Victoria's Great South in a motorhome

Well here we are, on the road again - this time we are in Melbourne, where we begin our tour of Australia's states of Victoria and New South Wales. Our transport for this trip is a hired motorhome that we picked up from Let’s Go Motorhomes near Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport. 

Our motorhome for our drive around Victoria and New South Wales, Australia

The van is a good size for us, being about the same dimensions as previous vans we’ve owned or rented. But this one was so terribly expensive - we think it’s a post-COVID thing. However, it hasn’t dampened our expectations of a great trip.

Melbourne is Leigh’s home city and we are planning to visit family and friends in various parts of suburban Melbourne, before visiting the State's Great Southern Coast and various historic towns in the south-west. Our route after that, will take us through eastern Victoria and New South Wales up to Port Macquarie. We'll then return the van and fly home to New Zealand from Sydney. All up, we will be on the road for around 2 months. 

City skyline of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Before picking up our motorhome, we checked into a hotel for 2 nights. On day two, we caught a bus then train into Melbourne city. It is such a vibrant place having wonderful architecture, street art, a great coffee and restaurant scene, and with a lively but somewhat muddy river running through it.

We wandered around for ages seeing historic buildings, families enjoying themselves in the many parks alongside the Yarra River, art graffiti, and more.

After several hours, we headed back to our hotel to get ready for a special event that Leigh had planned.

Westlander Marching Team aged 9 and 10 - a successful season

The event was held to catch up with some of the girls from Leigh’s Westlander Marching Team. When she coached them to victory in Australia, they were aged 9 and 10. However, they are now mums and some are grand-mums – it’s been a while!

At the catch-up event, Leigh and the team had a great time, sharing stories and trying to close the gap between Leigh’s departure around 40 years ago, and today. Several of the "girls" have remained friends over the years, and still get together to reminisce.

Some of the Westlanders now - still a great team

Over the next couple of days, we visited other members of the team, and it was all very affirming and wonderful.

Then we were on the road in our motorhome. Our first stop was in Werribee, west of Melbourne, to visit Leigh’s cousin Sue and her husband Richard. We haven’t seen them for many years and it was wonderful to spend some time with them.

We parked in their driveway for the night, then Richard arranged the correct power-point plug so we had power from their house. He also took us shopping for supplies for our trip. That night, Sue cooked us a wonderful meal and we shared many a story of growing up together. After enjoying Sue and Richard’s generosity, we left to drive south-west toward the Great South Coast area of Victoria.

Geelong City, Victoria

Our first stop was in Geelong, the 2nd largest city in Victoria with a population of around 393,000. We found it to be more like a large town rather than city. But the historic buildings, and cultured waterfront areas were beautiful. We paused there for lunch, admiring the changes since Leigh had last visited, so many years ago.

Leaving Geelong, we drove through some pretty Australian countryside, to our next stop which was Camperdown. We stayed there for one very cold night in a local campground. The Camperdown campground is situated between two impressive lakes making for a very cold and windy night.  

Floods near Camperdown, Victoria

Unfortunately, the next day it was still windy and also very wet and there were flood warnings for the area. We passed many flooded fields and roads, but we pressed on still heading south-west.

For our next stop, we drove to see the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape. This is an historic aboriginal site that is the world's earliest living example of aquaculture. It is based on kooyang (eel) farming dating back over 6,000 years. The local Gunditjmara people constructed traps, weirs and ponds to manage the water flows from a nearby lake in order to trap the eels.

Flooded road and building at Budj Bim Cultural Landscape UNESCO site

However, we were destined not to see it. The road into the site was flooded and the centre closed.

The recent high rainfall in parts of south and eastern Australia has caused flooding throughout many areas, and the Budj Bim area was one of those. We drove along flood-damaged roads for hours, hoping that the site was not under water. But it was.

Disappointed but not downhearted, we drove back toward Melbourne via several historic towns and the Great Ocean Road.

Historic building in Port Fairy, Victoria

Our first stop was Port Fairy. This quaint town has many historic buildings and a pretty port. We headed to the port entrance which consisted of a turbulent but impressive body of water, and had our lunch there.

Leaving Port Fairy, we drove to Warrnambool, a coastal city of around 35,000 people. Known for its safe, sheltered beaches, historic buildings, and its parks and gardens, Warrnambool presented an attractive landscape.

Marg at the Bay of Martyrs, Great Ocean Rd, Victoria

From Warrnambool, we drove east along the Great Ocean Road. The Great Ocean Road is a 240-kilometre stretch of road that hugs Bass Strait and the Southern Ocean along the south-eastern coast of Australia. The views were fabulous and we stopped to admire some of the amazing rock formations that make up this dramatic coastline. A favourite was the pretty Bay of Martyrs closely followed by the wild Bay of Islands.

By this time, the day had gone and we needed a break, so we stopped for the night in Peterborough, a tiny and quaint coastal town of 247 people.

Historic buildings in Colac, Victoria

The next morning, we drove through some interesting native bush, to reach Colac with Lake Colac, a well-known lake in Victoria, at its heart. Colac is a town of around 12,500 people. Apart from the lake, Colac is known for its historic centre, and as we drove around we admired the well-maintained and attractive old buildings.

A few hours later, we reached Point Lonsdale on the Bellarine Peninsula, where we stopped at the Point Lonsdale Lighthouse. 

Leigh at Point Lonsdale Lighthouse, Victoria

The lighthouse guards the turbulent waters of “The Rip”, considered to be one of the ten most treacherous navigable passages in the world. The Rip is the dramatic entrance to Port Phillip Bay. The Bay provides shipping access to Melbourne and its ports and is the only seaborne approach to Melbourne. 

Later, we wandered down to the township of Point Lonsdale, finding it to be very quaint with several pretty shops and a vibrant coffee scene. 

The historic long pier at Point Lonsdale, Victoria

Back near where we parked the van, we had our lunch while admiring Point Lonsdale's historic and very long pier. It juts out about 200 metres into Port Phillip Bay, giving great views of The Rip.

After that, we drove around the Bellarine Peninsula for a sightsee, then headed back to cousin Sue’s place in Werribee, for the night.

The next morning, after receiving a beautiful Christmas cake made by Sue according to our family recipe, we moved on to the next part of our trip. We are heading to the opposite side of Port Phillip Bay to the Mornington Peninsula, with no guarantees that the cake won't be eaten before Christmas! But you can read about that in the NEXT BLOG.

This is the first part of a series of blogs about our time in South-eastern Australia