Losing weight is never easy!

We stayed at mum and dads for a few days to try to sort out our weight issue. After doing serious damage to the clutch of our new car, we recently had the caravan weighed and it was over a tonne over weight!

We unpacked EVERYTHING out of the van and filled up mum and dad’s garage. We then took the caravan to the weigh bridge to get it weighed. It was a lot heavier than the manufacturer had stamped on the compliance plate. So we made a phone call to the manufacturers and they offered to re-stamp the plate.

We still had a big clean out of the van, because even with the new weight allowance, we were still carrying too much. We left behind a lot of things that would be missed, but we needed to make sure that the van was not only at a safe weight, but that we wouldn’t do more damage to the car.

Once we re-packed the car and caravan we got them weighed again. We had successfully lost over 500kg of weight!!! If only it was that easy to lose the extra weight I am carrying around my middle!!

We made our way east to the Gippsland region. Our friends were getting married at Nyora on the weekend and we decided to head down that way a bit earlier and re-visit Loch. We began our trip last year and our first stop was the Memorial Reserve at Loch Village. We have some wonderful memories of Loch and wanted to begin our trip there again this year.

 

The people of Loch had made us feel so welcome when we were there last year and we were really happy to discover that they remembered us and were really keen to hear all about our adventures so far.

 

 

We left Loch and took the 15km drive along the South Gippsland Hwy to the Bells Park Scout Camp. Nicole and Sean had hired out the scout camp for the weekend and invited friends and family to camp there and help them celebrate their marriage.

I met Nic through my mother’s group when Sam was born. I am still really close to most of the mums from the group and up until we left on this trip, we still met up every week for a cuppa and to let the kids play.

Dan had already known Sean when they used to work together and we have all become very close to the other dads in the group.

The Bride getting ready

Two beautiful Flower Girls

The groom and his best man getting the gorgeous pageboy ready

Here comes the bride!

A good opportunity for a family photo - it's not often we get dressed up these days!

It was fantastic to get the chance to go camping with all our friends from Mum’s group. We had a great weekend, catching up, having a few drinks, letting the kids all play together and of course witnessing Nic and Sean tie the knot!

My mum's group - still great friends nearly 10 years later!

I spent a lot of the weekend talking to Tonia and Cameron about our trip. They have just bought a caravan and are starting their own trip around Australia later in the year. They have tenants moving into their house next week and are very excited about their upcoming adventure.

The Grampians

For the first time, we travelled with the Fiedler family from Colac to Wannon Falls. It is great fun travelling with another family. We spent the whole trip talking to each other on the CB radio.

The Fiedlers following us.

We arrived at Wannon Falls to discover that they have changed the campground rules so that you can only stay overnight. We had planned on staying there for a few days so it messed up our plans a bit.

Wannon falls is a nice little campground. There are drop-loos, lots of space and a nice shelter with fire pits and a camp oven.  Julie got very excited when she saw the camp oven. She is very good at baking and we all love her home-made goodies.

After setting up, the kids got their bikes out and had a play. We all helped Molly ride her bike without training wheels for the first time and had a big celebration when she did it all by herself!

Rasmus and the kids collected firewood and after dinner we toasted marshmallows over the campfire. Before going to bed, Rasmus put the coals from the fire pit into the camp oven so it would be ready to bake bread in the next morning.

While the kids were doing schoolwork, we were all surrounded by the delicious rustic smell of homemade bread baking in the oven. We all stuffed ourselves on tea and hot bread for morning tea, then went to the water hole to cool down. After a swim in the water we packed up and headed to Cherrypool.

Cherrypool is located at the back of the Grampians, and the campground is not far from the Henty Hwy and next to the Rocklands River.

We set up our caravans so that they faced each other and we were able to pull out our awnings so they made a big covered area. We put up our fence from the ends of each van so we had a big secured, covered area for the kids to play safely in the shade.

It was really hot while we were at Cherrypool, so we didn’t do a lot. We spent a lot of time trying to keep cool, which was difficult with limited water and no power.

Sam and Ben discovered how easy it was to catch carp in the river so spent quite a lot of time practising their fishing techniques.

We spent an afternoon driving around the area and found some caves with old Aboriginal paintings in them.

After being at the hot, dusty campground for a few days, we decided to head into Horsham and find the local pools. It was wonderful to spend the afternoon swimming and to be able to have a nice cool shower and wash my hair!

From Cherrypool, we headed around the Grampians towards Halls Gap. We spent the night at a rest stop at Dadswell Bridge, and then went to a caravan park in Halls Gap.

We were greeted by an Emu when we pulled up and he followed us to our site. Marvel wasn’t too keen on the friendly emu but the emu wasn’t bothered by Marvel. That was until one day when Marvel got off his lead and decided that he had had enough of the emu drinking from his water bowl.  Marvel was quick, but the emu was quicker! I had to check Marvel’s mouth to make sure he didn’t have any tail feathers in it, but the emu managed to get away without harm.  He was back again the next day to continue teasing Marv though!

It was Will’s 8^th birthday while we were at Halls Gap, so Dan’s parents came up to spend the weekend with us.  Before they got there, we spent a day at the Halls Gap Zoo. For Kasper and Will's birthdays we paid extra for them to go into the Meerkat enclosure at feeding time.

The Zoo is small but full of interesting animals , most of which you can feed and pat.

When Dan's parents arrived, we did a bit of sightseeing and walked up the Grand Canyon which was great fun. Will decided that he wanted to give me a heart attack and not stay to any of the paths. He chose the harder route over the rocks and had so much fun clambering up the side of the cliffs. I put my foot down when we got higher and made him stick to the path. He still managed to find a few caves and crevasses to climb through on the way.

We celebrated Will’s birthday by throwing him a party. We had 6 very excited kids, party games and lots of junk food – all the ingredients for a successful birthday party.  We spent the afternoon of Will’s birthday in the swimming pool, and then walked to the pub for dinner.

Almost as soon as the party celebrations were over, the heavens opened and showered us with a huge downpour.





We said goodbye to the Fiedler family and they continued their journey west. We decided to stay for an extra few days in Halls Gap. It had been really hot for most of the time we had been there and I didn’t feel like we had seen everything I wanted to see.

We spent a couple of days relaxing and then took a drive over the Grampians to McKenzie Falls and Wartook Reservoir.

We are now heading back home to crash at mum and dad’s to spend some time sorting through the caravan. We are still very overweight and have to get rid of some more of our stuff to try to ease the weight on the car.