16 September 2013 - Riverglen Holiday Park, Geelong, Victoria

Gutted is not a word normally part of my vocabulary, except in the context of fish preparation, but it seemed to be the most appropriate word for my feelings last night. I discovered I had mislaid one of my very beautiful knotted gold earrings, one of a pair given to me by my parents for my 50^th birthday. In fairness they have done me well over the intervening years, however such items should last a lifetime and a few to follow. I can only guess that it fell off when I was removing my jersey on the Old Beechy Trail yesterday, so someone cycling or walking the track will score a single earring. It is apparently fashionable for some to wear a single earring, but alas not for this conservative. I am still despondent twenty four hours later.

I was intercepted this morning on the way to the amenities by the Chook Lady who relayed severe storm warnings for our road ahead, and when Ms Manager came with a welcome gift of lemons, she warned us of the roadworks and strong winds we would face as we headed further east.

Fortunately the wind was not a problem to us, however as I commented yesterday, we did not have far to travel. At the rather tired looking township of Winchelsea, situated on the Barwon River, we picked up a newspaper from the Post Office, which doubles as the newsagency. Winchelsea, today with a population of about 3,300, was first settled by Europeans in 1837 by squatters from Tasmania establishing grazing runs. All about and running south as far as the Otways,  is lovely farmland, less manicured than some of the dairy units seen over the past few weeks, but no less fertile and productive, here beef rather than dairy.

It was here we encountered the first of massive road works, the construction of a four lane freeway running through to Waurn Ponds on the western side of Geelong. There was little disruption, especially to us who always travel below the speed limit, at least when towing, but it did tend to distract from the surrounding landscape.

Arriving at Geelong, truly one of Australia’s largest cities with over 179,000 people, we headed for the Lotus dealer, Gateway Caravans. There they were very busy dealing with people arriving to collect their new caravans, Lotus and other brands; it took some time to pin down a fixit-man to come and look at our tree-hole. This little tree-hole has now been shown to many repair people, and often spoken of here in this blog, but no one seems too excited about undertaking the work. The repair is a massive job, for such a tiny fix, and then as the man said today, we may well go and ding another hole somewhere else and have to do it all over again. He suggested a simple solution, similar to one offered from another expert a few weeks ago, and I think that is indeed what will be done. Dealing with insurance and the thought of being without our home for a day or three is all too hard.

We spent about five minutes deciding where to head after that; the reason for our return to Geelong was all about the Lotus dealer and this had now been dealt with. There was no real need to stay longer, it was still before midday and we could just as easily travel through to Melbourne.

However we decided that perhaps the five days spent here back in January 2012 had not been sufficient to explore Geelong adequately; we would stay after all. We made our way to this caravan park beside the Barwon River, well-downstream from Winchelsea, the same stayed in before, but this time not crammed full of holiday makers and to us, far more appealing.

Since setting up, we have called up to the local shopping centre for a few fresh provisions but otherwise holed up out of the rain. The storm warnings are still out, as is our awning. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.