Poor guy. The health system works very similar to ours. We had to pay $85. For the emergency visit and another $15. for his medication. He has now responded to his meds and is feeling much better except for yesterday when he spent too much time jumping on the jumping pillow and started vomiting up phlegm. You see, I’m sure it was touch of pneumonia. Every day he is much better. Thanks God.
We have had one misadventure on our way down the coast. We traveled to see a historic little town who's famous for it's cheese factory but took the wrong turn off and ended up heading to the Tilbey winery instead of the town of Tilbey. Once down the hill there was no place to turn our car and trailer around. At that very spot was also the entrance to the winery and so when I read the signage it indicated that motor coaches were welcomed. I told Mario that we could go up the winery driveway and turn around because if a bus could go up the road then certainly we could. Not so fast….unfortunately the driveway was a steep uphill, that we couldn’t see from the road, and it was raining. The dirt road was now a mudslide and despite Mario’s best efforts (we almost made it) we could not make it to the turn around. He then decided to back down but given that we had a heavy trailer behind us that wanted to pull the car down the mud way, we had to stop in the middle of hill with the trailer almost in the ditch. The owner came out very apologetic that his driveway had caused us to get stuck. He summoned his neighbour who had a tractor to pull us up to the top of the hill. William and I waited in the winery by the fire keeping warm and dry while Mario got wet in the rain. The owner again was apologetic and gave us a bottle of wine for our troubles. That was the second bottle of wine that has been given to us since we have arrived in Australia. The first was at the Moorings, we won the door prize at the social night. Afterwards we were off to Merimbulla to stay at the best campground we have ever experienced so far this trip. It overlooked the ocean, we had our private bathroom with shower which is a little cabin on your campsite for you to use. There was a jumping pillow for the kids, playground, heated pool (the pools are not usually heated in Aussie land) and kids activities. William had his face painted like Superman and painted some starfish. All in all, a very cool place. We also saw a whale frolicking at the point of our campground. Today we took in the sites of the Buchan caves with stalagmites for their interior decorations. Tomorrow we head down towards Melbourne. We will travel to Tasmania on Friday to find that little famous creature, the Tasmanian devil.
We will send more news when we can. Until then keep warm.