We awoke to another stinking hot day. It was 32 degrees at 8am! As we had camped under no trees, we had to make do with sitting in the shade of Dory for our breakfast. We decided it was too hot and windy to do anything today so we went for a drive in the comfort of Dory and her air conditioning.

When we got back to camp it was still stinking hot so we decided to head for the air-conditioned pub, where we sat and drank coronas. When we left the pub, the cool change had come through and it was about 20 degrees cooler. It was a welcomed relief. There is also a total fire ban so we couldn’t cook our dinner so we had pizza.

We got back to camp where squealing Melbournian weekenders now surrounded us. After a few latecomers setting up camp in the dark and shining torches in our tent, it all went quiet and had a reasonable nights sleep.

I decided I wasn’t going to sleep under the possum’s toilet again, so we packed up and headed further north to Inverloch. We found a quiet camping ground on the foreshore with basic facilities. We felt like we had the place to ourselves, it was lovely.

We carefully placed the tent away from all trees, and put the tarp overtop in case there happened to be any projectile pooing possums here. It was about 40 degrees and damn hot.

I thought we would have a lovely sleep as it is such a quiet spot, but this was not to be. In the night a furnace hot wind picked up and the tarp started flapping with extreme noise. I made Mike get up and help me take it down. The tent was also flapping big time so we put out the guy ropes. Anyway to cut a long night short, I had no sleep again due to flappage all night long.

We spent the morning moving the tent out from under the trees and putting a giant tarp over the top.

We were both very tired due to lack of sleep so just had a quiet day blobbing by the pool.

In the evening I decided to get drunk so I would sleep soundly and not be bothered with possum noises. However this lasted for about 2 hours when I awoke with a splitting headache. And the possum still managed to projectile his poo onto our tarp. At least it was on the tarp and not the tent.

After a leisurely start and breakfast on the South Bank in Melbourne, we headed off to Phillip Island for some penguin spotting.

Our first night in Phillip Island we camped under a possum’s toilet. The night went something like this:

Jo: That possum just pissed on the tent!
5 sec later
Jo: That possum just shat on the tent! Dirty effing animal
This carried on for a few hours until 2.30am
Jo: Its too noisy, I’m gonna sleep in the car
Tent: zip, zip, zip, zip
Dory: click (remote control), door open, door slam
5 sec later
Dory: door open, door slam, click
Tent: zip, zip, zip, zip
Jo: It smells like Melon in there (and crawls back into sleeping bag)
10 minutes of more possum pooing and peeing
Jo: That’s it, I’m not putting up with this any longer, I’m going to sleep in the car and you’re coming with me
Mike: (rolls over and goes back to sleep)
Tent: zip, zip, zip, zip
Dory: click, door open, door slam, door open, door slam
Thump, thump, rustle, rustle
Dory: door open, door slam, door open, door slam
Tent: zip, zip, zip, zip
Jo: Ok, Dory is ready for sleeping in.
Mike: (gathers his sleeping bag and pillow and staggers to the car still asleep)
Tent: zip, zip, zip, zip
Dory: door open, door slam
Jo: should I open a window?
Mike: No, creepy crawlies will get in
Jo: What if the gas bottle leaks
Mike: It won’t leak
Jo: Can you unlock the car? I’m worried the remote control will fail and we’ll be trapped in here.
Mike: whatever
Dory: Click
Mike and Jo: snore

It was delightfully quiet in Dory and we both slept in until 10am.

Insanity took over today and we went for bike ride in the 36-degree heat. We rode along the Yarra River to the Fairfield boathouse where we planned to have some breakfast. We both fancied a bit of fruit salad or something light. This was not to be. It was 36 degrees, we were dripping with sweat, and the only thing on the menu was greasy bacon and eggs. I couldn’t think of anything worse in that heat. And the queue for drinks was way too long. You’d think they would have a healthy option for all the cyclists that stop there.

We went to the shell station and had an egg sandwich and some sports waters.

