the holiday that was...
well. holidays are great. its been so long. i had a week off last year and thats been it for the last couple of years, but this last week was awesome!
firstly after dropping jambo off at her dads, we headed off to the grampians. we had the car all packed and ready to go. it didnt take nearly as long as expected so we had time to get there, find a camping spot (in the middle of nowhere of this beaten dirt track) and get the tent set up (which was a task being we'd never even taken it out of the packaging before - but we did pretty well there).
i turned into the biggest pyro on this trip, i had to have a fire burning 90% of the time - and ive never eaten so much toast in my life! kim bought me this $4 toast fork and it was the best $4 we've ever spent!
we walked to mckenzie (sp?) falls and took a lot of photos and used the video camera (such tourists - everybody hates tourists until they become them) and then trecked on through fairly thick bush to another significant area of which i cannot remember the name right now. the track was obviously not used often and was hard at places to be sure you were still on it. up hills, down hills, under trees, over rocks. it was the best hiking ive done in years i think. all round to get back to the camp site we would have walked about 10km - and thats before lunch.
the campsite was so isolated. so quiet it was eery, and the morning mist set a feeling about the place. it was beautiful though and we stayed a couple of nights. on our last morning there we woke and the mist had come through and left all the cobwebs on the trees visable. every tree was draped in the most detailed patterns, like they were wearing silk sheets. we had been trecking in between these trees for a couple of days and hadnt even noticed! got lots of footage and photos of it.
being we had no real plans we decided to head up north and eventually made it upto echuca (moama heh) after a night at the classy town of bridgewater (not - located two towns the other side of bendigo - we will return here later on) and camped about 5-6 kms out of town along the murry. there was actually an old couple camped (well in a caravan) just around the bend of the river from us - but far enough away that we didnt really notice them.
we tried yabbying and fishing here and our total catch over 2 nights was 10 shrimpy shrimp i caught in the yabby net. such a shame. kim started using them as bait for the fish and we left them down by the water overnight in a bucket. we found none left the next day... the birds must have had fun.
in the middle of the night as we were in bed we heard a massive thump and birds squalking... then all we heard was heavy footsteps around the tent. needless to say we shit tacks! whatever it was started getting into our rubbish bag that was hanging from a tree next to the tent and spent about 10-15 minutes ripping away at that before deciding to try to get into out tent. kim yelled out at it to piss off and it actually did, but it didnt seem in a hurry.
the thought occured to me it was a goanna - and as soon as the thought entered my head, computed and i decided that was good enough i was asleep. i didnt get around to telling kim what i thought it was until we woke up in the morning. apparently kim had been awake a good few hours after my paeceful decent into sleepy-time. i proabbly should have said something :) we left the tent expecting to find rubbish everywhere - only to find one milk carton on the ground. we couldnt believe it for all the sound it made! alas we never saw the offender before we left.
we also came across these birds we were feeding bread at the camp. and one in particular we dubbed "Gimpy". Gimpy had either got caught on some rope in his time, or some bastard tied it onto him, either way his feet were tied together with this tattered rope so we felt bad for him and gave him a lot of bread. we (kim) tried to catch him with intentions of getting the rope off but he was too cluey to our advances and we enver quite got there. we did realise however that when it was just him around he would come really really close and get bread off us. when the other birds were around he played all disabled and the other birds would feed him. it was amazing! that sneaky little bastard - but i loved it! i put so much effort into getting him closer and closer when feeding him that by the last day i finally had him actually eating bread out of my hands! yay!
we went down and stayed a couple of nights at grandmas in bendigo - where we looked at at least 10 photo albumns from out families history - i knew it was comming but grandma is just so cute i couldnt say no this time haha. she even said something was 'sick' - "sick, thats what you girls say isnt it?". we laughed for about 10 minutes over that one. we went to the cinemas ni bendigo and saw revenge of the sith. i thought it was pretty good, though there were a few didgy parts. i liked it more than the other 2 prequals.
after our first night at grandmas we trekked back into bridgewater where i jumped out of a perfectly good plane! YEAH! I WENT SKYDIVING!!! the free-fall kicked so much arse! but unfortunately i got a fair bit of motion sickness on the plane going up cause i had to sit facing backwards and the tilting as we turned the plane got to me a bit - but on the whole - wow. awesome experiance. once the shoot opened up the descent is so nice and calming. we landed, i talked to the camera. cool, calm and collected i walked about 200 meters to the toilet and threw my guts up :) i jumped from 10,000 feet and it was only the being in the plane that made me ill! probably nerves got the better of me too, but im glad i did it. they gave me a plaque for my first jump and i got a video of the whole thing. ill go back and do it again, but im not eating before i get in that plane next time!!
went yabbying with aunty jenny that arvo, but we didnt catch enough to bother cooking them so i played with them for a little bit and we chucked them back in. kim found a pretty cool sheeps skull in the paddock which she kept. that lil witchy-poo hehe.
grandmas had made crepes for dinner because we were talking of how she sued to make them when i was younger and how she didnt remember how to make them. while i was out jumping from planes grandma was running around to her friends at the caravan park and searching for a recepi - awwe so sweet. we were just going to get fish n chips! doug came over later with his girlfriend - but all i really wanted to do was sleep since we got back from bridgewater. eventaully we got to the sleeping and i was happy :)
back in melbourne now. wish i was back away, not because its not great here, but just because the trip was so relaxing. it actually felt like we had been away for weeks - where usually if i have time off work it feels like about 2 seconds. it was nice to not have anything we had to do, or a time limit to stick to. no plans. we roamed and did whatever the hell we wanted to do. and it was great.
