Day 42 (March 13) - Melbourne to Gembrook

Wow! We'd stayed in Melbourne for a lot longer than we'd intended, but it was a lovely time! It was great to have a bit more space around us, and to have a really good catch-up with Aunty Pam. She still leads a surprisingly busy life for someone of 86 as she now is, with multiple events in her diary for most days of the week.

With all the packing up, we didn't end up leaving until about 1pm, which was just as well as Aunty Pam had to be off for a meeting, so she zipped past in her Honda Civic with a toot and a wave while we were still out the front sorting out towing ride heights and so on!



We had a number of errands to do along the way as the map shows - general shopping, some new fuses for my multimeter, more coffee beans, another trip back to Everything Caravans to get the freezer door installed with new hinges (I bought the door but the hinges were worn out too).

We stopped at a supermarket to buy some tins of spaghetti and sausages, and baked beans with meatballs for tea, once again failed to find any toilet paper (seriously people....). We also made a stop at a NQR in Narre Warren to stock up on more snacks. They really are great stores, e.g. we got a four pack of M&M ice creams on a stick (basically like Magnums) for $1! By this time it was after 6pm so we heated up the baked beans and spaghetti and had that in the carpark.

After this we got finally to our campsite, or so we thought, by about 9:00pm! The place we found was in the Dandenong Ranges near a scout camp, up near Gembrook where Puffing Billy terminates. We saw a wombat making his rounds near the side of the road too which was a first for us (seeing a live wild one anyway). We set up camp off the side of the road as we couldn't find exactly where we were supposed to go. The van was on a bit of a slope but we managed to level the van enough to get a decent enough sleep!

-- Greg