So here we are...

We have finally made it! After 9 months of planning we are on the road.

First stop – Loch, a beautiful little village (yes, we really do have villages in Australia, much to my surprise), in South Gippsland.  We are actually only about one and a half hours from home. We decided not to go too far from home, because why not explore our own backyard before we venture off interstate? 

I am so glad we stopped here. I never knew a place this pretty existed so close to home. We are in dairy country so we are surrounded by beautiful green rolling hills, most of which are scattered with black and white dairy cows. 

We stopped at the Loch Memorial Reserve, which also doubles as the local cricket and tennis clubs. Along with the beautifully manicured cricket oval and the tennis courts, it has a great playground, a suspension bridge and a really nice bbq area. We pulled up on the opposite side of the oval to the clubrooms, got out of the car and said “we hope they don’t mind us camping right here. This is just perfect!” We overlooked the oval and playground on one side, a small river and green hills on the other, and between two gorgeous big Oak trees.

We walked over to the playground to have a look around saw a sign “Camping $10 per night. If you need power ring this number...”  I got out my phone and rang the number just as a man walked up and started chatting to Dan. Turned out he was the man I was trying to phone. 

He told us it was $15 per night if we wanted power and he would give us a key to the clubrooms so we could have a hot shower. He also told us we could stay for a week and we could stay exactly where we were. That made me very happy because we had definitely chosen the best place to set up camp.

 

Even though we have been living in the caravan for nearly 5 months, the one thing Dan and I haven’t got the hang of is levelling the van. We pulled up thinking the ground was fairly level, but over an hour later, and with the van still not level, we gave up and went to the pub for dinner.

Later that night after the kids were in bed, Dan and I stood outside and he said to me “we did it babe!” It was a very surreal feeling. We have worked really hard to get here but it still hadn’t really felt real. It hit me then that this was our life for as long as we choose it to be. It was a great feeling!

We plan on staying here for a week while the kids settle into a routine with their schoolwork and Dan irons out the creases with work. That may change depending on the weather, how much we like it and our mood! That is what I love most about this trip. We have the freedom to choose where we go and how long we stay for. It is all up to us!!