18 September 2013 - Sundowner Rockbank Caravan Park, Rockbank, Victoria

This morning we exited Geelong travelling directly west, crawling up away from the Barwon River, joining the ring road that hoops around the western edge of the city, thus avoiding the Princes Highway we had travelled on yesterday as we toured the length of Geelong. We then turned north west onto the Geelong-Bacchus Marsh Road, soon on roads between the Brisbane Ranges and the You Yangs, across green agricultural lands, growing crops, grazing sheep and cattle, providing agistment for horses and country style living for city commuters. After just eighty three kilometres, we arrived here in Rockbank, at this excellent caravan park to the west of Melbourne.

Although this park met our needs perfectly when we stayed here about five weeks early last year, we did consider other alternatives; perhaps one a little closer to the centre of Victoria’s capital. We had also stayed in the Big4 Holiday Park at a park in Coburg, which is within tram route reach and thus very convenient, however the caravan sites are so very tight and the thought of staying more than a few days was not appealing. There is another Big4 at Braybrook which is a really convenient place as well, especially for us who are not fazed about being in Melbourne’s wild west, however they want twice what we are paying here, and even if we were to drive every day in and out of Sunshine to catch the train, it would still not cost us $26.25 we might save.

So here we are, established on exactly the same spot we camped on last time, set up before lunch. We popped up the highway for a newspaper after lunch, then called into the Rockbank Service Centre which was under construction when we were last here. There we discovered we could buy our daily newspaper should we only venture that far in a day, and checked out the quality of their soft serve ice-creams.

Back “home”, we collapsed the awning, the wind gusts worsening, and hunkered down to watch the rain and other caravans arriving. We caught up on the political news, the official swearing in of Australia’s 28^th Prime Minister and his ministers, the conceding of one of the three electorates still undergoing laborious counting. One of the electorates still in contention is that which Chris voted in; I am hoping his is one of many who did not vote for the leading candidate who is simply a buffoon. Mind you, it seems that this new Coalition government will be a very measured affair; we shall miss the antics of the last parliament which provided enormous entertainment. Perhaps Mr Palmer should be allowed to win his seat after all because if he does, Canberra will have its very own jester and the media will have a feast.