Homeless in Albury

After spending the Australia day weekend with the 4WD club we decided to stay around the south east (Robe) and enjoy the weather and beaches.  What was going to be one week turned into two weeks.  Sometimes you just have to tough it out!!

Long Beach Robe

This was the start to a bit of a fitness program, after the normal Christmas and New Year celebrations it was time to start exercising again and no better way to start than with some long walks on the white sandy beaches of Robe.

Plenty of beaches to walk along

It was an effort to make a move away from the SE but we had a commitment mid February in Melbourne to drop the caravan off at New Age for some warrantee work to be completed.

As we had spent an additional week in the South East we basically made a direct route to Benalla which is about halfway between Melbourne and Albury where we would be staying with Briony while the van was having work done.

Camp ground at Rupanyup

We travelled via Horsham, Bendigo and Shepparton. After leaving Robe our first overnight stop was at a small country Victorian town of Rupanyup, a great camp in the Rupanyup Memorial Park with great facilities for an over night stop at $10 per night incl power. As we needed to keep moving didn't get to see Woods' Farming and Heritage Museum, a collection of stationary engines, tractors, tools and farm and household memorabilia - I've put this on the "will be back to see" list as from all reports is an amazing collection.  From here we travelled through Bendigo and decided to stay at Green Lake about 20km east of Elmore.  We read on Wikicamps that it can be busy at times with local boating but when we arrived was quiet with about 10 other campers spread over a large area around the lake.  As it was one of those 40 deg days the water was too inviting so naturally couldn't help myself and had to have a couple of quick dips. Around mid afternoon a power boat arrived and was pleasant to watch some water skiing.  Being a warm day it seemed that half of Shepparton (about 60km to the west) had hooked the boat on after work and were now on Green Lake taking advantage of the water to cool off ....... so much for the serenity!!!  On sunset the wind had picked up and they all must have gone home to the air conditioning.

Green Lake

We made Benalla the following night & stayed for 3 nights.  Taking Briony's boxes of treasure to Albury one day then back to Benalla in readiness to take the caravan to New Age at Epping on Monday morning.  Sunday we decided to headed closer to Epping and stayed in Kilmore for an early start on Monday. luckily the bushfires were contained but the strong smell of smoke lingered over the township. Dropped the van at New Age Epping with a list of items to be looked at before driving to Albury to spend the next couple of weeks with Briony in her unit while the van was being fixed.

This was going to be a relaxing time spending the days drinking coffee and seeing the sights and spending quality time with Briony when she wasn't at work.  Well ...... the first couple of days we just settled in and then Briony came home and informed us her plans to go to Canada had started to take effect and she had to be out of her unit in 3 weeks, this meant us as well, and that her ticket to Canada had been booked for April. So this has meant our quiet time has become busy, busy, busy with helping sell her furniture etc another garage sale and markets to sell more stuff!!.

All ready for the garage sale

After 2 weeks of selling and cleaning we shut the door on Briony's unit with only hours to spare between her moving out and us picking up the caravan from New Age, in fact if the van was a day later we would have been out on the street.

On the way back to Albury we stayed over night in a free camp on the highway before getting back to Albury were we will stay for a week to sort out the last remaining items from Briony's unit and settle back into the van.  Oh, it's so nice to have our home back again.

At last back in our home in Albury

We have been busy over the last 5 or so weeks so now looking forward to getting out camping again - hope to find some nice quiet spots along the Murray River, might even throw the line in!!