We had come back to Sydney a couple of days ago so that we could go up to Coolum on the QLD Sunshine Coast as we had been invited to go to the wedding of our neighbour's son Derek.
28/3/2012: 21 degrees - 27 degrees - sunshine. Drove to Sydney Airport with Katrina and Dean and caught a Jetstar flight to the Sunshine Coast where we hired a small Hyundi car and drove to Coolum Beach, we felt like we were sitting on the road after being up high in the Coaster. We had booked 2 units in the Coolum Villas complex only two hundred meters from the beach where the wedding was to take place.
29/3/2012: 22 degrees - 26 degrees - showers. We drove up to Noosa, through lots of roundabouts, I think they have gone overboard with roundabouts.
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| Noosaville |
We drove to Tewantin and took the ferry to the northern side of the river and found Bronwyn and Geoff Hegarty’s property, we enjoyed entering Tallara No 2 (named after the Ski Lodge in Thredbo) as the design is a Lockwood open plan, and has lots of exposed wooden beams, timber walls and ceilings and beautiful Tallowood flooring. The views over the river are delightful We enjoyed seeing their property as we had heard so much about it when we were on our Thredbo work parties each Easter, for many years.
30/3/2012: 22 degrees - 27 degrees. The day of Derek and Mel’s wedding, we all gathered at Coolum No. 1 Beach at 2.30 pm for the wedding, they both looked great, the bride looked radiant in a lovely white satin dress and Derek looked dapper in his wedding outfit.
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| Wedding Beach |
The wedding reception was at the Surfair Resort at Marcoola Beach and the room was beautifully decorated, everyone enjoyed the food and the young ones enjoyed the music, but us oldies were not too thrilled with the duff duff music, so we retired early.
31/3/2011: sunny. Drove to a lookout near our villa and checked out the views,
then traveled down to the Marcoola Beach Resort to catch up with Derek & Mel, Jean & Ken, Paul, Julia & Joshua, Mark, Heidi & Oliver and all the other friends and family as well as Mel’s family for a late brunch to recover from the night before, we stayed for a short while, then had to make our way to the Sunshine Coast Airport to check the car in and catch our flight back to Sydney.
Had a lovely smooth flight back to Sydney took a photos of the Hawksbury, Terrey Hills and Cronulla and Botany Bay.
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| Terrey Hills |
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| Pittwater |
1/4/2012: 17 degrees - 26 degrees - sun/rain. Woke early and left home about 8 am and headed for the M2 and M7 which leads to the Hume Highway, we stopped at a rest area near Sutton Forest for breakfast, then I drove the Coaster for about an hour to give Lloyd a rest and we continued on stopping every couple of hours for a cup of tea or lunch until we reached Bright in Victoria.
Bright is a beautiful spot with Mt. Buffalo on one side and the hills leading up to Mt. Hotham and Dinner Plains and the Great Alpine Road on the other, it is very lush with rich green grass after all the rain and the road is lined with Liquid Ambers on each side, with one green tree, then one red tree etc., the effect is spectacular, it is particularly beautiful the first week of May when the Autumn Festival is on. We arrived at dusk and light was fading fast, but we did manage to see some trees. As we drove along beside the hillsides, we saw the Fire fighters setting the hillside on fire for a burnoff, the smoke was not good. We rang Brian who was organizing the safari with the Sydney Wanderers and he told us to come along the Great Alpine Way from Bright towards Harrietville and when we came to a little green roofed cottage with two water tanks and a for sale sign in the front on our right hand side, to turn left onto the dirt track which would lead us to the Smoko Camping Area (No. 142 in the Camp Six Book), there were no signs anywhere. We found a track and turned in, we knew we were in the right place when the area opened up and it was full of motorhomes and caravans, Brian and the others came to say hello and told us where to park, it was dark but with many people guiding us we managed to settle in for the night after almost 800 km of driving, it was lovely to catch up with everyone. It was amazing being down along the river we were not bothered by the smoke.
2/4/2012: We left the campsite about 9.15 am and headed along the Great Alpine Road winding back and forth and up and up until we reached the last steep climb to Mt. Hotham.
All six of us reached the top with Brian and Aileen in the lead, followed by Alan and Frances, Rosemarie, Bob, us in the Coaster and Eric and Joan as the tail end, We decided the vehicles had worked hard enough, so we stopped and gave them a rest while we all had coffee in a cosy café and sampled the vanilla slices and danish pastry.
The temperature was very, very cool in the alpine area of Mt. Hotham. The scenery up here is fantastic but scarred by the thousands of dead trees that did not survive the fires of a few years ago. From here you can see across to Falls Creek range and on to Kosciusko.