firstly after dropping jambo off at her dads, we headed off to the grampians. we had the car all packed and ready to go. it didnt take nearly as long as expected so we had time to get there, find a camping spot (in the middle of nowhere of this beaten dirt track) and get the tent set up (which was a task being we'd never even taken it out of the packaging before - but we did pretty well there).
i turned into the biggest pyro on this trip, i had to have a fire burning 90% of the time - and ive never eaten so much toast in my life! kim bought me this $4 toast fork and it was the best $4 we've ever spent!
we walked to mckenzie (sp?) falls and took a lot of photos and used the video camera (such tourists - everybody hates tourists until they become them) and then trecked on through fairly thick bush to another significant area of which i cannot remember the name right now. the track was obviously not used often and was hard at places to be sure you were still on it. up hills, down hills, under trees, over rocks. it was the best hiking ive done in years i think. all round to get back to the camp site we would have walked about 10km - and thats before lunch.
the campsite was so isolated. so quiet it was eery, and the morning mist set a feeling about the place. it was beautiful though and we stayed a couple of nights. on our last morning there we woke and the mist had come through and left all the cobwebs on the trees visable. every tree was draped in the most detailed patterns, like they were wearing silk sheets. we had been trecking in between these trees for a couple of days and hadnt even noticed! got lots of footage and photos of it.
being we had no real plans we decided to head up north and eventually made it upto echuca (moama heh) after a night at the classy town of bridgewater (not - located two towns the other side of bendigo - we will return here later on) and camped about 5-6 kms out of town along the murry. there was actually an old couple camped (well in a caravan) just around the bend of the river from us - but far enough away that we didnt really notice them.
we tried yabbying and fishing here and our total catch over 2 nights was 10 shrimpy shrimp i caught in the yabby net. such a shame. kim started using them as bait for the fish and we left them down by the water overnight in a bucket. we found none left the next day... the birds must have had fun.
in the middle of the night as we were in bed we heard a massive thump and birds squalking... then all we heard was heavy footsteps around the tent. needless to say we shit tacks! whatever it was started getting into our rubbish bag that was hanging from a tree next to the tent and spent about 10-15 minutes ripping away at that before deciding to try to get into out tent. kim yelled out at it to piss off and it actually did, but it didnt seem in a hurry.
the thought occured to me it was a goanna - and as soon as the thought entered my head, computed and i decided that was good enough i was asleep. i didnt get around to telling kim what i thought it was until we woke up in the morning. apparently kim had been awake a good few hours after my paeceful decent into sleepy-time. i proabbly should have said something :) we left the tent expecting to find rubbish everywhere - only to find one milk carton on the ground. we couldnt believe it for all the sound it made! alas we never saw the offender before we left.
we also came across these birds we were feeding bread at the camp. and one in particular we dubbed "Gimpy". Gimpy had either got caught on some rope in his time, or some bastard tied it onto him, either way his feet were tied together with this tattered rope so we felt bad for him and gave him a lot of bread. we (kim) tried to catch him with intentions of getting the rope off but he was too cluey to our advances and we enver quite got there. we did realise however that when it was just him around he would come really really close and get bread off us. when the other birds were around he played all disabled and the other birds would feed him. it was amazing! that sneaky little bastard - but i loved it! i put so much effort into getting him closer and closer when feeding him that by the last day i finally had him actually eating bread out of my hands! yay!
we went down and stayed a couple of nights at grandmas in bendigo - where we looked at at least 10 photo albumns from out families history - i knew it was comming but grandma is just so cute i couldnt say no this time haha. she even said something was 'sick' - "sick, thats what you girls say isnt it?". we laughed for about 10 minutes over that one. we went to the cinemas ni bendigo and saw revenge of the sith. i thought it was pretty good, though there were a few didgy parts. i liked it more than the other 2 prequals.
after our first night at grandmas we trekked back into bridgewater where i jumped out of a perfectly good plane! YEAH! I WENT SKYDIVING!!! the free-fall kicked so much arse! but unfortunately i got a fair bit of motion sickness on the plane going up cause i had to sit facing backwards and the tilting as we turned the plane got to me a bit - but on the whole - wow. awesome experiance. once the shoot opened up the descent is so nice and calming. we landed, i talked to the camera. cool, calm and collected i walked about 200 meters to the toilet and threw my guts up :) i jumped from 10,000 feet and it was only the being in the plane that made me ill! probably nerves got the better of me too, but im glad i did it. they gave me a plaque for my first jump and i got a video of the whole thing. ill go back and do it again, but im not eating before i get in that plane next time!!
went yabbying with aunty jenny that arvo, but we didnt catch enough to bother cooking them so i played with them for a little bit and we chucked them back in. kim found a pretty cool sheeps skull in the paddock which she kept. that lil witchy-poo hehe.
grandmas had made crepes for dinner because we were talking of how she sued to make them when i was younger and how she didnt remember how to make them. while i was out jumping from planes grandma was running around to her friends at the caravan park and searching for a recepi - awwe so sweet. we were just going to get fish n chips! doug came over later with his girlfriend - but all i really wanted to do was sleep since we got back from bridgewater. eventaully we got to the sleeping and i was happy :)
back in melbourne now. wish i was back away, not because its not great here, but just because the trip was so relaxing. it actually felt like we had been away for weeks - where usually if i have time off work it feels like about 2 seconds. it was nice to not have anything we had to do, or a time limit to stick to. no plans. we roamed and did whatever the hell we wanted to do. and it was great.