12 September 2013 - Warrnambool Holiday Village, Warrnambool, Victoria

Minus 7 degrees! Not here, but apparently overnight in Tasmania. Have we made a bad decision in booking to cross over the Bass Strait at the end of the month? Or will the temperatures rise considerably during the next two and a half weeks? I guess there is no point in worrying about it all, and we will simply take it all in our stride as one must when on the road permanently.

Our host, Hilda

We spent the morning catching up with our friend Hilda, met over five years ago on my Trafalgar Tour through part of Europe with my mother and sisters. About eighteen months have passed since we spent time in her company so it was a very busy yakkaty-yak catching up on all that had happened in the interim, over fresh scones drowned in jam and whipped cream. It was a truly delightful visit albeit brief, and we parted promising to keep in touch and try to catch up in person sometime soon.

Needless to say lunch back in the caravan was minimal after such a feast. Chris took the landcruiser off to the tyre people while I prepared dinner and buried my head in the newspaper.

On his return, he offered both good and bad news; the bad, that we needed a wheel alignment, and the good, that the tyres had all been rotated as instructed. With this, we set off down to the foreshore. We parked adjacent to the Yacht Club at Breakwater Point and walked across the mouth of the Merri River on the footbridge, looked out over Middle Island hoping to catch sight of the Maremma dogs who guard the little penguins and other avian inhabitants of the protected island. The canine rangers were lying low, or at least out of sight, so we pressed on along the fragile cliff edge overlooking the Merri Marine Sanctuary, as far as Thunder Point, just as we had on our last trip to Warrnambool.

Today the tide was much further in than it had been then, because we remembered dozens of folk down on the sandy beach and dabbling in the water, particularly at Stingray Bay. Perhaps it was a weekend when we wandered along this lovely shore? That would account for the fact that today was much quieter, and so much more enjoyable. After this burst of brisk exercise in the equally brisk temperature and accompanying wind, we returned to the shelter of our camp and checked out facets of our trip ahead. We will be off again in the morning.