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| The grey bits are the dead trees from fires a few years ago |
Continued on along the Great Alpine Road and down to Omeo, then on to Swifts Creek where we stayed in a caravan park that was one of the staging areas for people going to the Rally. We arrived in time to have lunch and practice our disc bowls.
3/4/2012: Cool night sunny day. Drove through winding road along the Omeo Highway, then turned onto the Princes Highway, we stopped at Bairnsdale where we went into the Salvos café for morning tea and looked for school gear for the Back to School Ball at the Rally. After picking up a few supplies at Bairnsdale we headed to Stratford where we stayed in another van park beside the river, we met up with Ted and Rona and we all spent the afternoon practicing our disc bowls.
4/4/2012: Cool morning - sunny with a few clouds. Left the camp ground about 9.30 am, saying goodbye to Eric and Joan, then headed to Sale and the Rally site at the showground, it was only 20 kilometers down the road so we proceeded in line into the Rally and were sited and set up by 10.30 am. We read through our Rally Book to familiarise ourselves with the area, we were separated from the others because we managed to get a powered site on the Anglican Grammar School grounds, the others were quite a distance away from us in the centre of the Greyhound Racing Track. We took our mugs and walked across the school grounds, along the road then through the horse paddock to the morning tea tent and met up with lots of the other Sydney Wanderers for morning tea.
We walked back to our Coaster checking out all the trade tables for bits and pieces we had decided to get at the rally, but the couple of things we needed were not available. There was a stall of wool and patch work materials, so I thought I would go back and check it out when Lloyd was at a seminar. We decided not to book a bus trip to any nearby venues as we had done enough tourist things for a while. Lloyd marked down what seminars he wanted to attend.
We had happy hour at Gay and John’s van and we all practiced our disc bowls for the competition on Saturday. After happy hour we had to rush back to the coaster and cook dinner, then be back at the big tent for the Banner Parade of all the different Chapters and the evening entertainment at 7 pm. It was very cold walking back to our Coaster after the entertainment.
5/4/2012: Cool morning - sunny. Lloyd went to a seminar on Woodcraft at the Mens’ Shed in the morning and another seminar about motor home safety, whilst I caught the smiley bus into Sale to pick up a few groceries, and while I was there I couldn‘t believe it, but I walked into Jan, whom I met in the NT at the Victoria River Rest stop last year , we had decided to catch up when we were at the Sale Rally, so she said she and Bill would come to the open day on Monday.
In the afternoon we had a great airobatic display by the Roulettes, six RAAF aeroplanes flown by pilots in the RAAF aerobatic team. They swooped across the sky, performing loops, flying upside down and many other formations, very skillful considering the little distance between them then five flew in formation while one weaved across them, I am glad they didn’t miss and that they have a pressurized suit which keeps the blood pressure the same and they don’t black out when assending or decending.
Once again we had the big rush to get to the evening entertainment by 7 pm.
6/4/2012: Cool morning - sunny & cloudy. Temperature reached early 30’s. The disc bowls competition started so we were ready in our teams for the 9.30 am start. All the Sydney Wanderer teams made it through to the next round. By the end of the day Sydney Wanderers had Mens No. 1 team still in, Mens No. 2 team still in and a Mixed team still in. These teams had to be ready at 9.30 am next morning to play in the semi finals and finals.
We had happy hour with the Sydney Wanderers then had an early night as it was extremely hot. We had just got into bed when the southerly hit, Lloyd jumped out of bed and went out to roll the awning in, and I had to go out and hold the awning so it would not get blown up and break, I was worried I would end up like Mary Poppins floating up in the air, after it was wound in, Lloyd went to help others in strife with their awnings, I stayed in the bus out of the wind until I was called on with my Fiama awning winding rod to help wind another Fiama awning in, we had about 8 or 10 people all holding the awning while we worked on it, it had already broken at the corner, but we managed to wind it in, the owners were still out at the entertainment.
It was frightening during the night the wind was so powerful the Coaster rocked and shook, I though we were going to be rolled over.
7/4/2012: 8 degrees - 18 degrees - cold and windy. Went to Disc Bowls and heard about all the broken awnings and hatches ripped off vans, with all the bits blowing about it was very fortunate no one was injured. We heard of one awning being whipped up in the air over the top of the van and smashed the windows on the other side of the van. The bowls started and our Mens No. 1 team of Lloyd, Alan and Brian made it through to the last two teams and were beaten by 1 point on a playoff, so they won silver. The other Mens No. 2 team were beaten and the Mixed team won bronze.
