One last fling in the van?
I’ve been trying to find another job closer to home, so that I can
hopefully return to school - if that happens, we’ll likely put the van
up for sale, since I’m not really rich enough to keep a campervan around
just for weekend trips. With that in mind, we decided we’d probably
better get a good trip out of it before I get a job that cramps our
timetable, so we set off for South Gippsland to take a look around. We
swung through Bass, but I figured that looking for my great
grandfather’s original farm on Soldiers Road was probably an activity
more suited to doing with Dad, than with Sabriena and Duncan, so we
basically just hoofed it down to Phillip Island to start with.
It’s amazing how much has changed on and around the island since I lived here almost (or over?) two decades ago. For starters, we almost crashed into San Remo because the huge roundabout is completely gone in favor of multiple sweeping exits to get non-Island traffic away from what I presume is targeted Grand Prix rush-hour traffic. What used to be the “mini mart” in Cowes is now an IGA, and they no longer have “extortionate” prices for non-locals… buying a few things for a sweet treat tonight was not prohibitively expensive. Fuel isn’t terrible either, really.
We’re
all very tired - it’s clear that two months of not working is taking
it’s toll on our ability to sit behind the wheel for long stretches -
but we decided to head out to the
Nobbies for a look (the
boardwalks and such are still free, for what that’s worth). We walked
around, saw some penguins in their nest boxes, but unfortunately there
weren’t any seals close enough for us to see them in person.
Once we left, we followed a tour bus around the gravel track along to the east, before heading back to camp for the night. We saw quite a few extremely friendly Wallabies, and a hawk stalking rodents over the cliff tops.
Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.