The 30km round trip along the Yarra is a beautiful as I remember and we both really enjoyed it.

We decided to buy a couple of second hand bikes off the rental company. They were $70 each, but he deducted our rental fare, so it was only $50 each. If we find they get in the way we can just dump them on the side of the road somewhere. But at $70/per day for bike rental, we should get our money back pretty quick.

After the ride, we had a yummy Greek snack. We had dips and bread to start, then shared some marinated lamb on salad and some garlic potatoes, with many whole cloves in them. We need to get our garlic levels back up to stop bitey insects.

In the evening we visited some friends and had a curry and catch up.

As we were parking in the casino, we had a quick gamble where I won $10 (high roller) then off to bed.

We packed up camp as we are moving to a hotel in central Melbourne. We stopped in Lygon Street and had a delicious breakfast. Mike had poached eggs on sour dough, field mushrooms, avocado, feta and lime, and I had a bacon and egg ciabatta with a tomato salsa. It was a delicious breakfast.

In the afternoon we met up with Geoff and Donna. Geoff is a friend from way back and it was really cool to catch up. Plus they spent a year touring aussie, so we got some good advice.

We checked into our hotel at 5pm, where they gave us a discount on parking for $12 until 12 noon the next day. As we entered the car park, we hit the 2.05m yellow height indicator, and both swore. Bugger! All the other car parks in the area are $3 per hour or a maximum on $35 per day. Ouch! Anyway, we decided to try the casino car park, as we knew we fit in there. Turned out to our advantage, as it was only $6 for a 24-hour period. Bargain!

In the evening we had a barbeque down the Yarra River.

Moomba is on in Melbourne so we drove in and found a free park close to all the action. I was surprised how quiet Melbourne is on a moomba long weekend. We watched some of the water skiing, did a stroll around the CBD, had breakfast on the Southbank, showed Mike all the places I used to live, showed Mike all the places I used to work, had chicken makhanwala, went to the casino and lost $130, then back to camp around 9.30pm, drank some wine, then went to bed at 11pm. That’s it, Melbourne sightseeing done!

We were rudely awoken at 7am by screeching cockatoos dive bombing our tent. The sun was still behind the trees and the tent was dewy wet. So much for an early start. It was 9am by the time our tent dried and we could pack it up. We had about 850km to travel to make it to Melbourne.

It was a pretty uneventful day. Mike drove, I read my book, we stopped for fuel, we stopped for food, Mike drove and I read my book, we stopped for fuel etc.

We arrived at the campsite in Melbourne at 8pm and put up the tent in the dark. Lucky we had put it up many times before.

We gladly departed the shit hole that is Moree and carried on our journey towards Melbourne (Still a little unsure as to which route Jane in the sat nav is taking us).

We diverted to the Warrumbungle national park, where we did a short walk to see a view of some rocks. The visitor centre was closed so we plodded on, arriving in Dubbo at 4pm, where we decided to stop for the night.

We put up the tent in the 36-degree heat then plunged in the pool to cool off. We then cooked ourselves a yummy dinner of Steak, new potatoes, garlic zucchini and buttered fried onions. By the time the potatoes boiled on the barbeque, I was well sozzled and staggered off to bed as soon as I’d eaten leaving Mike to do the washing up. Not much different to life at home really.

Sadly we departed our nice apartment in Broadbeach, Surfers Paradise, and started on our journey towards Melbourne. We did a small diversion to Sawn Rocks, just before Narrabri. These were similar rock formations similar to the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland, except the temperature was 30 degrees warmer. We have a picture but we havent downloaded yet.

We got to a shit hole called Moree, just after 7pm and all the camping grounds were shut. So we had no choice but to stay in a grotty but clean motel. There was nothing in town to eat, and the motel chef had gone home, so they sent us up to the golf club as they have a Thai restaurant there. We sat outside and dined on a lovely Thai meal while the mosquitoes dined on us.