We met the other Sydney Wanderers at Happy Hour in the morning tea shed and heard about lots more disasters the night before when the southerly hit, but all the people who were at home at the time all helped out and secured as many awnings as possible. Lloyd discovered the stone chip we had in the windscreen had run from top to bottom with the battering it received in the wild wind, so we need a new windscreen.
The entertainment was popera, a combination of opera and music from the great musicals, the young couple were very good and everyone stayed to watch the whole show, it finished early about 9 pm, just as well as the night was getting colder and colder.
8/4/2012: 4 degrees - 19 degrees - rain and cold. We had a lovely church service in the school chapel at 8 am, the current school chaplain and the former chaplain took the communion service, the chapel was packed and the singing was beautiful, a very uplifting Easter Service in a beautiful chapel surrounded by grass and trees.
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Lloyd went to two more seminars about changing the rear dual tyres and bought a wheel brace support and I hope he never has to use it, sounds too complicated for my liking. The other seminar was a GPS and Geo Wiki demonstration where he was able to have all the free and low cost camp areas, dump points etc loaded into our satellite navigation unit.
I took a rug that I had made to the rug room and checked out all the rugs handed in, they are beautifully crocheted or knitted in lovely colours and they will be presented to nursing homes in and around Sale, there were over 500 rugs handed in, then I checked out the photographs in the Photography Competition.
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| Rug that Di crocheted while we travelled between Exmouth and Kalgoorlie |
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| The Ross Hunting tartan rug that Di recently finished for us |
9/4/2012: cold wet and windy. Open day with markets, Jan rang about 10 am and we went to meet them and take them around the Rally, showing them the markets, the entertainment tent, the morning tea tent, the traders stalls and the mens shed etc. Lloyd wanted to pick up another seminar about TV reception in the motor home, so Bill went with him while I took Jan to see the rugs and photography competition, it was so cold we ended up back in the Coaster to keep warm, it really was a very cold day. Jan and Bill wished caravans could go to the rally as well, I guess it will happen one day, but I don’t know where the venue will be, this rally had over 900 vehicles.
After Jan & Bill left Lloyd made himself a replica school boater hat to wear to the Back to School Ball in the entertainment tent this evening.
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| Made from a Tooheys Old carton & crepe paper |
We had lots of fun, throwing paper planes around the tent, singing and dancing, we had to keep dancing to keep warm.
10/4/2012: 8 degrees - 18 degrees - sunny. We had a sleep in as it was too cold to get out of bed, then we went in the Smilie bus into Sale to stock up our fridge and pantry. By the time we arrived back it was too late to go to the afternoon chapter skits, so we chatted to neighbours and went to happy hour with the Sydney Wanderers.
We bought a hot potato on our way back to our Coaster, so we could be back in the entertainment tent for the presentation of medals for the disc bowls competition, In the Mens’ Tripples final, Sydney Wanderers No. 1, Brian was skip, Lloyd was second and Alan was lead, they were beaten by one point in a play off after the scores were tied, giving them second place and they won a silver medal each. The other Sydney Wanderer No. 2 team just missed out on third place, but the Mixed Tripples of Les, Ray and Aileen won the play off for third place, so they won a bronze medal each. Sydney Wanderers were happy with two teams winning a medal.
11/4/2012: 8 degrees - 19 degrees - sunny. Rosemarie and Bob came to our Coaster and we had coffee with Lyn and Pat, then we had a game of disc bowls to practice for the Casino Rally, the day went really quickly, but I managed to learn how to crochet a different rug with raised up roses in the centres of each square, and another rug which had like a criss cross effect running up the length of the rug, also another rug which looks like it is indented in and out for want of a better description, now I just have to work out how to make mine look the same when Annie is not with me, hopefully one of the other Sydney Wanderers will know the different patterns and can help me.
At 3 pm on the Greyhound racing track they ran the CMCA CUP. There was a greyhound nominated for each chapter present at the rally (72) , then the winning chapters of the nine races, were allocated a dog in the final, there was $8000 up as prizes with the money to be donated by the winning chapters to a charity of their choosing. I have never been to the dogs before, and it was an eyeopener, but I am not sure it is a good way to donate money to charity, I feel it only encourages gambling with all the problems attached.
12/4/2012: 8 degrees - 20 degrees - sunny: We left the school grounds and headed for the Laundrette where we found lots of other motor homers with the same idea. After catcing up with the washing, we headed for the Port of Sale which was built in 1896 - 1890 by channeling through from the Lake to the town, to create a port for steamships to take produce to Melbourne etc.
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| Port of Sale |
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| Reflections |
From Sale we will head east along the VIC coast to Mallacoota then up the coast of NSW to Casino for the national Disk Bowls Week in Mid May.
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