Spend Christmas in Benalla with daughter and son and oldest and youngest grand daughters then head for Dalmeny again and other grand children. I can not fly yet so going to see the grand daughter in Florida is out of the question, at least we saw her perform in Sydney.
We spend over a week with everybody in Dalmeny including meeting the 2nd oldest granddaughter's boy friend.
We leave and head we are not sure of the destination, it all depends on my health. We stop for the night at Warri camping ground near Braidwood on the Shoalhaven river, we sort of swim as the river cool but not more than waist depth.
Sat 10 jan we head towards west Wylong with still the option of return to Benalla, spend the night beside Barmedman mineral pool. Swim in cold mineral pool that used to be the site of gold mines but flooded over 100 years ago in 1880. It has an underground stream and the minerals are now said to be health giving- who knows we got exercise and even though it was cool it we felt good.
Sunday 11 jan 2015
Pull into West Wylong showgrounds for a couple f days to find out what roads were open. We are thinking of going back to Minendee lakes near Broken hill for a week or two. We could walk and swim until my tests and x rays are done, then if clear we could head to WA again.
Trouble with this plan is most of the roads in are dirt roads and it has been raining a lot, so most roads are closed.


So plans change and Kangaroo island comes into play as we have always wanted to see it.
Tuesday 13
Leave West Wylong at 7.30am heading towards Hay but all the places we were thinking of pulling up at are too wet . It is raining pretty hard so keep going , have lunch at a rest area and decide to keep going to Benanee lake 20km from Robinvale which has good solid dirt parking area.
Wed 14 january
This gives us time to ring the Sealink ferry to find out when we can go to Kangaroo island and it is decided we leave the van at Cape Jervis and take the car over and sleep in roof top tent. Travel will be 19 Jan a monday and we will have 10 days on the island.
Next night is in Renmark over the boarder into SA then Swanreach the next day and take the ferry across the Murray river. If you remember the Murray in SA has ferries across only Murray bridge has a bridge.We do not stay here we go back across and stay at Big Bend for the night. This has the highest cliff wall on the Murray river, have fun watching the Pelicans which look like they are playing in the thermals between the river and cliffs for a couple of hours. Do not see the wombats that live here.
Friday we are just outside Strathalbyn with a few other vans for the night as tomorrow we have to shop in Strathalbyn for the island stay. This is the last place with sizeable supermarket.
In the next couple of days we go through Victor Harbour and get to Jervis Bay and the place we will leave the van for the 10 days. On the way down the Fleurieu peninsula we try to find a couple of wetland walks and other walks but SA does not signpost very good and you now you have missed it when you reach the next thing on the map. The only thing that is well signposted around here are the wineries.
We have a couple of days to transfer things from van to car and not in use things into the van for storage. Because it was a fairly quick decision to go to Kangaroo island we have a full freezer so the van has to stay plugged into 240volt power incase there is not enough light for the solar panels to run it.