On the road again..............Part 3 .....Bellarine Peninsula and home ............

                   Our next stop was in the caravan park at Barwon Heads and we did unhitch the van this time.............where we booked in for the  next 3 nights...........this was our base while we checked out the Bellarine Peninsula.

                                       

                  

                   

One afternoon we visited Portarlington..................

                   

.....and this is the Portarlington Miniature railway station..............

.....and the town centre.............

.....and the Port Phillip ferry, that travels from the Peninsula and up into Melbourne.............

                           

That afternoon we visited friends who had moved from Bordertown a few years ago, and retired to Portarlington..........the view from the upper level of their house, out to the bay, was amazing................

                              

   We enjoyed afternoon tea and a lovely chat, and it was so good to catch up with them both.............Pat is an Honorary member of the Bordertown Gum tree Quilters and a former President.....we miss her.

                                     

           On our way back to the van, we drove along the coastline, and through St Leonards...........

                                          

................and down to Queenscliff...................which is another town with a lot of history............

.....this is the ferry terminal, for the ferry that crosses the bay to Sorrento...........

The following day we enjoyed lunch with some more friends........Sue is a blogging friend and I had met her at Scrub stitching retreat back in 2023. It was good to catch up with her and meet her hubby too, and introduce them to Barry. We met at Van Loons garden centre at Wallington. The plants were amazing and I would have loved to purchase, but unfortunately I couldn't take them over the border into South Australia.

There is a cafe at the garden centre, and we enjoyed a yummy lunch.

We had intended crossing the bay on the ferry and heading into Melbourne to catch up with DD3 and family, as we had not been there for awhile. We had hoped to be away for 2 - 3 weeks, but while we were away, Barry received the news that his Uncle had died, and we wanted to attend his funeral. And not long after that the news of his cousin passing away too. So the decision was made to head home.

But before we left we decided to walk along the path in front of the caravan park......... we got this far, and Barry sat down, and said he would wait for me to get back!!!

                                              

Of course, he was joking........and here are some pics from our walk...........

                            

                             

                            

                             

                                    .......and this is our van, taken from the path that we walked on.

                               

The next morning we headed back west across the centre of Victoria, and saw lots of canola crops in flower.................the countryside was looking amazing as most areas have enjoyed good rains.

                                   

                                              

            We drove through the Grampians and Halls Gap...........and decided it would be a good spot to stay sometime.........

                                    ..............and then back into Bordertown .................

                            

..................where we received more sad news, that Barry's office manager of 24 years had passed away. 

We slept in the caravan in the driveway of home that night. Next day Barry went to work, and a decision was made to shut the office doors for the rest of the week in honour of Faye.

They placed a floral tribute in the doorway of the office.

 

Next plan was to take the caravan to Murray Bridge, where the funeral of his uncle was to be. It was a lovely service for his 93 year old uncle, and Barry met up with some of his cousins that he had not seen for awhile. The following photo was taken a couple of years ago, Barry with his Uncle and Aunty.

We had expected to stay away long enough to also attend his cousin's funeral, but that was delayed for 2 more weeks. We spent time with mum, and also a day trip to Goolwa to see Barry's aunty.

And then it was back home with the van, after a lovely trip, despite the sad news we received.

Blessings, From Jude and Baz

On the road again..............Part 2 .....the Great Ocean road..............

Our next overnight stop was at Port Campbell, where we stayed hooked up. It was a cold night and we were glad of the heaters. The next day we stopped at more of the sites until we came to the 12 apostles. The tourist centre was packed with people, buses  and cars......

............they are building a new tourist centre further up from this one........Barry decided it would be a good plan to fly over the coast line for a better view.............so we booked a helicopter flight.....

...........and it was amazing to see this from above......and in answer to Maria from my last post, about how many apostles there are...........we were told that there are only 7 apostles now........and in fact there were only 8 originally, but 'someone' decided that 12 would sound better for promotion purposes so they always refer to the 12 apostles!!???

 After we left the coastline the scenery changed................

.........and then to tall trees and rainforest...........I had hoped to stop at the rainforest board walk, but we missed the sign and it was often difficult to find parking with the caravan on behind...........

.........we came upon some tourists on the side of the road, and stopped to see them pointing up in the trees to the koala, that had just crossed the road...........and was now half way up the tree.........

.....soon the road travelled along the coast again..............the scenery was stunning with the road winding around the hills...........

 

......our next overnight stop was at Wye River...............the park had lots of kangaroos grazing the grass.........they were very quiet...........

...........and kookaburras in the trees...............

.........once again we left the van hooked up overnight...............

Barry went for a walk and came upon this man feeding the cockatoos...........

..and Barry thought he would like to feed them too..........until one came up and bit his finger!!!

Next day we travelled through some coastal towns, Lorne....Angelsea.....

......not sure about this house........... built out over the hillside?? You would want to trust the builder!!!

...............and we stopped at Bells Beach, well, we looked at it from above......there were many, many steps going down, and this was not on my agenda!!!......

...you can't see from this photo......but there were lots of black dots out on their surfboards, waiting for a wave..............

After Bell's Beach we travelled through Torquay, which told us it was the home of surfers!

.........to be continued in Part 3.

Blessings, From Jude and Baz