What’s that smell?....... Poowong

“Why travel only 7km up the hill from Loch to a small town named Poowong?” you may be asking. The reason we went to Poowong is because our two older boys, Sam and Will thought the name was one of the funniest they had ever heard. I overheard the two of them discussing exactly why they thought a town would be called Poowong. They concluded that it must be because of all the cows. “That many cows would make any place smell like poo” they giggled. We also wanted to experience bush camping before we headed to the coast.

The Bass Valley Campground is what I would call true ‘bush camping’. (However I may change my mind on that after I have been to some of the remote bush camps outback – I will let you know).  Unlike its name implies Poowong is a lovely place (and doesn’t smell ‘like cow poo’ at all). It reminds me of my cousin’s block of land just out of Mansfield. Massive gum trees, patches of really green grass and patches of dusty dry land all covered in fallen sticks and stringy bark. It is a very pretty place with the Bass Valley River creating a big horse shoe shaped clearing. The river continues to wind its way either side of the campground along the road.

 

We arrived at Poowong at about 5pm. There was one other couple in their motor home. They were only stopping for the night before heading for Tasmania. Unlike the powered site at Loch, this week we are reliant on solar power, so we had to give a lot of thought to our location.  There was a beautiful big clearing which would get plenty of sunlight. But it was right where our Tasmanian-bound fellow campers had parked. We decided to stop close by and “steal” their position once they left in the morning.

It only took us just over an hour to set up this time. We are getting quicker and quicker every time. Before we know it we will be setting up with our eyes closed!

The following morning we were woken up by lots of cars pulling into the campground. We went outside and found a large walking group who meet at various places every Monday morning. We said our good mornings, then got stuck into breakfast and the boys schoolwork.  Dan took a coffee break mid-morning and we jumped on the opportunity to say goodbye to our neighbours (and of course, steal their camp spot).

There was some very confused looks on the walking group members faces when they arrived back and realised we were set up exactly the same only about 15 metres away in a different position.

There were some ups and downs during our stay at Poowong.

There were some ups....

The boys had a fantastic time climbing down to the river and clambering over all the fallen trees.

We visited Coal Creek, a replica of an old Coal Mining Town. The boys were fascinated by the old machines and how they made things in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. They loved buying rock sweets from the general store, visiting the old school room and playing chess on the giant game board.

We met some wonderful people. One in particular was a man named Ken. He looked a bit like Santa with his long white beard. Ken has been travelling round Australia for over 9 years! He had so much knowledge of travelling and was more than willing to share it with us. He spent a long time telling us of his adventures and we loved listening to him. After Ken left the campground Will said to me “mummy, he was one of the nicest people I have ever met!” I couldn’t have agreed more.

And there were some downs.....

The weather was not kind to us this week. It was cold, wet and very windy. I spent many hours laying in bed at night wondering if a) the caravan roof was going to start leaking again, and b) the trees surrounding us were going to fall on us in our sleep. Thankfully neither of those happened and we survived the bad weather.

Whilst driving around we realised that there was something wrong with our gearbox or clutch. Whenever we put the engine under a bit of pressure, it was slipping out of gear.

After a bit of online research and a few phone calls home to our ‘friendly mechanic’, we realised that we needed a new clutch and flywheel.

We spoke to Tonia’s dad and he recommended a good mechanic in Korumburra. He gave us a good price but told us he couldn’t fix it until next week. We decided we may as well stay here and get the car fixed rather than risk doing more damage.

As nice as Poowong is, there is not really a lot for the kids to do. It has been wonderful staying here for the week, but we didn’t really want to stay for another week (especially if we were stranded without a car).  So we are going to take the risk and move the caravan back to the Loch Memorial Reserve and spend another week there.

It feels strange to be entering our third week away and still only be 100km from Melbourne. But it could be worse.... we could have broken down in the middle of the outback somewhere and have an enormous bill to get the car repaired.

Our boys are happy to be going back to Loch. They can’t wait to go back to the skate park, play on the playground and the cricket oval. But most of all, Will is really excited because it’s his 7^th birthday on Saturday and this means we can now go to the Loch pub for his birthday dinner!