We finally picked up our caravan and had to come all the way back to Benalla to pick up our belongings. The manufacturer had put in the wrong table so this ment we had to go back to Melbourne in a couple of days to get a replacement.
We stayed the first night away from our previous home in the van close to the Benalla lake, here you can camp for one night . We parked alongside the lake and went for a dusk walk to see if we could spot the platypus. We have walked this lake walk most mornings for the past couple of years before going for a swim at the aquatic centre.We have swam early mornings for years.
Anyway there was no sign of the platypus, lucky we have photos and video already.
This was a wednesday night so the night was pretty quite and we had our usual walk and swim before heading to Melbourne.
On the way back we pulled up at the truck stop at the top of the Clonbinane Hill, where our oldest daughter, her partner and her oldest daughter stopped to visit us on their way home from Melbourne , heading to Leeton.
This was their first look at our new home but it was a little dark to really show off.
In the morning we were awake as usual early so had breakfast and were starting to get ready to move on, when larry found a red falcon wedged under one of our spare wheels at the back of the van, we had not felt a thing.
We checked for people and found none, thinking maybe some one was sick or it was a dumped stolen car we were in the process of ringing the police when a very sleepy looking young man came out of the toilets looking for his car . You should have seen the look on his face when he saw his car and us, after the shock we found him not to be sick just in so much of a hurry to get to the toilet he had forgotten his hand break.. Where he pulled up has a slight down hill to the re-entry to the freeway, This was just enough to make the car roll into the back of our van. No injury to our precious new van or spare wheel as his car just fitted under enough to jam under the wheel and not hit the van. It did put a dent in his bonnet and could have been alot worse if we had not been there, It would have rolled onto freeway or into the ditch at the side of the road.
The worse thing is both of us forgot to take pictures as we were more worried about the young man .
After our adventure we headed for the quite of Major Creek Reserve 14km south west of Nagambie for some alone quite time.
We get there and find an old bridge we have to cross which is under repair notices which carry warnings of weight and wet weather making it slippery, as it has decayed sides. We do a very slow crossing and pull up beside the creek, very nice peaceful with birds, just what we like . While we are walking, a ute pulls up with two men from government department to measure and itemise the things needed to repair the bridge. Then as we are sitting there watching birds a group of cars pull up on the other side of the bridge with trailers and trail /dirt bikes. They set up a big tent and camp and for the next few hours ride around the reserve making noise. At least they were quite by midnight and did not venture to our side of the bridge.
Oh hum what a start to our adventure know we find we need to sort out tax and other things before we leave Victoria, so we head for our other daughter and partners place in Benalla for a couple of nights. This turns into three nights as our oldest granddaughter, who is at university in Wodonga is coming down to visit mum. so we get to see her and then our son arrives with the youngest granddaughter so we can say goodbye to them all for a few months.
We have to move up the road to Wangaratta to sort out the tax and on the way stop at Winton Wetlands for lunch and a walk and some more photo chances.
Took photos of red rumped parrots with a pair of hawks circling overhead.
It is very cold and we will be glad when we can finally head north and warmer weather.