does not get better than this

Very excited to board the Spirit of Tasmania. The overnight 11hr journey was reasonably smooth, although Jennifer did need to take some sea sickness pills. The boarding procedure was well organized. The greatest challenge was to drive through a very narrow lane to park at the front of the ship

Continuing our journey south, the township of Benalla VIC was a very pleasant 2 night visit. Morning walks around the lake, viewing street art, lunch and a walk at the Wetlands and driving through a couple of close proximity locations to look at some amazing silo art.

Street art

The Wetlands

Silo art

Decided not to travel much further after weighing the car & caravan (1.5hrs) so pulled up in Tarcutta at the Beaden Sportsground & Camping. It’s quite hot and humid with heavy cloud cover. Love being able to operate the air conditioning even when we are off-grid.

Essential to be under on all your legal limits. So while we had weights checked soon after taking delivery of the van it didn’t take into consideration the changes or additions subsequently made to the van. Hence the preference to have the car and van professionally weighed again. We were fully loaded for a typical summer adventure… all water tanks full plus an additional 20L water container, full fuel tank, etc. All legal requirements were under (car and caravan) except for the car’s rear axle. Fortunately the rear axle was exceeded by a small amount so by repositioning some items in the caravan and disposing of some of the water in the 20L container we were able to be “legal” on all specs.

Wonderfull time catching up with lifelong, dear friends, Peter & Sue. Dinner at home and on the next day a walk in the Lindsay Prior National Arboretum followed by a long lunch at the Royal Canberra Golf Club.

Disappointingly our off grid site was not one we could recommend. Difficult to find a level position in an uncut, weedy area, road traffic noise throughout the night on a site that might only fit 3-4 vans.

Great bush walk of just under 7km return. With the amount of rain over the past week, most of the walk was wet under foot.

Planned over a year ago including Spirit of Tasmania bookings we are now making our way south. After a (very) wet departure, we are comfortably settled into Milton showground. Perfect location to visit Rachael and grandchildren who are holidaying at Currarong, catch up with friends, Kerry & Theo and enjoy walks and swims at Mollymook.